Anaphia
With it understood that Sam's medical issues take a back seat to the Apocalypse, they get back to work. They don't mention it, except when Dean (being Dean) tries to take advantage of Sam's anosmia to make him do more of the dirty work. Sam's spent too many days trying not to lose his lunch over a corpse to really argue. Besides, there are plenty of annoying, non-smelly tasks required by their lives, and he's still perfectly capable of reminding his brother just who got stuck rummaging through a fridge full of jars marked "stomach contents" at the morgue in Cheyenne when Dean tries to wriggle out of laundry duty.
Some weeks, those arguments, silly and childish as they are, are the closest that Sam gets to relaxing, the only time he feels really human. He wonders, sometimes, when they've gotten things settled (and Dean's finally doing the damn laundry, it's detergent, not cyanide, for fuck's sake), if Dean's doing it intentionally to distract him, rather than just out of big brother habit—if this is some bizarre way of taking care of him, as so much of Dean's life has been. Dean's not as easy to read as he used to be, so Sam can't be sure.
Food remains problematic, because while the rational part of his brain knows what's going on and is resigned to it, the less-evolved part doesn't understand where all the taste went. Then the cravings hit, his body screaming for anything that has some flavor, almost as bad as when he started detoxing from the demon blood. But it's just psychological, not physical; much as he might want to taste that steak, his body doesn't care if he actually does so long as it gets the protein, and it doesn't start shutting down on him.
The only thing he can do is try to re-train himself, feed his body what it wants and hope his brain eventually makes the connection, realizes that all those wonderful tastes are just memories now. Firm-textured foods are best, since they require chewing and that at least tells his subconscious that he actually is eating. Meat's good. So are a lot of fruits. Bread and pasta are iffy; a lot depends on the specific variety and how it's cooked.
Peeling an orange isn't quite worth the hassle when you don't get to taste it in the end, though, and by "hassle" he is not (necessarily) referring to Dean's lecture about orange peels in the Impala.
Meanwhile, the book they rescued from the vamp/werewolf alliance, as best Bobby can translate it, suggests that the Horsemen's rings are the key to defeating Lucifer, although it gives odds that are hellaciously slim. So they, along with Ellen and Jo, Rufus, and a couple of other hunters Bobby trusts not to take the Apocalypse out on Sam's ass, have been reduced to chasing rumors about Death, Famine, and Pestilence, filling the days between with whatever jobs they stumble across. There are prophecies, scattered here and there throughout history, but they're even less helpful than the overwrought metaphors of the King James version of Revelation. Not even Cas pretends to understand all of them.
The book isn't as specific as they need it to be. Nobody knows, not for sure, that there's not a certain order or ritual that Lucifer has to follow to wake the Horsemen. There's even the possibility that the Horsemen will rise of their own now that Lucifer's free, without any help or interference from him. Nobody knows, and that makes the job about ten times harder, because there's no telling if a job is a normal monster or some harbinger of a rising Horseman. Not when something as simple—and counterintuitive—as an increase in the local birth rate could indicate the presence of Death.
Finally, by sheer chance during an otherwise routine exorcism, Ellen and Jo pick up a rumor about Famine. Dean bullies them off the job with the justification that he's keeping them safe, that it's too dangerous for them to help trap a Horseman after what happened with War.
In a way, that's good, because when it turns out that the trap is for them, Ellen and Jo aren't there for Zachariah to use as hostages.
Damn angel's getting smart. He comes prepared for the angel-banishing sigils, but he hasn't figured Winchesters out yet, not completely, or he would have blocked the window that they have to jump through if they're going to have any chance of escaping. Dean doesn't quite stick the landing and twists his right ankle, nothing major, just enough that Sam has to drive back to the motel. They hadn't been planning on leaving just yet; there was a ritual they wanted to try with Famine's ring that might show them where Death or Pestilence was going to pop up, so all their gear is still there.
Sam's a little light-headed on the drive back, the world wavering at the edges of his vision, but he puts it down to adrenaline and half-quashed panic and focuses on driving. By the time they get into the room, Dean's only limping a little, and then the world spins and goes gray.
He wakes up to Dean slapping him and shouting "Sammy!"
He's lying on one of the beds. He wasn't here before. He's still light-headed and a little fuzzy. "What happened?"
"You passed out."
Dean's hands are bloody and his voice is worried, and together those are never good. "Why—" There's suddenly a knife in Dean's hand and the sound of fabric tearing, followed by cold air on Sam's leg.
"Dean!" He pushes himself up. Well, he tries. Dean plants a bloody hand in the center of his chest and shoves him back down. "What the—"
"You damn near cut your leg off is what." Finished ruining Sam's only remaining decent pair of jeans, Dean sets the knife aside and picks up the bottle of rubbing alcohol that lives in the first-aid kit. "I wasn't hurt that bad, Sam, why did you insist on driving like this?"
"Like what?"
He pushes himself up again, propping himself up on his elbows, ignoring Dean's outraged "Sammy!"
There's a deep gash in his calf, at least six inches long. He must have hit that window harder than he thought; worn as it was, the denim of his jeans should have offered some protection.
Dean's got half the towels piled up on either side of Sam's leg. "Your jeans were stuck to it. I think that slowed the bleeding down some, or you would've passed out on the road." Dean leans on Sam's ankle with one hand and pours the alcohol straight on with the other. "And if you got fucking blood all over my car, so help me—"
That trails off into the usual threats, like Sam's never had to scrub down the Impala before, so Sam just watches Dean clean the wound—and then he realizes what's wrong with this picture. Not feeling the initial injury might be chalked up to adrenaline, but now? He should be screaming. There's a reason Dean's holding his ankle down, it's so he doesn't get kicked. But Dean might as well be pouring water on the gash. No, water would sting too, just not as bad.
"Sam?" Dean asks, pressing a clean towel against the cut.
"I can't feel it," Sam says slowly, trying to work through this. "I mean, I can feel the towel and I felt the alcohol, but it doesn't hurt."
Dean stares at him for a minute. "I guess you're not going to argue when I say you've lost too much blood to take drugs, then." Sam only shakes his head. "This is going to need stitches. You want me—"
"Fix it now. This— It could wear off."
Somehow, though, he knows it won't.
Dean puts in sixteen stitches—even and neat, the way his stitches always are. Sam sits there and watches in horrified fascination. He's had stitches before, he knows the routine, he knows how much it fucking hurts, and these don't. Not at all. He can feel the needle in his flesh, feel the thread sliding through, which is a thousand kinds of unnerving, but it doesn't hurt, and that makes no fucking sense.
Dean finishes with another splash of alcohol right onto the wound, and Sam doesn't feel that either, just the liquid running over his skin. "Can you stay put until it dries and I can bandage it?"
"Can we take that long?"
"Got plenty of blood here to draw some more angel-proofing," Dean says dryly, indicating the pile of bloody towels with a jerk of his head.
"Then I can manage." He just has to remember that he's injured, since there's no pain to warn him. He reaches out to touch his leg, just to verify for himself that he's not actually hallucinating. There are some minor cuts and scrapes on his hands. They don't hurt either. "You need—"
"I'm fine. The ankle was the worst of it, and it's just a little sore. I just need an Ace wrap and I'll lace my shoe tighter tomorrow." Dean dabs at the cuts on Sam's hands, pushes up his sleeve to check for others. "And you don't feel any of these?" Sam shakes his head. "Maybe—"
"What?"
