A/N: Yay! Another chapter of "How To Fix a Winchester". This one has sneaky Sam. So this is a tag of sorts to "Dead in the Water". I know I keep promising stand alone chapters, but the duel perspectives of the first two chapters was kinda fun to write, and I got some good response to the format. Let me know if you would like the next chapter to be Dean waking up to a sick Sam (and lo mein, lol.) or if you'd prefer to next chapter to move on to a new plot bunny. I could always break Sam's arm or something.
So, have you guys been following my other stories? Both AU's updated this week, and my CC project, Confessions of a Boy King updated this past weekend, and I really love Chapter Two. I'd love it if you'd pop over and read it if you haven't. I would accept prompts for this project as well as "Confessions of a Boy King", as long as they are basically compliant.
Some reviews would be fabulous, especially if you guys want the next chapter to continue this thread. Otherwise I'll just move on and do a sick Sam later in the game.
Thank you for reading, I always appreciate your time and support!
PS, three of my stories have now been added to communities, which I think is one of the coolest compliments I can receive as an author!
As Always,
EverReader
Disclaimer: Not mine.
How To Fix A Winchester- Chapter Three
"The Unfortunate Thing About Swimming In November"
Diving into a Wisconsin lake in the pre-dawn hours of a cool November morning isn't really advisable.
The Winchesters hadn't really had a choice, at the time, of course.
Peter's ghost had Lucas, and Andrea and the Sheriff would be in just as much danger, if they went into the lake to try and save him (which the Sheriff discovered, to his misfortune).
But Wisconsin in November was chilly even during the day, and that water was cold.
Neither Dean nor Sam had thought twice about diving in, the idea never even crossing their minds.
The first time Dean emerged, he gasped not just in need of air but in reaction to the bone deep, muscle aching cold of the water.
His eyes had flown immediately to where his brother had emerged a second later, already calculating how long he and Sam could withstand temperatures like this.
Dad had made sure both boys were strong swimmers with all the necessary rescue skills for a water retrieval, but there was only some much a rescuer could do once they became hypothermic.
For a second, he considered urging Sam out of the freezing water. Dean didn't particularly like the idea of Sam trying to fight the ghost in it's home turf anyway.
Drowning was frighteningly easy, even for the best swimmer, especially in cold water conditions like this, and that wasn't even taking into consideration the homicidal ghost.
Dean could keep trying and Sam could take over if Dean started floundering.
But Sam was already diving back down, lingering at the surface no longer than it took to verify Dean hadn't located Lucas either, before taking in a deep breath and jack knifing back down again.
Dean had no choice but to follow suit, but it seemed like ages before he finally caught sight of Lucas's lifeless body floating deceptively close to the surface of the lake.
He towed the boy to shore, and Sam and Andrea managed to get him breathing quickly enough to avoid any long term damage due to oxygen deprivation. In that regard, the cold may have actually helped.
It certainly didn't help the Winchesters, though.
All three boys were shaking, faces and hands pale, teeth chattering, lips nearly blue.
Andrea hustled them into the house, throwing blankets on the three of them and blasting on the heat as they waited for the ambulance to come check them all out.
The Winchester brothers suffered the cursory examinations with good grace.
Andrea was dancing along the edge of shock, between surviving the attacks on her and Lucas, the revelations about her father and his subsequent death at the hands of the ghost who had murdered her husband.
Keeping busy seemed to be the only thing keeping her functional, so they let her fuss for a few hours.
By that night, when they fell into bed in their motel room, Dean was sniffling, and Sam couldn't seem to shake the cold that had settled into his limbs, making them feel heavy and loose at the same time.
They played it off for Andrea and Lucas the next day, eight hours horizontal and the warmth of the morning sun helping them shoulder on as they said their goodbyes.
They only made it about three hundred miles before they had to stop again.
Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural Supernatural
Sam glanced speculatively over at Dean as he drove.
Dean had lowered the volume on the radio perhaps half an hour ago, and that was Sam's first clue that he wasn't the only one feeling the effects of their impromptu swim session yesterday.
Dean's eyes were bright, and high spots of color decorated his otherwise pale cheeks, confirming Sam's hunch that Dean was running at least a mild fever.
Dean's body tended to handle illness rather well, though he could get incredibly clingy and cranky, Dean's colds tended to simply remain colds, and his fevers normally broke after a day or two.
Sam himself was...not quite so lucky.
Oddly enough, he didn't seem to catch sick as often as Dean, who caught the normal varieties of colds and flu and stomach bugs.
No, Sam's immune system preferred more exotic prey. Though he didn't get sick as often, when he did, he tended to get much, much sicker.
