Just some good, old fashioned limp!Sam c: Enjoy!
Sam let out a next to silent huff, fighting to keep his hands in his lap. Light stabbed behind his closed eyelids and he could feel the bear creeping up on him. His muscles ached, a tell-tale sign that one of his dreaded migraines was coming on, and slight aches of pain dulled his thoughts and made it hard to focus on what Dean was saying. He tried to hone in on whatever hunt Dean was babbling on about as the two rolled down the two lane blacktop, tried to show that he wasn't in pain, that he was fine. It seemed to be working; Dean didn't seem to notice anything off about his younger brother.
"You still with me, man?" Dean's voice cut through his hazy thoughts. Sam's eyes shot open and he turned to look at Dean, trying his best to look nonchalant.
"I'm fine." He replied, almost smiling victoriously when he voice remained steady. Dean didn't seem to buy it.
"Uh huh." His older brother responded, turning his eyes back to the road. "You're an idiot." Sam's mouth dropped open in bewilderment at the unwarranted comment. "I can tell you have a headache, man. I'm not stupid." Sam hunched his shoulders in defeat, shrugging noncommittally.
"It's not that bad." A lie. It was slowly getting worse. The dull throbbing had turned into a hot, but constant pain. Sam could deal with that. It was the flashes, like someone was shoving a hot poker through his head and then removing it, waiting until he was almost feeling okay again, and then doing it again twice as hard, that he couldn't handle. It was those that always had him leaning over the toilet retching up whatever may be in his stomach.
"If we need to stop, just tell me." Was the only thing Dean responded with. Sam was stubborn, Dean knew that. There was no way the older man could convince his sibling to tell him the truth about his pain. He'd just have to wait until Sam broke.
That happened about ten minutes later. With a sudden cry, Sam lurched forward, heavily resting his head on the cool dashboard as he clutched at his head. There it was. The flashes that always had him down and out for the count.
Dean pulled off at the next exit with a motel, pulling into the parking lot of the dumpy motel. It couldn't even be considered a two star. Maybe like a half star place? Dean didn't really care. They'd stayed in worse, and Sam was in pain. He didn't say anything as he closed the Impala door as soft as he could so as not to upset his sensitive brother and trekked into the office. The man behind the front desk was only slightly cleaner than the exterior of the place, and Dean wondered how he was even still in business. After thanking the man for the room, he hurried back outside and pulled into the parking spot right in front of their room. There were two or three other cars in the parking lot, but other than that the two were alone.
Dean hurried around to the other side of the car and softly opened the door, crouching and resting his hand softly on Sam's shoulder.
"Come on man, gotta get into the room before I can give you your medicine." Sam grunted, his eyes moving behind his closed lids. Dean frowned sympathetically and slid his arm around Sam's shoulders, hoisting the lanky kid…man, out of his seat. Sam couldn't hold back the small groan that came with it and Dean winced. He hated to put Sam in pain, but he couldn't give Sam his prescription pills until he got his little brother inside the room.
Though Dean could tell his head was killing him, almost literally, Sam's steps were diligent and steady as the two made their way to the room. Dean unlocked the room as if a demon were trailing their ass, as quickly as he knew possible, and walked Sam inside. The younger man fell blindly onto the first bed he felt, curling into a ball and pressing his fingers into the side of his head. Dean smirked. Amateur.
With the practiced touch of someone who had dealt with thousands of Sam's migraines before, Dean pressed two fingers onto the back of his little brother's neck, just below his hair line. Sam's muscles started to loosen as relief came with Dean's pressure. He wasn't sure why, but that had always made him feel better when he had those skull-shattering migraines.
"I'm gonna go get our bags from the car. Don't let your brain explode all over the sheets while I'm gone." Dean called over his shoulder, chuckling as Sam let out a half-assed laugh of sarcasm. The elder brother hurried to grab their bags and emergency weapons, just in case, and bounded back inside the room with a cat-like gait. After closing the door as quietly as he could and drawing the curtains, Dean dug haphazardly through Sam's bags for his bottle of migraine pills. He finally found them, laughing victoriously and holding them up in the dim light.
"Dean…" Sam groaned, shifting on the bed. Dean frowned and made his way to his brother's side with a glass of water in his fingers. He pressed the glass into Sam's hand along with two of the pills and nodded approvingly as Sam downed them along with the whole glass of water.
"Atta boy." He couldn't help but adding, much to Sam's displeasure.
"I'm not ten anymore, Dean. Stop talking to me like I'm a little boy." He grumbled in frustration. Dean didn't reply, dragging one of the rickety chairs up to the side of Sam's bed. It was more of a habit than a precaution. He'd always sat with Sam through migraines, even though the younger boy had always vehemently protested it.