"Nothing. Where'd you get this bruise?"
"What bruise? I don't—" The words die in his throat as he sees the bruise Dean's talking about, on the outer side of his forearm. It's huge, and was probably actually black at one point, but now it's faded to patchy red-purple with yellow undertones.
"You didn't feel that?" Dean presses his fingers into it. There's a little pain, but it's deep, almost against the bone.
"No," Sam admits. "Maybe in that last fight." That had been—um—the haunted house in Taos a week ago. Come to think of it, he'd recovered from that job pretty quickly. He'd been ready to go the next morning, whereas Dean had just groaned and thrown a pillow at him and choked down four Tylenol with his breakfast whiskey and made them stay another day. Sam had thought it was just because Dean had taken the brunt—ghosts just love throwing Dean into walls, just like supernatural entities have a thing for strangling Sam.
But he'd gotten slammed into a wall too, twice, and years of experience tell him that he should not have been so spry the next day. Fights like that always take at least three days for full recovery, if they're lucky and don't get calls telling them to get to Bobby's ASAP because somebody caught a rumor of a Horseman.
"Maybe," Dean says, completely unconvinced.
Bruises are mild, even a bruise as ugly as that one, but with the other weirdness affecting his senses, maybe Dean's right to be worried. After all, Sam just watched his own skin be sewn up without anesthetic and didn't even—
Skin.
It hits him, and the realization comes out in laughter. It's crazed, hysterical laughter, and it makes something deep in his gut hurt—maybe where he got punched, or pulled a muscle in that leap out the window—and all he can do is roll over onto his side and curl up and laugh harder, and he doesn't think anything is ever going to make him stop laughing, not after all this, because it's that or sink into pure despair and weep until he dies of dehydration.
"Sam?" Dean grabs his shoulders and gives him a rough shake. "Sammy! Snap out of it!"
Sam can't. He's trying, now, but he can't. No more than he can feel the pain of those stitches. Or the sting when Dean slaps him.
"We forgot," he finally wheezes.
Dean just stares at him, waiting for those last few giggles to work their way out. "What did we forget?" he asks finally. Gently, like Sam might break. He could be right.
"We were so worried about me going blind or deaf—" A last bubble of hysteria chokes off his explanation.
But Dean, always smarter than he lets on, puts it together anyway. "Son of a bitch," he says in disgust, and whirls around and punches the wall.
There are five senses.
Life without pain is one of those things that's much better imagined than experienced.
First off, he's not completely pain-free. He still has deep pain, in the bones and muscles. His legs still cramp up if he spends too long sitting in the car, and when, in a fit of depression over this entire mess, he goes on a drinking binge, he wakes up the next morning with a head that feels like it's ready to explode. It's only the pain receptors in his skin that have gone dead. Sure, it's a little bit of an advantage in a fight—except that ignoring a little pain now sometimes means much more pain later, and a good gut-punch or kick to the crotch can still take him down. Dean's never been much for letting him drive, but now he insists on double-checking to make sure Sam's not bleeding before he's allowed behind the wheel, and he's not even pretending that the concern is (entirely) for the car.
Second, Sam's never realized just how many little pains there are in his life. Paper cuts from the heavy stock of old books, from handling files and folders, from making copies. Minor burns from lighters and matches and too-hot coffee. Injuries from fights. The increasingly rare playful, between-brothers smack or punch.
There's a sudden dullness to life that he wasn't expecting at all. It's almost like he's relied on the pain to remind him that he's alive.
During downtime, before bed or while sitting in the Impala, he carefully examines his fingers and hands to make sure everything's healing right, that hangnails and knuckle-scrapes aren't breeding infection, that he hasn't accidentally split a nail to the base and not noticed. After fights, as soon as the opportunity arises, Dean insists on checking Sam over for fractures and bleeding. No more quick showers, either; that's his only real chance for a full-body inspection, just to be on the safe side, just in case something got by Dean's eagle eyes. At least Dean's not insisting on doing those himself. Sam has limits, even if Dean doesn't.
But as senses go, this is really not that much more annoying than the anosmia. Nobody wants pain, anyway, and it's not like he doesn't have Dean to tell him if he's bleeding. Or limping. Or bruised. Or breathing funny.
Somebody really needs to explain boundaries to his brother, but damned if it's going to be him.
A couple of days after he scrapes the stitches out of his leg, just when he thinks he's getting a grip on this whole living-without-pain thing, he comes out of the bathroom shirtless, because he thought there was a tee bundled in with his sweatpants and there wasn't, and he's greeted by a scandalized "Sammy!"
He frowns at Dean. "Dude, it's not like I came out here naked." They have rules. Not a lot and not very strict, not after a lifetime in each other's pockets, but they have rules, and he hasn't violated one of them. And he's not injured—he just finished his becoming-usual thorough inspection before he got into the shower. That gash on his leg is going to leave one ugly scar.
Dean doesn't answer the remark. "What happened?" he demands instead, his voice rough. "What the ever-loving fuck did you do?"
"Um. Bathed?"
Dean gives him that special quit being a smartass, that's my job look that he's perfected over the years, and says patiently, like Sam's four again, "You're burned."
It's such a weird thing to hear that all Sam can respond with is "I am not."
Dean grabs his arm—being very careful about where he puts his fingers—and drags him in front of the mirror. "Say that again."
There are raw-looking patches of red all down his chest and arms. "But—I don't—"
"I told you the water heater ran hot, Sam, why didn't— Son of a bitch! Your back is a mess! You've got fucking blisters coming up!"
"But—" This doesn't make sense. Not that it doesn't hurt, that he expects, but the water hadn't been hot. The water hadn't even been warm. Sure, he'd heard Dean's warning, but he'd assumed Dean had just used up all the hot water, the way he always does when he gets the first shower, and he'd just been glad it wasn't icy. It's a hazard of living out of these crappy places; the only time they can both reliably get hot showers is when they're at Bobby's.
"You better check your legs," Dean adds.
"The water wasn't hot," Sam says, and he's not sure if it's stubbornness or just denial. "There wasn't any hot water left."
Dean gives the burns on Sam's chest a significant look, then turns on the hot water at the sink. Steam boils up almost immediately, fogging the mirror.
Steam. There had been steam. Why hadn't he noticed that? Steam and a lukewarm shower? That doesn't make any sense. He should have known something was wrong from that—
Dean, figuring he's made his point, twists the faucet to off. "Don't sit down," he orders when Sam starts for the bed. "Just— Just strip and let's make sure you didn't blister anything important."
Anything imp—
Interesting. He can't feel pain, but he can feel the blood drain out of his face.
For once in his life, luck is with him. He hit a water temperature that only did damage with sustained, direct contact from the spray but otherwise cooled quickly enough to spare him serious scalds. Tonight, of all nights, he opted to not wash his hair, which spared him head and facial burns. Only his back is actually blistering; most of the rest of the burns are on his arms and legs and chest. The skin is angry red and already tight, like a bad sunburn. He picked up the habit of keeping his back in the spray a long time ago, after pulling a muscle at school and not being able to afford any other kind of therapy. That's why he's blistered on his back, but it's also what saved him from second-degree burns everywhere else.