Sam could remember half a dozen times Dean had caught strep throat when they were kids. Sam never seemed to catch it though, even if they had been sharing a room or even sodas. The one time he had caught it, when he was twelve, he hadn't just come down with strep throat. Within days his sore throat had morphed into a full body rash, a raging fever and John had been forced to take him to the ER for IV antibiotics and fluids, because it was more than a week before Sam could swallow easily.
Sam just hoped his body broke form this time around, because he could already tell that Dean was going to be down for the count for a couple of days, sooner rather than later unless he missed his guess.
Sam wasn't running a fever yet, but he honestly felt god-awful. Over twenty four hours later, and he still couldn't seem to get warm. He was bundled into four layers total, and had the heating vents aimed right at them, while Dean had already stripped down to his t-shirt.
A moment later, Dean reached over and shut the heat off, and Sam bit his tongue to stop from complaining. Over than the energy stealing cold that was blanketing his body, he hadn't come down with any other symptoms yet, and while he could always find some other layer to put on (he had to have something else clean in his duffel, right?) Dean could only take so much off.
The trick would be getting Dean to acknowledge he was sick enough to stop for the night without triggering his stubborn, macho, sense of indestructibility.
If Sam worded his suggestion the wrong way, Dean would drive an extra four hundred miles just to spite him
Dean sneezed, looking over at Sam quickly to see if Sam would say anything. Sam wisely remained silent, handing Dean a tissue without even making eye contact, and from the corner of his eye he saw Dean start to relax again.
So, Dean was still in stage one of the Dean Winchester Stages of Illness.
Denial.
That meant Sam had to play along, or risk antagonizing his brother into doing something stupid, like tequila body shots with the first lady bar tender he could find, just to prove that he wasn't sick.
Dean sneezed again, and Sam purposefully looked away, out the window. If he was very careful, and played his cards just right, he could have Dean thinking that stopping was his idea.
Normally, Sam would achieve this by hinting to Dean that Sam himself was, in fact, NOT SICK.
Dean's perverse sense of older brother righteousness would be almost guaranteed to interpret this as "Sam's sick and lying about it, therefore I must save him from himself by pulling into the very first motel I see".
This was a tried and true method that Sam had shamelessly employed on numerous occasions.
The only problem was, this time around, Sam was pretty sure he actually was going to be sick soon and Dean was too smart not to pick up on the signs of a sick Sam, even with his own illness dulling instincts.
Normally Dean would have already realized that Sam was shaking under his five layers (he did, in fact, have another clean sweatshirt in his duffel), but his own malady was making his responses slower than normal.
So, how to go about this in a way that would get Dean medicated and into a bed while Sam was still upright and functioning well enough to get Dean started on the road to recovery, before Sam's own body failed on him?
Once Dean picked up on the fact that Sam was coming down sick also, he would be almost impossible to deal with. Cranky and demanding when he didn't feel good, he morphed into another person altogether when Sam caught something, taking it almost as a personal insult that Sam's immune system had betrayed them.
Dean would insist on taking care of Sam, not paying any attention to his own illness. The annoying fact that Sam did tend to get sicker than Dean would only validate Dean's actions, in Dean's mind anyway, so Sam's only hope was to get Dean started on getting better before Sam started getting worse.
Sam repressed another shudder, knowing he should probably get the jump on his cold by taking some medicine, but he couldn't with Dean watching.
Sam spied an exit sign up ahead, and knew the next town after this was more than an hour away, which was frankly more time than he wanted to spend in the Impala at the moment. The cold and alternating shakes were making his muscles ache, and he needed to stretch badly.
Deciding that food was the way to go, as Dean had been somewhat preoccupied over the weight Sam had lost after Jess had been killed, he turned around, reaching in the back seat, moving things around as if he were looking for something.
"Whatcha doin', Sammy?" Dean asked, voice strained and teeth gritted, and Sam winced sympathetically, imagining the headache that was probably accompanying Dean's fever.
"Nothing." Sam said, shifting around more than he needed to on purpose, before settling down back against the seat.
"Dude." Dean gritted out. "What. Are. You. Looking. For?" He pronounced each word precisely and cautiously, as if a careless syllable might take the top of his head off.
Sam shrugged. "Just looking to see if we had anymore of those power bars back there." He said casually, as if it were no big deal.
Dean's eyebrows scrunched in surprise. "You hungry?" he said, voice pitched upward in question, glancing over to Sam quickly before looking back at the road.
Sam shrugged again. "I'm fine." Sam made a point to sound dismissive, as if he could care less if he ate or not.
Dean scowled in response, and Sam could have grinned at the sight, if he had let himself.
"Lucas and Andrea made us some sandwiches, but, to be honest, dude, I'm not sure Andrea helped as much as she could have. They looked kinda...off." Dean said, and Sam repressed a shudder, trying to imagine a sandwich that looked so bad Dean Winchester was unwilling to take a crack at it.
