Chapter 2: Convalescence
Sam awoke in the hotel room bed, dressed in his boxers and a clean t-shirt. It was 9:53 AM, according to the digital clock on the faux-pine nightstand. They were in Boston. He'd had a vision of a man being decapitated in front of a museum exhibit and that had brought them here just in time to confront the thing that did it. The results of that confrontation had been suboptimal, as the tight soreness of his stomach reminded him.
His last memory was climbing into the Impala. He must have passed out on the way. This led him to the embarrassing realization that Dean had carried him from the car, changed him, and put him in the bed. Dean was going to lord this over him for months.
At least he hadn't ended up in the hospital.
He reached down, under the covers, to feel the wound. He found no bandages, only two small strips of scar tissue, one ventral, one dorsal. It was as though they had been sewn shut years ago.
Sam's attention snapped to the door as someone noisily slipped a card into the lock mechanism. He heard his brother curse as he turned the handle and the door failed to budge. It took him three more tries before a mechanical whirr-click announced his success and the door swung open. Sam looked up at his brother with a mercurial grin. Dean looked down at him.
"Shut up," Dean mumbled sheepishly. He dropped a McDonald's takeout bag on the window-table. Sam decided not to test his luck by mocking his brother. Dean had been known to withhold food.
Sam tried to sit up and winced in pain. Dean noticed this as he draped his coat over a wicker chair. It sported several long gashes that would be tough to mend. He came over and sat down on the other bed, facing Sam.
"How's your tummy?" Dean asked.
"My tummy? Are you six?" Sam taunted, unable to resist. He tried to sit up again, and again the pain prevented it. Dean ignored the jibe.
"My stomach is a little sore," Sam conceded
"Let me help you." Dean moved to help his brother up. Sam gritted his teeth as Dean pulled him up against the headboard.
"You OK?" Dean asked. Sam nodded. He looked up at Dean, remembering the vicious strike he'd taken to his sternum.
"How's your chest?"
"Fine, Sam," he said unconvincingly. Sam gave him the skeptical puppy-dog look. It said 'Not only are you lying to me, but your lies are hurtful.' It was absurdly effective.
"Bruised, a little," he conceded. Sam maintained the look.
"Okay, it hurts pretty bad. You want to kiss it and make it better?"
"Not so much, actually. What's for breakfast?"
"Bacon, egg and cheese biscuits and hash browns." Dean dropped the bag into Sam's lap before sitting back down on his own bed. Sam grinned from ear to ear. This was possibly his favorite food.
Wait. What was going on here?
Dean usually tormented him by ordering sausage McMuffins, which he loathed. And he'd barely teased Sam since he'd walked in. He wasn't giving him grief for getting injured, or for his stupid, self-injurious bravery.
"My favorite food? No dressing-down? What's up?" He was genuinely worried. Maybe Dean had learned something about the demon and knew that Sam was dying. There were very few other explanations for Dean acting like a decent human being.
Dean absently rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at his shoes. This was not good. Not good at all.
"I, uh," he started, not quite knowing how to get this out there. "I thought you deserved a break, is all. After last night."
"What?" Sam's fear was mounting. Why did he need a break? Was this going to be one of those 'what would you do with your last week on Earth' type things? Holy shit, maybe he was turning into a demon and Dean was going to have to kill him! He had miraculously healed, right?
"Aw Sam do you really want to hear this?" Dean looked up into his brother's eyes. What the hell did that mean? Sam waited, trying to appear expectant rather than afraid. His eyes bore down on Dean intensely.
"Fine," Dean said, breaking eye contact. He sat there silently for several seconds.
"I'm waiting, Dean," Sam demanded impatiently, not a little fear leaking into his voice.
"Give me a minute, alright!" Dean complained. He ran a hand through his chestnut hair. "I know I gave you a hard time after the fight last night." Sam's mind was screaming terrified obscenities. Dean paused and took a breath. "But I had some time to think about it and I want to say…You did good Sammy."
Sam exhaled volcanically, and a wave of relief passed over him. He wasn't dying. He broke into the world's most exasperated smile.
"You're proud of me?" Sam balked, disbelieving.
"You're bringing me food and laying off the sass because you're proud of me?" He started laughing, which was a painful experience. He winced once more and stopped. He didn't stop smiling, though.
"Yeah I hope that hurts," Dean groused. He looked at Sam, whose grey-green eyes and mischievous smile were intolerably smug. This is what Dean had hoped to avoid.
"That's awfully sweet Dean," Sam joked. But he wasn't letting his brother off the hook just yet.
"Well?" Sam asked. Dean looked up at Sam. He knew the look his brother was giving him. Knew it and hated it.
"Well what?" Dean pretended. Not that that ever worked.