"Sorry." Dean shrugged, not sounding all that sorry. He knew Sam would've liked to go to sleep, but he also knew that the migraine medication he'd been prescribed during his time at Stanford kept him awake and alert. It was silent between the two brothers before Sam broke it, his voice sounding stronger and less weepy than it had.
"I remember the first migraine I had at Stanford." He started, rolling over to stare at Dean with heavily lidded, yet fully lucid eyes. "Jess was freaking out." He chuckled mirthlessly, reaching up to swipe his bangs out of his eyes. He definitely needed to get them trimmed. "She gave me whatever she could think of, Tylenol, Advil, Aspirin, but nothing seemed to work. I can remember that the only thing I wanted was you." That was how Dean knew Sam had a migraine. He'd never admit this to his older brother were he fully aware. "I just needed your voice, your fingers on the back of my neck. I almost called you." He admitted. Dean succumbed to the chick-flick moment and leaned over Sam, fondly brushing his hair out of his face again.
"Why didn't you, Sammy?" He asked, resting his fingertips lightly on the side of Sam's head and scratching just barely.
"Didn't think you'd answer. Maybe you'd be busy hunting. Lots of reasons. Mostly I was just scared." Sam frowned, eyebrows drawing together in pain. "I thought you and dad hated me for leaving. I never really forgave myself for it." Dean frowned down at his little brother, who was no longer looking at him. He'd never told any of this to Dean.
"For what, Sam?" He asked in the same gentle tone he'd been using previously. When Sam was in a delicate state like this, the only way to talk to him was softly.
"Leaving you guys. It wasn't…I didn't want to." He admitted. And there were the words Dean had wanted to hear ever since Sam had walked out that day. Damn, it felt good. But that raised another question.
"Then why did you leave, buddy?" He asked, raking his fingers comfortingly through Sam's soft hair.
"Because I wasn't good enough." Dean felt a lump rise in his throat and a pressure erupted behind his eyes. For god's sakes, really? He wasn't about to cry just because Sam had told him he didn't think he was good enough.
But wasn't that something to cry about? Didn't that mean that Dean had failed as Sam's older brother? An older brother was supposed to lift their siblings up, make them believe they could do anything. Not make them think they weren't good enough.
"Why would you say that, Sammy?" Dean asked, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat, neck burning in embarrassment. Sam didn't seem to notice, however.
"Because I fought with dad a lot. Because I was the weak link. I was never as strong as you and dad were. I wasn't trained enough, I guess. Maybe I just wasn't willing to give my life up for the one that I was supposed to live. For whatever reason, I was always just the weakest one. So I thought maybe leaving would fix it. But it really just made things a whole lot worse." Dean couldn't believe what he was hearing. Sam had battled with this the whole time he'd been gone? And the fact that neither Dean nor his father had bothered to get into contact with Sam just made things twenty times worse.
"That's bullshit man." Dean protested firmly. He leaned over Sam, placing his hands on Sam's cheeks and making his younger brother look at him. "You're not weak. You never were, Sammy. You know the reason you weren't as strong as us? The reason dad never pushed you as hard as he pushed me?" Sam nodded reluctantly, staring at Dean's passionately furious hazel eyes. Dean was kinda scary when he got this way. "Because you're the younger brother, and it isn't your job to be strong." Sam's mouth opened, but no words came out. He was seized with something, something nice and fuzzy. A warmness crawled through him and made the pressure in his throat build, the pressure he'd been trying to push down ever since he'd started talking about this. "It's my job to take care of you Sammy, but it isn't actually a job, not really. It isn't a chore, or something that I wish I didn't have to do. It's something I look forward to every day when I wake up man. Because you're my little brother, no matter how old you are, or how gigantic you grow, you're always my little brother and I will always be around to protect you. That's why you weren't as strong." Sam felt a few tears escape the corners of his eyes and slide down his cheeks. Dean smiled affectionately and brushed Sam's tears away, and for just a moment, Sam got a glimpse of his caring older brother, not the hardened exterior that he put on every day, but pure, unadulterated big brother Dean Winchester. And it was definitely a refreshing glance. A reminder that Sam wasn't alone in the world. A reminder that he never really would be. And he was going to accept that without question.
You guys might get a kick out of this, but I actually started developing a migraine while I was writing this. I guess that's what I get for trying to stare at a computer screen for two hours without my glasses on! I wasn't really sure where I was gonna go with this oneshot, but I'm pretty satisfied with where it turned out. R&R! Love you all! :)