"No problem." Sam replied easily. "I'm more tired than anything. If you're cool, I'm just gonna sleep, I think. Unless you want me to drive?"
"No. And No. Don't go to sleep hungry dude, you'll be a cranky ass bitch with a migraine in the morning if you do." Dean ordered, and Sam had to look out the window for a moment to hide his grin.
Dean was right, when it came down to being tired or hungry, Sam would fall asleep hungry everytime and not wake up until morning, often accompanied by a headache caused by low blood sugar.
Dean hit his signal, easing onto the exit ramp. "We'll find a diner." He announced.
And on to bargaining, Sam though to himself.
Cue the future lawyer.
"Wish we had time to grab Chinese." Sam said a moment later, as if he hadn't just seen the take-out place on Dean's side a moment ago.
Dean frowned again. "Chinese don't sound half-bad, but the place we just passed was a hole in wall. Food's probably awesome, but it said take-out only."
Sam made a face. "We should just get back on the highway, unless you're hungry too. When we stop for the night, I'll get some food delivered. I'm really beat though. I'll take an aspirin now, so I don't wake up with a headache when we stop." Sam said cleverly, killing two birds with one stone as he reached into his duffel for the bottle of aspirin, making sure Dean could see as he shook three out.
As predicted, Dean reached over, laying his hand over Sam's just as Sam was about to pitch the tablets down his throat.
"Dammit, Sammy, you know better than to take aspirin like that on an empty stomach, just give me a minute and I'll find us a damn diner, got it?" Dean ordered tersely.
"It's fine, Dean, I'm not gonna starve to death. I might fall asleep sitting here talking to you though. Not sure why I'm so tired." Sam replied.
"Might have something to do with the non-stop nightmares you've been having." He heard Dean mutter.
"Dean..." Sam said warningly, before changing the subject back. "Whatever the reason, I don't really like the idea of sitting in a diner this tired, man. I'll probably fall asleep in my salad."
Dean made a face when Sam mentioned his normal diner food of choice, and then his shoulders sagged, and Sam knew he had him. The mention of the salad was really the straw that broke the camel's back, as he knew Dean refused to believe that any entree composed primarily of lettuce could ever provide enough food to keep a grown man from starving. It had become a personal mission of Dean's recently to make Sam eat what Dean perceived to be "real food".
"There's a motel right up the street." Dean said tiredly. "We'll get a room and order some Chinese. Then you can get horizontal. I'll just watch some TV or something."
'Sure, you will', Sam thought, smiling a little to himself.
They pulled into the motel just a few moments later, Sam tossing Dean the keys to the room so he could grab both duffels out of the car. He purposefully left one bag in the trunk though.
Walking back inside, he set the duffels on each of the beds. Snapping his fingers, he said, "Shoot, I really must be tired. Left the salt in the car." Grabbing a take out menu from by the phone, he tossed it to Dean before heading back out.
"Try and order something that has vegetables in it." Sam teased.
He walked back out to the Impala slowly, no longer forcing himself quite so hard now that he didn't have an audience.
His arms and legs felt like they were made of lead, and Sam swallowed down the aspirin he'd avoided taking earlier, taking the power bar out of his hoodie pocket and chewing it quickly so he didn't get a stomach ache.
Or get caught.
He leaned against the Impala, shivering in the cool night air. He wanted to be back inside the room, pronto, but he was guessing Dean needed a few more minutes. Opening the passenger door, he eased himself down, taking out his phone so it would look like he was just texting someone if Dean glanced out the window, though Sam doubted he would.
He leaned his head back, letting the headrest take the weight of his head of his aching neck.
It was going to be a long night.
A few moments later, he grabbed the last bag, and locked the car, shuffling slowly into the room.
It might be a long night for Sam, but not for Dean.
Dean had fallen asleep where he had sat down, upper part of his body splayed back across the bed, feet still on the ground.
Sam grinned tiredly.
His older brother was stubborn to the end, and he still had that damn menu clutched in his hand. Sam would have to stay up for the next hour or so, just in case Dean had managed to actually place an order before falling asleep, and some poor delivery guy showed up with lo mein.
He wished he could have gotten some aspirin down Dean, also, but a hand to Dean's forehead told him that Dean's fever was only a low grade one, so maybe letting it run it's course was for the best.
Marshaling the last of his strength, he pulled Dean up further onto the bed as gently as he could. Dean would never normally sleep through something like that, but his illness had him dead to the world.
Sam tugged off Dean's boots and outer shirt, then pulled the lightest blanket in the room over his sleeping brother.
He laid the salt lines, and secured the room.
Then he pulled up a chair and sat down to wait for the Chinese that probably wasn't coming.