Alone in the bathroom and sitting on the toilet, Sam managed to get his boxers on but he was so worn out by that feat alone he could barely get the neck of his plain white t-shirt past his head. Panting, he stared down at the bunched cotton around his neck, willing himself the strength to pull it and get his arms through.

After a couple minutes working with the sleeves, he had to admit he'd been wrong when he'd insisted he could dress himself and shooed Dean out of the bathroom.

"Dean!"

Almost immediately the door swung open.

Sam looked up at his brother with comically sad eyes. Dean was alert but not overbearing, deciding to just lean into the bathroom to see him.

"Yeah?"

"I can't..." Sam trailed off, weakly gesturing at the shirt, still pooled on his shoulders.

"Okay," Dean replied easily. Dean shut the door behind him. He came around and fiddled with a sleeve until he found the hole then took Sam's hand and guided it through. He repeated the process with his other hand and before Sam could do it himself, Dean pulled the rest of the shirt down to his waist with a few good tugs. Sam could've done that last bit but it'd happened so naturally that neither batted an eye. "Good?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded. Dean turned to grab the sweatpants from the counter and Sam shrugged inwardly about leaving the rest of his ensemble to Dean. He sighed and looked around the bathroom as Dean bent down in front of him to work on putting his feet through the legs.

"What time is it?" Sam asked suddenly, turning back to look down at his brother. Dean didn't look up as he was working Sam's left foot through the tunnel of fabric.

"Uh... like maybe one or two in the morning?" He replied distractedly, turning to the other foot. "Why?"

Before Sam could answer, Dean spoke up again. "You need socks?"

Sam frowned. "No."

"You do. I forgot socks," Dean disagreed absently. Sam didn't care enough to argue. Dean pulled the sweatpants up to Sam's knees and left them there. "Can you finish while I go get 'em?"

"Sure, yeah," Sam replied. Dean nodded and got up from his crouch, throwing an affectionate hand over Sam's down-turned head before leaving.

"Be right back," he said lightly and turned to leave.

After a few small body-jumps off the toilet lid that depleted his energy, Sam finally got his sweatpants on. His boxers were uncomfortably bunched now but he figured he could fix that situation later.

Dean returned soon after, carrying thick camping socks along with a blanket. He threw it over Sam and got started on his socks before Sam could protest.

"It's colder out there," Dean muttered the explanation and Sam rolled his eyes. Subtly, so Dean wouldn't notice and insist it cover him, Sam took the blanket off his shoulders to keep in his lap instead. Dean finished putting the socks on and looked up. "Okay, wheelchair time?" He said, more to warn Sam what he was doing as he stood up to wrap his arms around him and do the quick transfer onto the seat.

"You're getting too good at this," Sam coughed, then looked up at his brother with glassy eyes. Dean turned to grab the unused towels off the counter. "I think you might have a future career in hospice," Sam deadpanned, trying for easy banter.

Sam watched as his brother paused all movement, then threw the towels at the shelf and avoided Sam's eyes as he walked behind the chair and grabbed the handles.

"Dean?" Sam queried. The chair twisted back sharply to pivot towards the bathroom door. "Hey!" Sam called quickly, annoyed with Dean's handling as the chair shot forward. "Dean what-?" Dean leaned over Sam to open the door, shoving Sam down and to the side in his chair. "What the hell, man?" Sam complained as the door slammed open. Dean pushed Sam through it without another word.

As much as Sam wanted to get to the bottom of why Dean was suddenly an asshole, his brother had been right: it was cold out here. The bathroom had heated up with the bath's hot water and Sam hadn't noticed until a gust of chilly air slammed into him as Dean whisked them down the hall. Sam's wet hair was making it worse and goosebumps started rising on his skin.

Unwilling to give Dean the satisfaction now that he was acting like a tool, Sam just gripped the blanket in his lap tightly, willing his body to adjust before Dean could sense anything off. The priority was dispelling Dean's pissy attitude, not Sam's perfectly healthy and normal reaction to room temperature after a hot bath.

The wheelchair rolled quickly down the hallway, one of the broken wheels squeaking and catching, jerking Sam at every rotation. It was uncomfortable and Sam was having a hard time denying the need to shiver.

"Uh... Dean?" Sam called in an undertone, clearly communicating that he thought Dean was running with a few screws loose here.

"What?" Dean replied quickly, his voice severe. Sam made a face as a chill ran up his spine. He tried to quell the shivers but failed miserably just as they reached the threshold of Dean's room. The wheelchair stopped.

"My room or yours?" Dean asked harshly, eyes cold.

Sam unconsciously gripped the blanket tighter at the question. "What?" Sam asked unsteadily. A few drops of water streamed down Sam's neck and under the back of his shirt, sparking another frigid chill rushing through him. Sam heard Dean let out an annoyed huff as he came up around to the side of the chair and snatched the blanket from his brother's grip.

"Damn it, Sam," Dean said, flipping the blanket out sharply. Sam watched his brother with trepidation, not sure what was going on. Dean stayed aloof, unwilling to meet Sam's gaze. Dean roughly pushed Sam back down so he'd lean forward in the chair and draped the blanket around his back.

"Ow. Dean?" Sam's voice was weak with insecurity before getting shoved back so Dean could wrap the thing so tightly around him that his arms stuck to his chest. Sam tried to catch his brother's eyes but Dean didn't look anywhere but the blanket, obviously only willing to complete the task of warming Sam without any of the normal or tender care he'd always had for him.

Dean stood up, turned away from his brother before finally turning back around to face Sam.