Everywhere.
Half an hour later, Dean has soaked every spare towel and the top sheet from Sam's bed in cool water, wrapped Sam up in them, and put him to bed on his stomach, so he won't pop the still-forming blisters and open himself up to infection. There will be bandages and burn ointment tomorrow, unless by some miracle they can get Cas to show up and he can spare the mojo to heal him.
Sam's had scalds before, just not this extensive, and he knows that cool on burnt skin feels cold. All he feels, though, is wet. He doesn't even feel the heat that has to be radiating from the burns. "Bring me my laptop—"
"You're not feeling temperature now," Dean says flatly, "there's nothing to look up."
He's right. He's exactly right. Research is for when you don't know what's going on. The Internet couldn't explain why his ability to sense pain suddenly vanished; it's not going to have anything to say on losing his ability to sense temperature overnight, either. There are people who have this problem, but most of them were born with it. Getting stuck with it as an adult usually requires a massive neurological injury. Which he doesn't have. He hasn't even taken a solid hit to the head in weeks. There's nothing, absolutely nothing, that accounts for this. Not even in his freakish life.
First pain, and now temperature. Next...
Sam is suddenly keenly aware of the wet fabric clinging to his skin, the slightly-damp pillowcase under his cheek. This is what's going to go next. The ability to feel anything. All his skin is going to go dead.
If this is the universe's punishment for setting Lucifer free, it's a pretty good one.
Sam wakes up, which means he must have fallen asleep, even though he can't remember drifting off. It takes a minute for him to remember why he's on his stomach, another to remember why he's wrapped up like a mummy, and another to figure out why the sheets feel different on his back than they do beneath him. The mattress and bottom sheet are still damp beneath him; the top one and all the towels have dried out.
Somewhere in the room, out of Sam's sight, Dean is talking. "No, not that, Bobby, just— Is there such a thing as a— Shit, I don't even know what to call it. A sensory curse? Some kind of spell that would shut down his senses?" Long pause. Sam doesn't move, because if he does, Dean will end the call, and he clearly needs to feel like he can do something. "No, I am not drunk! Something is happening to Sam— Cas can't even figure out what it is, let alone try to fix it, and Sam— He can't smell, he can't taste anything, he— Bobby, he came out of the shower tonight with second-degree burns because he couldn't tell the water was hot!" Another pause. "Yes, Bobby, I've forgotten everything I ever learned about first aid," Dean says acidly. Sam doesn't know how Bobby reacts, but he flinches. "Of fucking course I took care of it! It was just one spot, the rest was mild. Long as it doesn't get infected. In which case he won't feel it. God help us if his appendix decides to call it quits."
As long as the pain's deep, he'll feel it. The fever, now, that would be questionable. A systemic infection will have other signs, though.
But without being able to sense pain and temperature, will he be able to feel it before it's bad enough to kill him? He'll have to think on that. Dean might actually have stumbled across a legitimate worry.
Dean ends the call. Sam closes his eyes quickly, not wanting Dean to know he heard any of that. He hears water running in the sink, and then it's gently poured over him, a cup at a time. Dean, soaking the towels and sheets again, by hand, rather than waking him up to unwrap him. Then the sheet over his leg is lifted away. Fingers brush the healing gash—checking for infection, no doubt, or to make sure Sam didn't accidentally cut himself again taking the stitches out.
"Dammit, Sammy." The words are hardly more than a whisper. From anybody else, Sam would call them prayerful. "What the hell are we into now?"
There's only one thing worse than having Dean Winchester pissed off at you.
That's having Dean Winchester pissed off at you and hovering. Dean's one of those weird people who is perfectly capable of being infuriated to the point of murder while still trying to wrap the object of his anger in bubble wrap. Especially when it comes to Sam.
Sam's pretty sure the only other people who can manage that are actual mommies, but—like with using the word "nightlight"—he knows better than to say that out loud.
Even after Cas heals the blistering, Dean's reluctant to inflict a long car ride on Sam, apparently convinced that if he does, Sam will either keel over from a massive systemic infection, or somehow transmit said infection to the Impala. Between that and the steady diet of canned chicken soup (Sam double-checks, but according to the mirror, he did not turn into a four-year-old when he wasn't looking, and seriously, Dean, what part of texture do you not get?), when Bobby calls, Sam doesn't even wait to hear what the job is before he accepts it.
"You never struck me as the type to go gung-ho over zombies, Sam," Bobby says dryly, and Sam just blinks.
Even then, it takes the better part of an hour to persuade Dean that he can do this. He's pretty sure Dean only relents because Bobby actually asked—Bobby asks for help about as often as Dean does—and they owe him.
Dean spends the whole job reminding Sam to bundle up, occasionally trying to force gloves and a hat on Sam, and nearly getting his arm ripped off by a zombie because he's distracted by worrying about Sam's welfare.
Much as Sam hates to admit it, the worry's not entirely unreasonable. It's winter now, they're in the ass-end of Idaho, and Sam doesn't feel the cold. Even with his breath fogging the air and snow at near-blizzard conditions, his brain keeps insisting that the air is at that elusive perfect temperature, neither too hot nor too cold, the kind of day that dreams are made of. In the last chase, he splashes through an icy puddle and doesn't realize it until they're back at the hotel, when Dean notices him dripping and orders him out of his soaked socks just in time to head off frostbite.
The humiliation doesn't end when they've got all the twice-dead creatures salted and burned. (Zombie flambé: just another reason to be grateful for anosmia.) Now, every night, Dean insists on checking the water temperature before Sam gets into the shower, even if it means Sam's standing there in a towel, tapping his foot impatiently, for ten minutes until Dean's satisfied that the water is just right.
Dean has apparently mistaken Sam for Goldilocks. Sam would say that out loud, except that Dean would probably use it to justify a week's worth of jokes about how Sam needs a haircut.
Sam was just going to forgo hot water entirely—it's not like he can feel the cold water, and that way Dean can have the hot showers—but that's clearly not good enough for Dean's standards. Or Dean's afraid he'll freeze. Dean insists that they keep trading off, the way they always have. Sam tries locking him out, but the motels they stay in don't have locks that can withstand a Winchester, and it turns out that Dean is not about to let something as minor as a door stand in his way.
Every time Sam thinks he can't be humiliated more...
It doesn't help that Sam's a terrible patient. He knows he's a terrible patient. He always has been, as everybody from Dad to Jessica's mom has told him. But Dean's smothering irritates the ever-loving fuck out of him, and the number of times on the zombie job alone that Sam has to restrain himself from punching his brother is ridiculous. He's not some fucking damsel in distress, dammit. He's just—sick. Granted, it's a weird sick, but it's not like they've ever done anything normally.
But anything wrong with Sam, and Dean's childhood programming comes charging to the front—thanks ever so much, Dad—especially now that it's something that can actually cause problems. Not smelling or tasting were minor issues in lives like theirs. Not being able to feel pain and temperature?
That's dangerous.
