Title: somewhere a clock is ticking [5/?]
Author: alakewood
Warnings: None.
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~1100
Summary: Part five of the series wherein Dean's protective-big-brother streak intensifies and prompts him to find a second job to pay for Sam's medical tests. And the boys spend another peaceful night on the porch.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.
oxoxo
It was still dark when, sweating, Dean awoke. He was half-tangled in the blanket with one arm thrown protectively over his sleeping brother. But their proximity was too much in the hot, still room, so Dean peeled off the blanket – the fine sheen of sweat along his spine evaporating almost immediately – and climbed out of the bed. He went to the window, opening it completely and hoping for a breeze, and stared out at the quarter-moon shining faintly through a break in the clouds. Dawn felt like a long way off.
The mattress springs squeaked as Sam rolled over. "Dean?" he called out weakly, barely awake.
"I'm here, Sammy," Dean said, quickly returning to Sam's side.
The first couple of nights it had been strange – they hadn't slept in the same bed since Sam was seven or eight. But being that close to Sam, hearing the familiar sounds he made as he slept, was a comfort Dean hadn't realized he'd missed. He climbed back into bed and curled himself around Sam's thin, sleep-warm form as his brother's breathing evened out, and whispered, "I'm right here," against Sam's hair.
oxo
When the results of Sam's blood tests came back inconclusive, Dean started looking for a second job to pay for the insurance that would cover Sam's impending medical bills. The doctor had recommended a couple of different tests that could help determine the exact cause of Sam's symptoms, but neither were cheap.
From midnight until seven AM, he found a job as the overnight security guard at a factory in a town fifteen minutes away – the pay was decent and it left him with half an hour to get to his full-time job at a garage a couple miles down the road from their house, just inside the city limits. But seven hours was a long time to spend alone with nothing but the company of his own thoughts which focused primarily on Sam.
After finishing his first week of working two jobs, all Dean wanted to do was go home and take a shower and a quick nap then drink a beer or two while sitting on the porch with his brother. Of course, that was assuming he finally get around to installing the porch swing and that Sam was having a good day.
As he slowly drove down the rutted dirt path that was their lane in the truck he'd acquired not long after landing his job as a mechanic – there was no way he'd be climbing into the Impala after working on car all day – he stopped mouthing the words to the Led Zeppelin song crackling through the speakers when he noticed that the Impala wasn't parked where he'd left it. The second thing he noticed was the swing hanging to the right of the door on the porch. As he pulled up alongside the Impala, Sam came out of the house, a glass of lemonade in his hand.
"Busy day, huh?" Dean asked, climbing the stairs.
Sam just shrugged a shoulder as he passed the sweating glass to Dean.
"How're you feeling?" He took a long drink from the glass and handed it back.
"Better than I have in weeks."
"That's great Sam."
"Yeah. Hopefully it lasts."
"Hopefully." There was no reason it shouldn't, Dean thought. No reason that Sam should be sick at all – Dean was the one with the expiration date, not Sam.
"You hungry?"
"Kinda. Figured I'd get in the shower and take a nap."
"You? Nap?" Sam eyed his brother skeptically.
Dean just bumped his elbow into Sam's ribs as he headed into the house. "Wake me up in a few hours if I haven't come down, all right?"
oxo
The sun was almost completely set, just a wash of red above the horizon, when Sam remembered that he was supposed to wake Dean up hours before. He'd just been so lost in thought, thinking about everything Dean had done for him lately, what he'd had to put up with. As much as they'd been through, as far apart as they'd been in the past...they'd never been as close as they'd been since the Devil's Gate had opened.
The screen door banged shut when he went in the house and he could hear movement in the kitchen. "Dean?"
"Here," was the muffled call.
Sam leaned against the door frame and watched as Dean slapped together a couple of sandwiches. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to talk with food in your mouth."
"Nope," Dean said around a mouthful of sandwich, grinning. "Want one?"
"Sure. But I've got it."
He grabbed a couple of beers out of the fridge. "I'll be outside."
"Be out in a few." He took his time putting together his sandwich, pouring another tall glass of lemonade, and cleaning up both his and Dean's mess.
"Sam! Hurry up and get out here!"
"Coming!" He flipped off the lights as he ambled out of the kitchen. "What?" he asked, pushing through the screen door.
"Look at that," Dean said, gesturing with a sandwich towards their field which was full of fireflies. "Haven't seen anything like that since we were kids."
"That summer we spent at Bobby's?"
"Yeah. The whole field flashing like...like the sky had fallen into the yard or something."
"Wow," Sam started, dropping onto the swing beside Dean. "That was-"
"Corny?"
"I was thinking more poetic."
"First time I've ever been accused of that."
Sam grinned. They stayed quiet for a long time, just watching the tiny dancing lights. "When I went into town earlier," he began, "I saw signs for the county fair..."
Dean nodded. He'd seen a flyer posted on a bulletin board at work.
"They've got this 'night of destruction' thing going on tomorrow night. I think it could be fun."
Dean took a long drink from his beer. "Think you'll be up to it?"
"I just need to get out of the damned house," he sighed.
"Okay, then. Yeah. Let's do it." It wasn't like he had a whole lot of time left to spend with Sam doing things as random as a night of destruction at a county fair. Just over nine months. He had the off-hand thought that it took nine months to create a life and in the same amount of time, his would be over.