"Seriously, your room or mine. Your choice, Sam," Dean said. The brightness in him had vanished, nothing upbeat, no self-aware humor. Sam looked at him warily. This was like... a test or a trap or something.

"I... what? Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why're you giving me a choice?"

Dean shrugged and looked down the hall to Sam's bedroom.

"I don't know. You might be more comfortable in your own room is all," he said, his tone airy now. "I'm cool with it if you want to go back. I'll still be around. It's not a big deal."

Sam bit his lip and considered. For all intents and purposes, Dean seemed to be coming from an honest place. The mood swing was jarring but maybe Dean had just resolved something in his head. It happened sometimes for everyone. Maybe Dean had settled out with the concept that Sam could have this independence, a sense of privacy after the bathroom thing, despite his illness.

Sam grasped the folds of the blanket and looked down at the ground, thinking about whether to take the offer. Intellectually, if Dean thought he could handle being alone then he should take that opportunity, right? If there was one thing Sam always yearned for it was his brother's blessing he could manage on his own.

He glanced into his brother's room, warm with lamp light and cozy with so many blankets strewn around, so well-decorated with pictures of their family and their most prized weapons. Those were the weapons that'd saved theirs' and others' lives from pure evil since their childhoods... and Sam's history was wrapped in with Dean's so closely that nothing in this room came off as unfamiliar. Sam had lived with scraps and pieces of all these things showing up in the motels with Dean at one point or another. In fact Sam honestly regarded them all as jointly owned.

Sam wanted to stay with Dean in Dean's room with all their stuff and with his brother in easy reach should something go wrong. Sam was constantly scared, constantly worried he wouldn't be able to do this. He was constantly trying to come to terms with how he'll likely die even if he successfully completes the third trial.

Then again, Dean had just given him this option to switch rooms and he wouldn't have done that if, deep down, he didn't want Sam to take it.

Conflicted, Sam shrugged and looked up at his brother.

"I... don't know."

Dean nodded with an approving frown.

"Okay," he said, moving around behind Sam to grab the handles. "I think you should go to your room," he said blithely as he started pushing the wheelchair past his door and down towards Sam's. Sam's heart dropped, realizing too late that something was still wrong between them. The phrase 'you should go to your room' hearkened back to his childhood just as much as everything else had with his brother since this had all started and it never meant resolution. It was embarrassing how that childhood phrase could evoke such desperation against going to his room even though just having his own room, his own sanctuary, was highly desirable in literally every other context for him at the time.

Dean continued to wheel him down. Sam was uneasy when they got there and he swallowed nervously as the wheelchair tripped into his room. He'd forgotten how bare his room was, how the lighting was a cold fluorescent white. He took it in stride as Dean jammed the rusty brakes home once the chair was settled at the side of his bed.

Sam knew Dean couldn't just leave him there. He still had to get Sam set up so there'd be plenty of time to goad him into revealing his grudge. Then they'd be able to hash it out and go back to Dean's room... maybe. Hopefully.

"So," Sam started, watching Dean as his brother pulled more blankets out of a closet to drape over his bed. He flipped them out, a pleasantly neutral expression on his face, acting as though he hadn't heard Sam at all.

"What's... up with the change?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dean replied easily, kneeling on the bed to pull the covers open for Sam. "Just thought you'd like a change of scenery," he huffed, getting off and coming up to Sam. "Okay, ready?" He asked, reaching his hands out and Sam automatically mimicked the move.

Dean then transferred him to the bed fast, faster than he'd ever done before and without - and wow, Sam felt weird acknowledging this - but without hugging him. Dean got Sam out and over perfectly fine by gripping him under the arms and lifting him from the chair to the bed without any need to bring him closer. Sam hadn't even known it could be done that way but now that he did, he missed the other way.

"Okay, you good?" Dean asked matter-of-factly, pulling the blankets up over Sam's body. Sam swallowed and tried to hide his hurt expression. He nodded mutely. "'kay. I'll be right back." And with that, Dean just took off down the hall.

Sam bit his lip, hearing Dean's casual, almost cheerful footsteps disappear.

Okay, so Sam wasn't an idiot. He knew he'd referenced hospice care and Dean was pissed about that but it was only meant to be a joke. Dean was blowing things way out of proportion. Sam sighed. For all the shit Dean gave him about being a drama queen, Dean could be the most passive aggressive bitch sometimes.

By the time Dean came back, Sam was seething with righteous indignation. He wanted to beat Dean at his own game now.

Dean raised an eyebrow, sensing Sam's temper, but quickly regained his manner of indifference as he moved over to sit in the wheelchair. That was another deliberate distancing move, Sam noted, because ordinarily Dean would sit on the bed next to him.

Dean showed him what he'd brought: two walkie-talkies. He put one in Sam's lap. "Channel six," Dean said and Sam tentatively picking up the hand-held radio and switched it to the right channel, fuming but keeping a lid on it for the time being. "You need anything, you call. Got it?" Dean said, his voice a mixture of the practical tone he used on hunts and the fake agreeable one he'd been using.

Sam's jaw clenched. "Got it."

"Good," Dean said, standing up. He surveyed the room. "Need anything right now?" He asked.

"No," Sam replied quickly, plastering a spiteful smile at Dean, then tipping the radio up to Dean. "I'll call you if I do."

Dean looked down and nodded slowly. "Great," he replied, but it wasn't, and his voice made it clear. But it was too late to back down now so without a backwards glance, Dean simply left.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Please review if you can spare the time! xoxo Alex