Sam knows he's lucky Dean's not insisting on strip-searches after every fight, but damned if the interrogations aren't intrusive enough—do not get him started on the string of damaged bathroom doors that kills three of their precious scammed credit cards with damage surcharges—and it's not whining if it's entirely justified. He's a grown man, for fuck's sake. He took care of himself for four months while Dean was dead—and for three other months when Dean was dead that other time, that time that only he remembers. He knows how to check himself for wounds. It's nice that Dean cares, don't get him wrong, but Sam doesn't need to be bundled in bubble-wrap and spoon-fed.
Really, Dean, he can check his own legs.
Dean's after him all the time now, like he's some kind of delicate little flower that'll wilt in a strong breeze. Despite the dark cloud of the Apocalypse looming over them, it's almost like they're kids again, Dean in full-on Mommy-mode, nagging him to put on a jacket and tie his shoes and clean his plate. All they're missing is a drunk and/or injured father snoring on the couch. Dean even starts paying attention to what Sam's eating—real attention, not just poking fun—and he orders things he knows Sam's always liked, the healthy shit that Dean wouldn't normally order, even on behalf of somebody else, if you paid him in limitless pie and pristine Impala parts. God knows every time Sam requested anything before, Dean ordered the exact opposite just to be contrary.
This morning is probably not going to be any different.
Of course, before they even get into the diner, Sam, distracted by Dean's rant at the local so-called classic rock station, manages to jam his finger in the car door hard enough to break skin. By the time they get to the restaurant door, it's dripping blood enough that an exiting customer notices, so (after fending off Dean's attempts to "help") Sam goes to the diner's restroom to rinse the blood off and check for serious damage to his fingernail. That's just what he needs, losing another nail; the one that got ripped out by those pagan gods two Christmases ago still hasn't recovered all the way.
But the nail seems okay. The damage is almost all skin, nothing severe, so he slaps on a Band-Aid—he always carries a few these days—and heads out to the table.
The lady behind the cash register glares at him as he walks by. She's kind of surprising; this area's demographics skew heavily white, but she looks like a full-blooded Native American. This area is also fairly conservative, but she has bells tattooed on both cheeks and wears an inch-wide black choker with a stylized silver skull dead center. He's pretty sure that silver belt—more skulls, some snakes, and a few symbols that he feels like he should know—is hiding a knife, and her nails are painted a shiny red the color of dried blood. She looks like she belongs at a Goth-themed nightclub, not a random Midwestern diner.
"Nice dress code they have here," he says to Dean when he sits down.
Dean nearly chokes on a mouthful of coffee. "Dude, she's the owner." He says it fairly respectfully, so Sam guesses that Dean's already tried and been shot down. Possibly with the use of the knife. She doesn't look like the type who'd have any patience with flirting, especially of Dean's less-than-subtle style. Sam hates that he missed it.
Their food comes then. Dean, of course, has pancakes and more pork products than anybody should ever put on a single plate. Sam, though, has oatmeal and fruit and milk, of all the things. Fruit in a place like this has to be expensive, even if the owner gets a discount for scaring the shit out of the vendors. "Dean, I can't taste it."
"Yeah, but it's what you like."
"But—"
"For fuck's sake, Sammy, just eat, will you? If you can't taste it, it doesn't matter anyway, right?"
Sam sighs, and watches Dean eat while picking at his own breakfast. A few months ago, this would have been a perfect breakfast, assuming Dean didn't tease him over it, but now, texture is all he has left, and oatmeal doesn't have much. The fruit, not much more; oranges and grapefruits have a decent heft between the teeth, but this plate is mostly overripe melon, and melon just kind of squishes into goo under the least bit of pressure. It makes it that much harder to swallow the stuff. But he's not about to do anything that Dean might interpret as a rejection of the gesture. Not when he's trying so hard. Not when he's expecting Sam's resolve to snap.
And maybe he shouldn't let it anger him, but it does; Dean and Cas and maybe even Bobby are all expecting him to fail, and no matter how stoically he tries to take this, nothing he does can change their minds. Never mind that, even if it is Lucifer doing this, sooner or later it's going to occur to Dean to chat with Michael about it. What's going to stop him from saying yes if it means Sam's healed? It's not exactly without precedent.
Sam orders coffee and pours the rest of his milk into it, just because he's not seven anymore, and there's a sudden sharp sensation in his chest, right over the sternum, that lances through him all the way to his back. It's not pain, not exactly, but it's not not pain, either; it's deep enough that it could be, but it just feels...off. He rubs at the spot, wondering, then stops, and not just because Dean's looking at him funny. Something's not right. "I think the next stage is starting."
"Starting?" Dean asks. "Don't they usually just happen?"
Trying to not look like he's having a heart attack, Sam presses experimentally against the spot. Nothing. "There's a numb spot in the middle of my chest that wasn't there five minutes ago."
"No way it just, you know, fell asleep?"
Through great effort, Sam manages to not roll his eyes. "I think it would be really hard to make your sternum fall asleep."
"Good point." Dean considers. "You think it'll spread?"
"No. I know it will." He pokes a lopsided melon ball with his fork. "I can't reach, but I think there's a spot on my back, too."
Dean raises an eyebrow. "This sounds more abnormal than usual."
"It is." He's found that much in his research. Usually, when people start losing sensation, due to diabetes or whatever, it starts at the extremities, the peripheral nerves in the toes and fingers, and works in toward the spine. This isn't even anatomical; nerves radiate from the brain and spinal cord, so the spot on his back might make some sense, if it was starting in one nerve connected directly to the spine, but the one over his chest? Without any of the connecting skin going numb?
"Why would this one go gradually, anyway?"
Sam shrugs. "The skin is the largest organ in the human body. Maybe that has something to do with it."
"I dunno, man. Seems like it would be easier to zap everything at once."
"Easier, but it would take more power. If this thing is trying to stay under somebody's radar, maybe it would be too much power at once."
"Lucifer never struck me as the hiding type. Every time we turn around, he's in—" Dean stops, giving him a sideways look. "You don't think it's Lucifer, do you?"
"I don't know. It— It doesn't feel like him, Dean. Why would he do all this to me to make me say yes when he'll just have to waste time fixing it all if I do?"
"But he can—" The owner slams the check onto their table without even pausing, hard enough to rattle the silverware. "Fucking Goths," Dean mutters.
"I think she'd scare most Goths," Sam says dryly, and she overhears and turns to glare at him, the most threatening thing he's seen in months (zombies and angels included), and Dean laughs.
He catches Dean on the phone that afternoon, a call Dean plainly doesn't want him eavesdropping on, given the way Dean quickly says, "Bye, Bobby," and hangs up and shoves the phone into his pocket. It's not the last time, either; Dean spends more of his time that night in the hall outside their room than inside, and it's not because he's suddenly respecting Sam's need for alone time.
Sam knows something's up when Dean hands him the keys the next morning.
Dean keeps getting phone calls over the next few days—at least one an hour, if not more—and he plainly expected these calls, since he's letting Sam drive; if Dean were driving, he'd have to keep pulling over to jot down notes and numbers. Some of the calls are from Bobby, a couple from Cas, but from the way Dean talks—semi-respectfully, keeping the pop culture references to a minimum, name-dropping Bobby and Ellen and Rufus and Dad at every opportunity—most of them are from strangers. And the vibe he's putting off—
Sam's pretty sure it was the same one he gave off when he was trying to find a way to fix Dean after that electrocution, or in the last days before the deal came due. Desperation, stubbornness, denial, and a refusal to not hope, no matter how much smarter that would be.