"Well say it, Dean," Sam ordered. Dean faked a confused expression. Sam didn't buy it. "You've said it before. Or is it harder to say it to my face?" Dean looked down again, deeply uncomfortable, knowing Sam wouldn't let this drop until he got what he wanted.
"I'm proud of you Sammy!" he spat contemptuously. "There. Is that all?"
"It's Sam. And was that really so hard?" Sam asked before taking a satisfied bite out of his sandwich.
"Yeah. Kind of." Dean grumbled.
"It shouldn't be."
"Yeah, well, actions speak louder than words."
"Louder, maybe, but not more clearly. There are other interpretations for McDonald's takeout and being nice. Like 'I've learned that you're slowly dying from your demonic sword wound and there's nothing we can do to stop it,' for example. Which is not, you know, unreasonable."
Dean laughed a little at that, despite his embarrassment.
"It's honestly a little troubling that I can't tell the difference between you trying to say something nice and trying to tell me I'm dying."
Dean put his hands up in surrender. "I get it. Jeez." He got up and headed for the bathroom. "You try to do something nice for a person…" he muttered as he went.
--
When Dean returned, Sam had finished eating. He had, through considerable effort, swung his feet over the edge of the bed and was trying to stand. Dean came over to help, but Sam waved him away.
"Let's see what I can do." With a hand on the nightstand to steady him he managed to get to his feet. He took a few cautious, painful steps before sitting back down, grimacing a little.
"You okay?" Dean inquired.
"Yeah. It's just pain. It gets better the more I work through it."
Dean looked at his brother worriedly. Guiltily. Sam hated it when Dean looked at him like that.
He hated that his brother felt responsible for anything and everything that happened to him. He hated it because it made him feel young and vulnerable. Like little brother Sammy and not like grown-up Sam. He hated it because he knew it meant that Dean would be even more protective for the next few weeks. That he would be paying too much attention to Sam and not enough to himself.
But mostly Sam hated it because he knew what a bitch guilt was. How it could carve out your insides. Leave you hollow. Brittle. Breakable. And neither one of them could afford that right now.
Sam put on a smile.
"Hey, it's better than if it were still a gaping sword-wound, right?" Dean's look didn't change. Change of tactics. Change the subject. "Speaking of which, how the hell did I heal up so fast?"
"I think the demon healed you," Dean answered immediately, as if he'd been waiting for the question.
"Why?" Sam asked. He already knew the answer, but he also knew the value of distracting someone from himself.
"You heard it. It had…fun fighting us. And it wants to fight us again." Dean slumped down onto his bed. "I guess it figured it would be more fun if both of us were there."
"That's pretty twisted."
"It's a demon, Sam. It's like, made out of evil. They tend to be a little warped." Dean quipped. That brought a smile to Sam's face.
"I can't blame it, though. For wanting to fight us again, I mean. You were on fire. I've never seen you fight like that." Sam continued. "When have you had time to practice with a sword? We don't carry them around."
"No practice, just native talent," Dean answered with an arrogant smirk.
"Bullshit. You took fencing or something when I was at college."
"Nope," Dean assured him. "Not that it mattered. It was just playing with us," he sighed.
"I never got close to landing a hit until you…disarmed it. And when I finally put blade on flesh? Fucking thing turns out to have skin like Superman." Dean's eyes were cast down, dejected. Sam knew how to pull him out of this.
"Don't worry Dean. If things get bad, I'll just heroically fight on despite a life-threatening injury to save your stupid ass again." That was quite enough for Dean, who reached over and grabbed Sam's head, pulling him in for a noogie. Sam squirmed ineffectually as Dean applied justice.
"This whole being proud of you thing only goes so far. Do you get me Sammy?"
"Ahhhhg!" was all Sam managed. Dean released him and he fell back on his bed.
"Ow." Sam whined. His brown mop of hair was only marginally more disordered than it had been before the administration of corporal punishment. "I'm injured, man. And still weak from massive blood loss. Not cool." He laughed, this time suppressing the wince.
"That's what you get for being a bitch," Dean retorted. Sam mouthed 'jerk' at this but did not say it aloud. He could wait for his vengeance until later, when he could defend himself again. Minutes passed in silence.
They had very little going for them. They had no idea how to stop this thing, or what it even was. It had kicked their asses. Both had been injured, Sam pretty badly. And this was in addition to their day-to-day lifestyle of fraud-funded nomadism and their violent quest for supernatural vengeance.
What's more, they couldn't shake the feeling that something awful was taking shape just beyond the horizon.
But humor was an effective distraction, if only a temporary one. And for a few fleeting moments, Sam and Dean felt better than they had in months, and closer than they had in years. They didn't want to question it.
End Chapter 2