Rule 24: "But it's the Cinnamon Challenge" is not an acceptable excuse to not help your choking brother

"C'mon Sam," Dean egged his brother on, "All you have to do is swallow one spoonful of cinnamon. It's easy."

The younger boy eyed his brother suspiciously.

"How would you know?"

Dean smiled smugly, lying, "Tyrone dared me to do it last Friday at school."

Sam hesitated. Tyrone Daniels was Dean's friend at the new school they were currently attending. Tyrone had arrived at the school as a new student the same day as the Winchesters and had quickly become friends with the older sibling. Tyrone was the only black kid in the school as well as a new student and he and Dean had stuck together out of some unspoken solidarity.

"Okay, I guess," Sam relinquished, "But you have to do it after me."

Dean shook his head, "No way, Squirt, I told you I already did it at school. Besides, I did the 'saltine challenge' last week."

Sam smiled at the memory of his brother shoving six soda crackers into him mouth and chewing furiously, trying to eat them all become his sixty-second timeframe was over. The most surprising part about the challenge was that Dean actually managed to swallow all of the crackers in a minute.

Sam stared at the innocuous looking jar of ground cinnamon- borrowed from Tyrone's house- and the plastic spoon they had kept from an old take-out meal.

Turning his gaze to Tyrone, Sam addressed his brother's friend.

"Dean really did the 'cinnamon challenge'?"

The older boy nodded, smiling, his teeth very white against his dark skin.

"We did it durning lunch recess," he told the younger boy, "You should have seen your brother!"

The boys were sitting cross-legged in a circle on the motel bed furthest from the door. John was nowhere to be found- actually he was in the next town over- just a twenty minute drive from this one but smaller, with no elementary school- and wouldn't return for at least a day or two.

"Are you a chicken, Sammy?" Dean wheedled, a sly smile on his face, "Baaawwwk, baaaawk, baaaawwk!"

The younger boy shook his head, "No!"

Grabbing the jar of cinnamon, Sam twisted off the lid and shoved the spoon inside.

Dean leaned forward eagerly. His little brother could be so gullible sometimes. Of course he hadn't actually done the challenge himself. He knew Sam wouldn't do it if his brother hadn't done it before.

He caught Tyrone's eye and grinned. The other boy smiled but not as widely as Dean.

Both boys watched as the younger opened his mouth wide and pushed the brimming spoonful of cinnamon inside.

Closing his mouth and pulling out the spoon, Sam eyed his brother and Tyrone defiantly, the dry, powdery cinnamon already coating the roof of his mouth and tongue.

Not wanting to lose the challenge- he'd never hear the end of it if he did- Sam tried to swallow the cinnamon.

The powdery spice had soaked up all the saliva in his mouth and made swallowing impossible. Instead of swallowing the cinnamon, he inhaled it and his lungs and throat tightened.

Dean laughed out loud when a cloud of cinnamon exploded from his brother's mouth as the boy coughed and spluttered, gasping for air.

"I knew you couldn't do it!" Dean crowed triumphantly and held a hand out to his friend for a high-five.

Tyrone wasn't laughing, or smiling, or even looking at Dean. His dark brown eyes were fixed on Sam, who was hunched over, his face red, tears running down his face, mouth open wide as he struggled to breathe.

"Dean," the boy said, "I think something's wrong."

Dean, who had been too excited about the prospect of seeing Sam embarrass himself doing the 'cinnamon challenge' hadn't noticed that his brother did not look like he was having fun.

"He's fine," Dean assured the other boy, not wanting to humiliate himself in front of his new friend, "He just needs a minute."

But the wheezing sound coming from his brother didn't stop. Sam lifted his streaming eyes to his brother and although he couldn't speak they conveyed a helpless message Dean should have understood right away: "Help me."

"He's choking!" Tyrone snapped at Dean, "Your bro's choking!"

The elder Winchester looked from Tyrone to Sam and back again.

"But… But it's the Cinnamon Challenge," he stammered.

Before Dean could react, because he seemed stuck on the fact that a dumb, kid's prank could become dangerous so fast, Tyrone grabbed Sam from behind and began performing the Heimlich maneuver he had learned just that past summer during swimming class.

"Get me some water!" the boy snapped and suddenly Dean moved.

Scrambling off the bed, he hurried to the motel room's bar fridge and grabbed a bottle of water from inside, twisting off the cap as he rushed back to where his friend and brother were.

Dry puffs of cinnamon were exploding from Sam's open mouth like cigarette smoke but he continued to wheeze and gasp, his throat closed against the foreign particles coating it.

Suddenly, violently, with one more thrust from Tyrone, vomit streamed from Sam's mouth and nose, tinged dark brown as it washed away the cinnamon dust from his throat.

Then the younger boy was shaking and crying, coughing but breathing.

Tyrone grabbed the bottle of water from Dean and offered it to Sam.

"Drink this, little dude," he murmured, "It'll help."

Sam accepted the bottled water and drank quickly, groaning in pain as the cold water rushed down his irritated throat and into his sore stomach.

"Sammy," Dean said but the younger boy turned away from him.

Dean, hurt by his brother ignoring him, pressed on.

"Sammy, I'm sorry," he continued, "I shouldn't have made you do that… I made a mistake."

Still, Sam refused to face him, sipping carefully on the water.

Tyrone got up from the bed and motioned for Sam to do the same. Carefully, the older boy folded the blanket so that the cinnamon and vomit was contained and dropped it by the front door.

"I… uh… I should go home," Tyrone said, "See you at school."

Dean nodded but did not turn his head to his friend as Tyrone let himself out.

He couldn't believe that he hadn't seen it before, that he hadn't noticed his brother was in trouble and that it had taken someone else, someone who barely knew them, to realize that what was meant to be a fun practical joke was no longer fun.

Dean felt like an idiot. He should have been more careful. The worst part was that he had never even done the 'cinnamon challenge' before; he was lying when he told Sam that he and Tyrone had done it at school. He had seen other kids doing it, coughing and laughing as cinnamon puffed out of their mouths in brown clouds. He had thought it would be just like that; Sam would cough puffs of cinnamon and they'd all have a good laugh about how silly the whole thing was.

"Sam," Dean reached out to his brother but Sam moved away.

"Don't touch me," he said, his tone emotionless, his voice scratchy.

Tears pricked the corners of Dean's eyes. He hated it when Sam was mad at him.

"It was an accident," he insisted, "I didn't know that would happen."

Sam refused to look at him. Sighing, Dean went to the motel room's front door, grabbed the soiled blanket and took it out to the side of the building where the dumpsters were. Tossing the entire thing into the smelly, green dumpster, Dean sighed.

He didn't think he could bear it if Sam stayed mad at him.

Walking slowly back to the motel room, he closed the door, wondering what he was going to say to his brother when he was greeted by Sam holding the plastic spoon and the jar of cinnamon out to him.

"Your turn," the younger boy told him. His face was still damp but now it wasn't quite so red, the angry colour quickly draining from his skin.

Dean, with a chagrinned expression, took the items from his brother's hands.

Author's Note:

Rule comes from CarverEdlundtheLast.

Thanks to hecatess, jensensgirl3, StyxxsOmega, Jenjoremy, scootersmom, SamDeanLover28, and Mama's Stories for reviewing.

Please leave a review and a new idea for a 'rule' if you can think of one!