Sam can't really blame him. They have no guarantee that this isn't going to kill him. For all they know, this is somebody's way of committing murder piecemeal, a way designed specifically to make him suffer.
This phase, at least, is fairly mild. The initial stabbing sensation (it wasn't properly pain, since he can't feel pain anymore) was a one-off; now, he can tell where the feeling is going to fade next because there's that pins-and-needles tingling beforehand—like when your foot or hand falls asleep and then wakes up, only in reverse. It's uneven, progressing in fits and starts. The first time he tries to map it with a washable marker, about a week after it starts, he winds up with a ragged seven-pointed star shape on his chest, one point practically in his armpit but another hardly off the sternum.
While it's weird to feel fabric on one patch of skin and not the next, it's not incapacitating. Yet. That won't hold, he knows. Already he's having problems. The patch on his back extends to his waist, to where the gun usually rides in his waistband, and he's sat down on the damn thing three times already because he's forgotten it's there. What's going to happen when this hits his arms and legs? Is this going to affect how he walks?
There's not a lot of information out there on life without touch. What little he can find is not reassuring.
And that's when the phone calls stop and Dean announces, "We're going to Florida."
Sam's avoided jobs in Florida ever since the Mystery Spot fiasco. Dean isn't as picky, since he's not stuck with too-vivid memories of watching his brother die over and over again, but for the most part, he's been good about Sam's job priorities (any other state, Canada, Mexico, Hell, then Florida). It helps that Sam hasn't argued about Dean's sudden refusal to consider anything within a hundred miles of Detroit.
Not today, though. There's a job in Florida and Dean's hell-bent on taking it, despite the five other jobs Sam finds, one of which is just the next town over.
Sam knows his brother too well to not suspect that something's up.
Not until they're there and neck-deep in a grave does Sam find out why Dean was so intent on crossing the continent for a salt'n'burn that any newbie could have handled. It didn't even require interviewing survivors, because Dean already knew exactly who and where the ghost was. The job literally consists of driving to the cemetery and digging up the body for torching.
They pry open the casket (modern hermetic caskets suck when it comes to their purposes) and they're face-to-ick with the poorly-embalmed, overly juicy corpse of Mr. Walter Walterschied, whose long-dead parents plainly hated him and who accidentally smothered himself when he fell out of bed. Now his spirit is terrorizing a nursing home. Sam looks down at the gloppy remains, hoping that they have don't have to resort to the kerosene, and says, "So this guy is worth an eighteen-hour drive?"
Dean immediately looks guilty and nervous, and covers it by dousing the deceased in lighter fluid. "This guy? Not really."
Uh-huh. "Then why—"
"Because there's a doctor here who knows about hunters." Sam knows exactly what Dean's going to say next. "A neurologist."
Dean's damn lucky that Sam already tossed the shovel out of the grave.
The neurologist is a round dark man who sees them after everybody else in his office has left for the day. Turns out a hunter helped him out at some point, so he repays the favor by providing specialist-level treatment—something hunters almost never get, despite every last one of them getting enough blows to the head to really, honestly need a neurologist. It's also free of charge, provided the hunter's vouched for. Now all of Dean's calls make sense. Sam thought he was looking for curses, not actual doctors. Dean hates doctors.
Dean also insists on sitting in on the appointment, using the argument—well, to be honest, the logic is so non-existent that even with a lifetime of exposure to Dean's thought processes, Sam can't really follow it. It seems to have something to do with hunting partners needing to rely on each other, but there may very well be a little bit of I made the appointment and he didn't so I don't fucking care if he's the patient, I'm gonna be there mixed in.
That's the point where Sam realizes he's just along for the ride, HIPAA be damned.
The full medical history is all kinds of fun. Fantasies about being able to be honest with medical professionals are one thing; having to actually do it is another.
The scar on his back? Oh, somebody killed him once. Last time he had sex? It's been awhile. She was a demon inhabiting a brain-dead woman. She tricked him into freeing Lucifer. Reason for the tattoo? Anti-possession. Yes, very useful when having sex with a demon, like he's never heard that before.
And, of course, the big one: "Your brother indicated that you're in recovery. From what substance?"
Sam shoots Dean a glare. Dean glares right back, that implacable I'm in charge and you're gonna do what I say or I'm gonna make you glare that Sam's hated since he got old enough to recognize it. "Demon blood."
The neurologist's eyebrows shoot up so high that they threaten to abandon his head entirely.
After that, the actual exam is kinda anti-climactic. With no nurses in the office, the doc takes Sam's vitals himself—all perfectly normal, as Sam knew they would be. Since this is neurological, not a full physical, he doesn't have to strip; the doc just asks that he pull his shirt open, and probably wouldn't have done that if this whatever-it-is wasn't affecting the sensation in his skin. The doctor presses the stethoscope against Sam's chest, and makes a noise. "What?"
"You did say you're not feeling temperature, correct?"
It's clearly a rhetorical question, since they've already been through the shower story. "Right. Why?"
"You're the first person I've ever met who never flinched away from the stethoscope. Everybody says these things are too cold." Sam blinks. "Also, it's been in the fridge."
"You keep your stethoscope in the fridge?"
"Your brother did warn me of a few things."
Of course he did. Dean doesn't react to Sam's glare.
A few minutes of testing with a needle tell the doctor and Dean what Sam already knew: most of the skin on his torso has gone numb. The doc doesn't insist on Sam standing up to see if it's gotten below the waist and Sam's not about to enlighten him, especially not with Dean sitting in, but it has started to creep over his shoulders and halfway up his neck. "Interesting," the doctor murmurs, which gets him a murderous glare from Dean, and he quickly retreats to his desk.
"So, any ideas, doc?" Sam asks. "Since I'm so interesting and all."
"This is only the first step," the neurologist says, tapping at his computer. "Tomorrow, we do the tests."
"Tests?" Dean asks, in as close to a neutral tone as Dean Winchester can get.
"MRI, CT, EMG, nerve conduction. Maybe an EEG, I'm not sure. We can probably avoid the ENG, since you don't seem to be having issues with dizziness or vertigo."
"Doc, if I want alphabet soup, I'll go buy a can," Dean says irritably.
The doctor goes into the main office and comes back with several information sheets. "Here. These explain most of them. Show up at eight sharp. They'll have to fit you in around tomorrow's appointments. Paying customers get precedence, I'm afraid. Bring a book. You'll probably be here all day and waiting for most of it."
He's not kidding. Dean insists on dragging Sam out of bed at six, like a kid on Christmas morning. They sit outside in the car until somebody unlocks the doors, and then they sit in the waiting room—and then the MRI waiting room, then the CT waiting room. In between, lab techs take vial after vial of blood and Sam gets the anosmia and ageusia tests he should have gotten from that ENT months ago. It's well after noon when they find out he can't have the EMG until three, and because they want him asleep for the EEG, he can't have that until after the EMG. The nurses send them off to find lunch, with the stern admonition that Sam can't nap and shouldn't have caffeine. Because grown men nap so often. Especially grown men with overprotective older brothers.
