kellifer | "Hospital Corners"

My flatmate worked absolute magic and my Toshiba is actually viable and therefore hello internets again!! Sekrit message for

annerbhp, I will still need you to do That Thing For Me because I will probably only be on here for the weekend as new job starts this week... eep!

Anyway, couldn't leave 3x11 uncoda'd...

Title: Hospital Corners
Author:

kellifer_fic
Rating: PG-13
Category: SPN gen, coda to episode 3.11
Word Count: 1,433
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.

“Sam.”

“Sammy.”

“Samuel Winchester. Earth to BFG.”

Sam pulls his sticky forehead away from the glass and turns his head. It had been so long since someone had said his name without the benefit of a phone line and a good deal of distance that he has trouble responding.

“Do we need to talk about this?”

For a moment Sam can’t honestly think what his brother would want to talk about because according to Dean, nothing happened. He woke up, Sam had an extra dose of crazy with his cornflakes, they threatened a trickster and then it was Wednesday.

To Dean, there was only the space of a few hours between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Hours.

“Nothing to talk about,” Sam says and probably Dean knows it for the lie it is, but he also lets it go the way Sam never would. The thing is, Sam’s never sure when Dean is asking for the sake of asking and when he truly wants inside Sam’s head, except of course that these days he wouldn’t want inside Sam’s head ever.

“Just… talk to me before you start crying into your pillow or something,” Dean offers and it is a genuine one in his own special way.

He’s expecting Sam to open up because that’s what he does but it’s different this time. Mostly since this time Sam knows what it’s like to pinch Dean’s airway shut because he’s gut-shot and is going to take hours to die. Although Dean had died thirty seven times before that particularly nasty one, every time Sam wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it wouldn’t be the last.

He had no idea if he himself giving Dean a boot off the ol’ mortal coil wouldn’t be the cycle breaker.

It’s Monday.

000

“Seriously. What the hell did you do?”

Dean’s been messing around in his bed for the last ten minutes and Sam looks up from his circle of light to see his brother get up and move to the foot. “I mean, why’d you make it anyway?” Dean continues to complain, yanking the sheets out from under the mattress, cursing when it takes him a few seconds to untuck the corners.

Sam looks across at his own bed, at the neatly folded comforter and the militarily precise tuck of sheet under it. He knows without testing it that you’d be able to bounce a coin off the surface. Dean had been loading the car when he’d paused in his packing to make the beds that morning. They hadn’t been sure they were coming back to the room but…

“Habit.”

“Twenty eight days to make a habit, Sammy,” Dean huffs, finally messing the bed up enough to his satisfaction that he can make his regular Dean-burrito when he gets in. Sam always thought it was a product of sleeping rough more often than not. Dean’s need to replicate the feeling of a sleeping bag or he can’t get a wink. “You have a month off without telling-”

Sam sees the very moment Dean realizes what he’s saying. He’s got one knee on his bed and the whole line of his back tenses. They’ve been doing this weird kind of shuffle around each other for two weeks now. Dean will get a guilty flush every time he thinks he’s said something wrong. Last time was just that morning when Dean had proclaimed he could murder a stack of pancakes.

Sam starts to twirl the pen in his fingers and just waits. Dean after a few moments half-snorts and continues getting into bed.

000

Dean swaps Sam’s pink toothbrush for a purple one that has fairies on it and Sam flips out. He’s yelling and Dean is simply taking it with his hands balled into loose fists and just looking kind of perplexed. Sam’s not even really sure what he’s saying, kind of a circular don’t mess with my stuff, I never touch your shit, what gives you the right, you can’t just change things.

He runs out of steam and Dean is still staring at him in mute worry, the kind he used to get on his face when Sam and John would throw down when their father was half into a bottle of whiskey. Sam looks at the toothbrush in his hand that he’d dug out of the trash and remembers that the pink one is from Dean as well, his tarter-control dark blue thrown into passing traffic when Dean had confessed to cleaning bird crap off one of the side mirrors with it at their last stop.

“I just… liked this one,” Sam says lamely when the shakes of abortive rage and panic subside.

“You’re worrying me,” Dean states matter-of-factly.

Sam isn’t sure how to explain that he’s lost the knack of interacting with people. He had to box up all social niceties and empathy and shove it into the darkest recesses of his brain and he’s having real trouble unearthing it again. Being with Dean should be as easy as breathing, the way it’s always been and Sam isn’t sure why it’s so hard.

Sam opens his mouth and he means to say, I found a crossroads and buried the summoning box. I waited three hours before I remembered I shot that particular demon in the head and no one was coming.

Instead he says, “Me too.”

000

Dean wants to take some time off but Sam balks at the idea. The last thing he needs is to dwell and while he’s pretty sure whatever broke inside him is festering like a gangrenous limb, he also knows time on his hands is dangerous.

Dean switches him to decaf and doesn’t say anything. Sam tries to hide the fine tremors in his hands which are pretty much permanent now by always having them stuffed in his pockets or wedged under tables. He cuts himself sharpening one of his knives for the first time since he was fourteen and Dean just stares at him, long and hard.

“I’m just… he won’t tell me what really happened,” Dean says into the phone when he thinks Sam is asleep. “I’d give anything for Pastor Jim to still be around.”

He finally figures it out when he’s watching Dean’s legs under the Impala and he’s been relegated to his usual little brother post sitting atop the cooler and handing over beers when asked. Sam actually knows more about the Impala than Dean has so far taught him but he’ll never tell Dean that.

Dean isn’t dead yet, or still but his mind seems to be having a little trouble with that concept.

He’s grieving.

000

Sam lets out a startled scream when he wakes up and Dean is already dressed and has a foot hooked up on the bed, pulling on his boot. Dean actually jerks and falls off the bed and he looks up at Sam from his back and says, “Dude, what?”

“Deja vu,” Sam says and then he’s laughing, huge braying snorts that he can’t control. Dean has dragged himself up onto the bed and is looking at Sam like maybe he needs to call the white coats. When he can speak, Sam furrows his brow and deepens his voice in an eerie imitation of Dean’s and says, “I don’t see how that’s not deja vu Sammy.”

“Dude, what?” Dean repeats.

“Sorry,” Sam manages, thumbing tears away from his eyes and trying to calm down before he gets hysterical. “Guess you had to be there.”

000

Dean’s shaving when Sam comes into the bathroom and there’s a pink Power Ranger’s toothbrush sitting on the sink next to his toiletries kit. He’d been using a black one because the purple had disappeared after his minor meltdown.

Dean slides him a quick glance, like he’s not sure how Sam is going to take it and actually, the black toothbrush is still present and accounted for. Sam’s hand hovers for a moment before he picks up the pink one and slathers it with toothpaste. “Do they even make Power Ranger’s merchandise anymore?” he asks around it, leaving the toothbrush wedged in his cheek as he flicks a bit of shaving cream off Dean’s ear that he’d missed with the towel.

“Hell if I know,” Dean says, still looking a little wary, but at the same time awkwardly hopeful. “Found it in a bargain bin at a gas station. Thing’s probably older than you.”

“That’s… not comforting,” Sam says but he doesn’t take the toothbrush out of his mouth. They’re doing something here, something important.

Dean’s asking, you okay?

Sam’s only response, I will be.