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spnmysteryyearsTitle: No More Let Sorrows Grow
Author: SylvanWitch
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Category: Gen, pre-series, angst, holiday-related, wee!chesters
Summary: Christmas Eve, blizzard, Kansas. And still, this isn't the worst holiday Dean's ever had.
Author's Notes: The title is taken from the rarely-sung (and darkest) verse of "Joy to the World." Great thanks to the lovely, talented, patient, and speedy![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chemm80 , who beta'd for me. All mistakes are mine and mine alone.
Disclaimer: If they were mine, they might sometimes have this kind of joy.
Scott City, Kansas, has little to recommend it except that it springs out of the prairie where two highways meet.
Since it’s the nearest thing to civilization Dean’s going to get, he’s hoping to find it soon.
Of course, caught in the middle of a driving snowstorm, he can’t see fuck-all but the two narrow cones of the headlights funneling snow in front of the Impala and the shadows that snow casts back at him, making him blink. He keeps the broken yellow to his left as best he can and startles every time headlights appear from the other direction out of the furious teeth of the storm.
He forgets between cars that the world still exists outside the dizzying tunnel of the blizzard.
His eyes feel like they’ve been rubbed with sand, and his hands are gripping the wheel so tightly his knuckles ache. All he wants to do is stop moving.
The first building looms ominously out of the storm, shadowy and uncertain, like the snow is forming into shapes to lure unsuspecting travelers. As he’s passing, he sees it’s a church, no lights on, no sanctuary there for him anyway.
The next building is almost by him when Dean realizes it’s a motel, the neon Lazy-R sign wavering mirage-like in the billowing gusts of white.
It takes him three tries to get the door of the Impala open. He’s frozen to the bone the minute he steps outside, and in the six hard steps it takes him to get to the office door, he’s soaked through except where the heavy leather does its work.
The guy behind the desk is withered, shrunken, skin hanging in strange folds from his cheekbones and jowls, eyes yellow behind coke-bottle glasses with heavy brown frames that stopped being fashionable when Eisenhower was in office. Hands brown with liver-spots shake in jerky rhythm as they hand him an old-fashioned ledger. His voice shakes, too, when he says, “Sign here.”
Dean uses the name on his credit card, “Joseph Gaspar,” and takes the key on its big wooden fob with a nod and a tired, “Thank you.”
A faint, “Happy holidays,” follows him out the door and is swallowed by the howling wind.
Once he’s in his room, wards up, wet clothes in a pile on the floor, steam billowing out of the bathroom as the shower stall warms up, Dean lets himself slump on the edge of the bed, closes his eyes and rests his head in his hands.
He’s had worse Christmas Eves. Like the one they spent in northern Idaho hunting rumors of a Wendigo that turned out to be an elaborate Christmas hoax planned by the local chamber of commerce to try to bring in tourists for snowmobile season.
Or the year Dad never made it back to him and Sam, when Dean had to tell his little brother a truth a lot more painful than the one about Santa Claus.
Dragging a hand over his face, Dean hauls himself to his feet and shuffles into the bathroom, shucking his damp boxers before climbing into the shower. At least the water is warm.
Later, heat cranked on the in-room radiator, last of the beers he had stashed in the trunk sliding smoothly down his throat, Jimmy Stewart talking about heaven on the little TV, Dean decides that yeah, he’s had worse holidays, for sure.
But he’s had better ones, too.
Of course, the best Christmas they ever had had started out really bad in Gladwin, Michigan.
Sam is seven and sick. Really sick. The kind of sick that has Dean thinking about hospitals and child services. It had started as a cold, the usual snotty nose, clogged throat crud that ran through elementary schools like rumor in the winter months.
But the cough had settled, growing wet and deep, and now Sam is wheezing, tightness in his chest making him gasp every third breath, face pale except for two high spots of red, one on each cheek.
He’s lost at least ten pounds in the last week.
Dean’s been letting Sam sleep on the couch because it’s easier for him to breathe when he’s propped up against the arm, flat pillows, all the life beaten out of them, stacked behind him. Dean hates not being close enough to hear his little brother in the middle of the night, though, so he’s taken to keeping watch in the ragged recliner that sits catty-corner to the couch.
The wobbly, imitation-oak coffee table between them is piled high with dirty tissues and the silver wrappers of store-brand strawberry toaster tarts, the only thing Sam’s wanted to eat for the last three days, if he eats at all.
It’s a good thing Sam’s appetite is mostly gone because Dean’s almost out of money. Dad was supposed to be back six days ago, and though Dean’s been making it stretch, going without meals himself, getting by five finger discount the Children’s Tylenol he’s been spooning into Sam, he’s pretty sure the three dollars and twenty-four cents he has left isn’t going to convince the gas company to turn the heat back on in their crappy two-room rental.
If he could get to the gas company.
If it wouldn’t mean bringing the authorities down on them.