Seriously, the only things that have saved the techs from dealing with Dean are the female nurses, because half of them seem to have fallen in love with Dean at first sight and Dean never turns down that kind of attention. Sam's pretty sure that Dean scores at least once while Sam's stuck in the MRI machine, trying not to compare the experience to being buried alive in the world's noisiest grave.
It's oddly reassuring. Dean is entirely capable of shutting out the entire world, including women, when he gets worried. If Dean's still sneaking out for romps in the linen closet, it means he hasn't reached full crazy yet.
It's nearly seven that evening when Sam's finally done with the EEG (Dean's worry temporarily alleviated by his merriment at the sight of Sam with electrode glue clumping his hair into spikes, and if those pictures make it to Bobby or Jo, Sam is going to murder his brother), at which point the staff surprises him with the news that he's having a barium swallow and endoscopy the next morning. Sam just stares at the tech, who continues to list procedures like Sam should have already known or suspected that they'd be doing these things, and it's not until Dean interrupts and threatens to drown the man in his own container of electrode glop that they both find out that the neurologist wants to evaluate the function of his tongue, mouth, and throat.
After an hour and a half getting the goop out of his hair (thank God his hands and scalp haven't gone dead yet, because asking Dean for help with this would be beyond humiliating), Sam starts researching those tests—these are GI tests, for fuck's sake, not things he'd thought to look up when his skin was giving out. Every account he can find indicates that barium tastes nasty, though, so hey, there's a silver lining.
Dean, of course, never one for sitting still, tries to convince him to go out, especially after the novelty of Sam's temporary hair disaster wears off. "A couple of those nurses were interested in you. Never know, Sammy, this could be your last chance. Before everything goes numb, I mean."
"Thanks, Dean, that makes me feel so much better." There are things he does not want to discuss with his brother. The sensitivity of the skin on his dick—or the lack thereof—is on the top-10 list. So is the fact that he's probably never going to have sex again. The sense of touch is kinda necessary for that.
"I just meant, what with the not feeling and all, eventually it's gonna—"
Sam resists the temptation to hit his head against the table (it won't hurt, but he could probably give himself a concussion), and makes his voice stay very calm when he says, "Moving out from the chest, remember?" Dean stares at him blankly, and Sam sighs and uses simpler language. "You're too late."
The look of sheer horror on Dean's face before he mumbles something and runs like hell is almost worth it.
The tests show nothing, of course. There is absolutely no physiological cause for what he's feeling—or, more accurately, not feeling. Everything seems to be in proper working order. He leaves with a triple diagnosis—idiopathic anosmia, ageusia, and anaphia (progressing).
"Idiotpathic?" Dean asks.
"Idiopathic," Sam corrects. Dean picks the worst moments to play dumb. "It means 'cause unknown.'"
"There's a medical term specifically for 'we have no fucking idea'?" Dean demands, and stomps off to the Impala, swearing.
Sam sighs and starts to apologize, but the doctor waves it off. "Take these," he says, holding out a box of drug samples. "These are meant for standard peripheral neuropathy patients," the neurologist warns, "and they probably won't help. But it's worth a try."
Sam accepts the box, feeling the cardboard scrape against his nails, and wonders how long it's going to be before he can't even feel this.
"There's also something in there I want you to start taking immediately," the doctor says, and taps at the largest container in the box. "Start taking it now, and it will have kicked in by the time you need it."
"Fluoxetine?" Sam reads off the lid. That sounds familiar, but he doesn't know why. "What's that?"
"You might know it by the brand name," the neurologist says. "Prozac."
"Prozac? I don't—"
"You are literally losing your senses," the man says, "and you are still human. Depression is going to be a perfectly normal reaction, and I think maybe one you and your brother can't afford. There's an insert with the possible side effects in the box."
Sam mutters a thanks—the doctor is doing the best he can, really—but he can just imagine what Dean's reaction to anti-depressants is going to be.
The box of drugs finds a new home on the doorstep of a free clinic somewhere in Indiana, all the little blister packs intact.
By then, everything's numb.
Despite the numbness, everything still works normally. And, like the thing with his pain receptors, it only affects the skin, so any internal sensations are still working fine. His body still recognizes when it's hungry or thirsty or needs the bathroom. So at least Sam's not adding incontinence to his ever-lengthening list of humiliations, like some people who don't have a sense of touch.
For all that he can't feel pain or heat or the damn air, every muscle still moves the way it's supposed to, no stiffness or hesitation or anything. He spends a lot of time on long drives just watching his fingers move, as quick and fluid as ever, and wondering at the sheer weirdness of seeing it without feeling it. At least, he does until Dean gripes, "Will you stop doing that? You look like some stoned hippie who thinks his fingernails are telling him the secret of life."
The problem is that all the actions he's learned over the years—walking, driving, writing, typing, feeding and dressing and bathing himself—are reliant on sensory cues from his skin. He can't feel the ground beneath his feet, so he's constantly stumbling, even on perfectly level surfaces. He can't feel the keyboard under his fingers—it's worse than trying to type with gloves on, because the last time he had to do that, he could at least feel the gloves. Don't get him started on the nightmare that's the touchpad. And that's just the laptop; he can manage to answer his phone, but only because the button is larger and slightly separated from the others. Dialing or texting is out of the question. So's driving; his reflexes are still good, but even though his muscles remember the precise distance between the Impala's gas and brake pedals, he can't tell how much pressure he's putting on them. Their one trial run nearly sends Dean through the windshield when Sam brakes too hard, and there's no way Dean's risking his baby again. Sam can hold a pen to write, but he has no sense of how much pressure he's putting on it and half the time the point tears through the paper, even when he switches to medium points. It takes forever for him to get dressed in the morning, and that's on a good day. Buttons are a nightmare. Zippers aren't much better.
Meanwhile, he's covered in bruises from hitting his elbows and knees and every inch in between on every hard surface he encounters, from the Impala to the shower fixtures. He's not only lost sensation, he's lost all sense of where his body is in relation to the rest of the world. Proprioception isn't just hard to spell, it's extremely difficult to explain to an older brother who just wants Sam to stop denting the car. There's nothing about this on the Internet, or in the paperwork the neurologist gave them. His best guess is that he's ahead of the science, that nobody has figured out how proprioception really works, and that losing touch means his brain isn't getting some important information. For all they know, feeling the pressure of air on your skin plays a role in figuring out where your limbs are.
Everything works, but he moves like an old man, fearful and apprehensive. He can't do anything unless he's watching himself do it, and watching carefully. He's so reliant on visual cues that if he closes his eyes to keep the shampoo out of them while he's showering, he loses all sense of balance and topples over.
Luckily, the first time that happens, he doesn't hit his head on any of the fixtures, because the last thing he needs is for Dean to find him concussed in the shower.
He starts ordering his own food again, biscuits and chicken nuggets and French fries, because finger food is way easier than trying to manage utensils and not as humiliating as asking Dean to cut up his food for him. Sure, he can't judge his grip strength, and a lot of those fries get smashed between fingers that can't tell they're applying too much force, but it's still way safer than utensils. His vision's still okay and his depth perception seems fine, but every time he tries to use a fork, he winds up stabbing himself in the face. He can't figure out why, but there's a lot of whys about this that he thinks they may never figure out.
At least Dean only laughed the once. In his defense, he thought Sam was playing a prank, because honestly, who stabs himself in the face with a fork?
Even brushing his hair is a hassle—a double-barreled one, as he can't feel the brush in his hand or the brush in his hair and he keeps carving bloody lines in his scalp. For the first time in years, he's seriously contemplating getting his hair cut as short as Dean's just because it'll require less care. He really only keeps it as long as he does out of some scrap of childhood rebellion anyway, one last "fuck you" to their quasi-military upbringing. But Dad's been dead for years and Sam's supposed to be an adult, so maybe it is time for a haircut.
The job? The job is out of the question when just getting yourself clean in the shower, then dry, then dressed is a major—and exhausting—accomplishment.
He can still read, sure, but he's been through all the books they picked up their last trip to Bobby's, and the other research materials are on the laptop or online, which brings him back to typing.
Anosmia and ageusia were a walk in the park compared to this. And Dean— It's a miracle Dean's hovering hasn't gotten them both killed yet, since Dean keeps forgetting his own welfare in his quest for Sam's.
But the one time Sam suggests that he get on a bus for Sioux Falls, so that Dean stands a chance of getting something done, Dean shouts him down, so much that they get kicked out of the hotel.
Sam wakes up, thirsty. It's dark, the only light the glare from the blue-glowing clock that came with the room. That at least keeps him from panicking, thinking he's gone blind. At this point, after all, it's not a question of if, but when. He can't imagine that whoever's doing this would stop now.
He throws back the covers and gets up—and realizes he's actually only tangled himself up when he finds himself flat on his back on the mattress. He keeps forgetting to make sure he's completely uncovered before he tries to get up. A few weeks can't undo a lifetime's habits.
Dean's asleep for once, the nightmare dark soothed by the blue clock light, and Sam doesn't want to wake him up, not with sleep so precious these days. So he waits for his eyes to adjust, then sits up, squints at the vague whiteness that's tangled around his leg, and spends several exhausting minutes getting it untangled before he can swing his legs over the edge of the bed.
Okay. One obstacle down. Now he just has to get to the— Hm. Cooler would be safer, sink would be less alcoholic. He'll try the sink. It's not that much farther away.
He uses the faint white glow of the bedsheets as a guide to get around the bed, but then he's on his own. It's a decent motel, the carpet not all that worn, so there's no tears or rips to trip him up. On the other hand, the fact that it's in better condition means his feet will get better grip on it, and if he doesn't compensate properly—
Sam stretches one arm toward the wall, so that when he does trip he'll catch himself that much quicker, and starts the slow, careful walk toward the sink.
Naturally, when he falls, it's to the other side.
He comes to in bright light, with Dean leaning over him, pressing a towel to Sam's head and shouting stuff that Sam's too scrambled to make out immediately. Something about being careful, he thinks.
But he was careful. Sam's head aches, that deep below-the-skin pain he still has, so there's no point in arguing, even though Dean's shouting just makes his head feel worse. Careful just doesn't get him that far these days.
Dean finally lets him up—but only to go as far as the bed, making Sam sit there while he fetches a glass of water. "No more dark rooms," he says sternly, and Sam chokes in an attempt to not strangle on water and irony. "You're going to leave a light on so you can see if you need to get up, you got me, Sammy?"
Leave the light on. The thing he's been trying to do for the past year without Dean noticing.
Sam would laugh, if it wouldn't make the inside of his head hurt.
Sam sets the alarm on his phone—well, he has Dean set it, damn tiny buttons—earlier now. He'd put the thing on vibrate, but he can't really feel it, even if it's vibrating in his hand, so he just picks the least-obnoxious ringtone and gives Dean his best apologetic face if it wakes him.
He really does hate to wake Dean, especially now that Dean's sleeping a little better, but the honest truth is, Dean can just roll over for another hour, and he'll still finish his morning routine and be ready before Sam is. It only takes Dean a few minutes to get dressed. Sam— Well, on a good day, when he doesn't jab himself in the eye with his toothbrush or claw open his scalp with his hairbrush or do some other bizarre injury to himself, it takes him an hour. Injuries up that total considerably.
If the injury is bad enough that Dean has to help him bandage it...sheesh.
Sam almost has it down now, though. If he tends to most everything before he gets dressed, the spill damage is brought down to a manageable level; skin is easy to scrub, and it's not a big deal if the sweats he sleeps in have toothpaste stains. And since the inside of his mouth and throat haven't gone numb like everything else, he's at least not accidentally performing tonsillectomy by toothbrush. His ability to sense pain and temperature are gone there, but full numbness never has hit. It took him a while to realize why: this thing wants him alive. Losing all sensation in his tongue and throat means he won't be able to chew or swallow properly, maybe not even suck on a straw, and that way lies slow starvation.
He hasn't mentioned that to Dean, though. The last thing he wants is Dean's reassurance that putting in a feeding tube can't be that much more complicated than turning a Walkman into an EMF reader. Stitches are one thing. Surgery, on the other hand...
None of his sweats are presentable for public, not even by their loose standards, not after that disastrous attempt at eating Chinese for dinner yesterday, so this morning starts off with a fight with a pair of jeans. And then there's the struggle to get his fingers to work the buttons and zipper, and really, getting dressed should not be this fucking hard. He's had less exhausting fights with dead people.
How do people with real crippling diseases stand this? For years and years on end?
By the time Sam's finally dressed, Dean's been in and out of the bathroom, is fully dressed, and is ready, trying to hide his impatience at this delay in his breakfast. He's taken all the bags to the car already, even made a couple of phone calls. But there's still one more step in Sam's process, one of the hardest.
He has to get his shoes and socks on.
It shouldn't be so hard. He's been doing this all his life, after all, it's practically unconscious at this point.
Muscle memory only gets you so far when it relies on cues from the skin.
He sits down on the bed—carefully, because his ass is numb, and he's already fallen off the edge of the bed three times this stay, he's got more bruises just there than the Impala has guns—and forces numb fingers to start loosening the laces on his shoes. He can't just slip them on anymore, the way he normally does in a hurry, because he can't feel his feet going into them—or coming out of them, for that matter, which led to a fall as spectacular as anything he suffered during that whole rabbit foot debacle. Then he has to get the damn things on his feet, which is just way harder than it should be. He can see his toes wiggle, his ankle move, can even feel those muscles in a dull, distant way, but without functioning sensory nerves in the skin, the effectiveness is just not what it should be. And then there's the whole adventure of re-tying them...
He gets the laces loose enough that he can get his feet into the shoes and sets them aside. Now for the socks.
It doesn't matter that his fingers still work. The socks are old and worn and adhered to themselves with static cling. Fear that he'll tear the fabric makes him tentative, because he doesn't have that many left. For the last week, every time he's tried, he's managed to put at least one finger through the cloth. This may be his last pair of socks without holes.
"Sam." There are other hands there suddenly, taking the sock out of his hands, and before he knows what's happening, Dean is kneeling on the carpet in front of him. He shoves Sam's hands away, just like he used to when Sam was little and couldn't tie his shoes and Dad was impatient to hit the road, and silently slides the sock over Sam's bare foot. With the expertise of long experience, Dean puts the other sock on, gets Sam's feet into his shoes and ties the laces, double-checking that they're not so loose that Sam will step out of his shoes and not so tight that they'll cut off circulation to his toes.
The room goes blurry and his breath hitches. When he looks down, his hands have clenched on the edge of the bed, nails tearing into the worn bedspread. He thinks he's crying. He's not sure. If he is, he can't feel the wetness on his face or taste the salt on his lips, and if he tries to swipe at his eyes with his sleeve, he's just as likely to poke himself in the eye and do some damage.
He's a grown man, and he can't even dress himself.
He can't even fucking cry about it without hurting himself.
Through it all, Dean says nothing, doesn't even give Sam an accusing or impatient or pitying look, and when he's satisfied that Sam's shoes are on properly, he stands, dusts off his knees, and picks up Sam's jacket. "Come on. It's a long drive to get to Bobby's."
Sam can't look up, can't meet his brother's eyes. "But—Cas said—"
"Fuck what Cas said. Fuck the damn Horsemen and Lucifer and the Apocalypse. We're going to Bobby's and we're staying there until we figure this out."
"Dean—" He wants to argue, wants to point out that there are billions of other people on this planet who need them to focus on the real problem, on fixing this mess he started. They can't ignore the Apocalypse just because Sam's having trouble with his shoes.
But this is Dean, and if there's one thing Sam knows, it's how single-minded Dean gets when presented with a threat to Sam's welfare.
"Now put on your damn jacket and get in the car," Dean says, holding up the jacket for Sam, just like he did when Sam was little, and it takes everything he has not to break right there, to gather up what little he has left of his dignity and shrug into the jacket and follow Dean out to the car.
Dean drives crazy, even for Dean, and they reach Bobby's after dark. The back porch light is on and the gates are open, waiting for them. Bobby meets them at the door and gets out of the way quickly when he sees just how awkwardly Sam is moving. He's gotten a lot better with the wheelchair.
"You boys want something to eat?" Bobby asks.
Sam doesn't hear Dean's answer, because his next problem is staring him in the face.
Stairs. Sam hadn't even thought about the stairs. It's been forever since they took the trouble to set up in one of the spare rooms instead of the living room floor.
But there's no place for him to sleep down here. Bobby has to have the couch. Sleeping on the floor is going to put him in Bobby's way, and he can't get out of Bobby's way quickly, the way Dean can. That's assuming he doesn't somehow manage to do more damage to himself in the process, since he can barely walk over level ground without turning an ankle; he doesn't want to think what he could do to himself by trying to dodge a wheelchair. He's going to have to use one of the bedrooms upstairs.
"Sammy?" Dean sounds worried, and by the look on his face, he hadn't thought about the stairs either. "Can you get up there?" he asks. This time, his voice is calm, even. This is hunter-to-hunter, demanding an honest assessment of his abilities. No room for ego or shame or brotherly bravado.
"I—" Sam reminds himself that everything still works, he's just been avoiding steps because he keeps forgetting to watch his feet to make sure he clears the riser. "I think I can make it." He'll have the wall to lean against, and there's no reason to rush. As long as he can take his time, he should be fine.
Dean nods, and reaches around him to switch on the lights that illuminate the stairs and the upstairs hallway. "I'll be up in awhile." Sam doesn't need the half-guilty glance Dean shoots Bobby to understand. Dean wants him safely upstairs so that he and Bobby can discuss him.
And Sam is just too tired to argue.
"If you need help—" Dean begins.
"I'll yell." He forces a smile. "Go on, I can do this without being stared at. By either one of you."
There's a gruff chuckle from Bobby, who wheels back towards the kitchen. "You sure—"
"Dean, go." To emphasize his point, Sam grabs on to the railing and takes that first step, managing—to his own surprise—not to slam his toes into the riser. Two steps later, he stops, just to check. Dean's not standing there anymore, at least. He can't hear their voices. Maybe they moved out to the porch to make sure he couldn't hear them. Sam sighs and turns his attention back to the stairs.
Habit takes him to the room they used when they stayed summers here as kids. Back then, it had a set of rickety bunk beds that collapsed beneath them more than once (staying at Bobby's has always been an adventure), but somewhere along the line, Bobby managed to find a pair of twin beds—still a little cramped for Sam, but not as dangerous as the old bunk beds and way better than the floor. More importantly, except for a few stacks of books up against the walls, the room is practically empty, a beacon of sterility in Bobby's overcluttered library of a house. Nothing to trip him.
He automatically claims the one farthest from the door—Dean always takes the bed closest to the entrance—and lies down. Dean thinks he's going to do it. Dean honestly thinks he's going to say yes. He and Bobby are discussing how to stop him right now. What else would Dean want to discuss with Bobby without Sam overhearing? It can't be just his health, they've been talking that to death with Bobby and Cas and anybody who'd stand still long enough ever since this started. And if Bobby has come up with a breakthrough to fix it—well, Sam really needs to be part of that conversation. It's his body they're discussing here.
At some point, he dozes off, but he's awakened by cursing. Sam opens his eyes to the amusing sight of Dean hopping on one bare foot and swearing fit to blister paint. "Problems?" Sam asks mildly.
Dean glares at him, but limps towards the other bed. "Man's gotta learn to quit stacking books everyfuckingwhere," he mutters. "I think I broke my toe."
"On what?"
"A brick in a book cover, from the feel of it." Sam chuckles. "Yeah, sure, laugh it up. Just because you can't—" He freezes. "Shit, Sam, I'm sorry, I didn't—"
"Hey, at least I don't have to worry about the pain when I stub my toe," Sam says, forcing himself to make light of it, because there's really no choice, and besides, there's no point in Dean tearing himself up about a stupid slip of the tongue.
"But—"
"Dean. It's okay." It's laugh or cry some days, and right now, he's choosing to laugh. "Just go to bed before your toe finds a first edition of War and Peace."
Dean mutters something, but crawls into bed, gets himself settled, and reaches for the light.
Sam can see his fingers twitching. Bobby's house is safe ground, always has been—but this is the side of the house that faces away from the security lights of the salvage yard, so it's also dark. There's no light outside their window at all. This room has always been that way, but it's been years since they've slept up here.
"Don't," Sam says, and Dean freezes. There's a flash of terror in his eyes, terror that Sam's figured it out. "I need it, remember?"
Dean relaxes. As far as he knows, his secret is safe another day. "Sorry. Forgot." He pulls up the covers—an old quilt that Sam thinks he remembers from the first time they stayed here. "Night, Sammy."
"Night." Sam rolls onto his side, away from his brother, and looks at his hand where it rests on the mattress. The top cover on his bed is another old quilt, but the sheets look new. He wonders if they feel new. He can't tell. He can't even smell whether or not they're new. Does Bobby actually own anything new? Even the wheelchair looks used, and that lamp looks like it might have belonged to Bobby's grandparents.
But Dean will be able to sleep, as well as he ever does, anyway, and that's something.