He notices it’s colder than it should be when he’s startled out of sleep by Sam hacking, a long, ragged coughing jag that leaves him panting, face streaked with tears, one hand clutching high up on his ribs, like he’s trying to hold the cough in or keep his insides from bursting out.
“Hey,” Dean says, squatting beside his little brother, steadying himself on the cushion’s edge, the frayed, coarse fabric making his palm itch. With the other hand, he touches Sam’s forehead, alarmed to feel the heat radiating off of his skin even before his palm comes in contact with the damp flesh.
“I’ll get you some more Tylenol.”
He bites his lip on the way to the kitchen, where he keeps the bottle. Sam’s had double the recommended dosage already, and it’s not doing a damned bit of good as far as he can tell.
When his sock-clad feet hit the warped bare linoleum of the kitchenette floor, the cold drives through his heels like a knife blade, and he shudders, rubbing his arms convulsively. That’s when he remembers how cold it is in the house.
With rising dread, Tylenol momentarily forgotten, Dean moves to the ancient plastic thermostat on the wall by the hallway to the bedrooms.
Like he thought, it’s set at 63, like his dad always insists on, no matter the outside temperature.
But the little thermometer on the bottom of the dial reads 56.
“Fuck,” he breathes, shivering a little with the way the forbidden word hangs on the cold air about his lips.
Another coughing fit from Sam brings him back to his more immediate problem, and Dean’s back in the kitchen, floor freezing his toes numb, carefully measuring out the liquid in the little plastic shot-glass.
But Sam can hardly swallow it when Dean pours it into his mouth, holding him at the back of the neck, soothing him with meaningless and mostly untrue words.
“It hurts,” Sam says, voice reduced to a ragged whisper. Dean can hear the way his brother’s breath catches in the back of his throat, can see how it exhausts Sam even to sit up and swallow.
“I know, Sammy. But it’ll make you feel better.”
Sam’s eyes flutter shut, hiding whatever he might be thinking. Dean thinks maybe they both know that he’s lying.
Back in the kitchen, he busies himself to avoid dwelling on how cold it is.
“Fuck,” Dean says again, dropping his head to stare sightlessly at the water running out of the tap and into the sticky medicine cup, flowing over the edges, down his fingers, temporarily warming his hands.
They don’t take charity. It's one of Dad's hard and fast rules. But Dad's not around, hasn’t even called to let them know why he’s late or when he might be back.
Measuring the likelihood of his father’s displeasure against the possibility of Sam’s illness turning into something worse than what his father’s out there hunting, Dean replaces the medicine cup and moves to the phone on the wall next to the ancient refrigerator.
With fingers that shake as much from cold as from the anxiety spiking through him, Dean dials the number his father made him memorize when he was five.
“Hello, Pastor Jim?”
*****
He’d been expecting the knock at the door, but it still startles him, late as the hour is, Sam having finally fallen into a fitful, feverish, tossing-and-turning kind of sleep.
He looks out the side window first, but the porch light’s been out since they moved in, and Dad never got around to replacing the bulb before he left. The gun makes him feel better, though, and the training helps him hold it steady while he unlocks and opens the door a crack.
“You Dean?”
He looks up—and up—at the guy, who’s wearing a uniform and cap with a familiar yellow logo.
“Yes, sir.”
“Sign here.”
Dean’s only eleven, but even he knows that Western Union guys don’t generally deliver at three o’clock in the morning. He’s also pretty sure they aren’t supposed to hand over four hundred bucks in cash to a kid.
Still, he figures Pastor Jim must know some people the same way their dad always does, so he stows the gun out of sight but within reach, signs where he’s told, and accepts the money with a, “Thanks.”
“Happy holidays,” the guy answers, already heading for the car idling out front.
Before he closes the door, Dean peers up into the night sky. It’s freezing out, and the stars are brilliant, so close he could almost grab one. He shivers, suddenly feeling exposed and small, and closes the door, locking it and then putting the door gun back where it belongs.
He has a bed gun, too, of course, but that’s in the back room.
“We’re in business, Sammy,” he says to his still-sleeping brother. He spends the hours before daylight getting them both ready to go, so when the cab pulls up out front to take them to the bus station, they’re waiting, even Sammy, though he’s swaying on his feet and shuddering enough that Dean can hear his teeth clacking together.
“Take it easy, Sammy. We’ll be there in no time. You’ll see.”
The bus station is an exercise in diverting attention. It’s three days before Christmas, and even at the crack of dawn, the place is bustling with people.
Good news and bad.
Good because they can blend in with the crowd, attach themselves to a family, hanging just on the indefinite edges, close enough to seem like they belong with the mom and dad and two blonde girls but just far enough out of range to avoid awkward questions from the family they’re borrowing for the occasion.
Bad because more people means more eyes, and more eyes means more likelihood of someone actually noticing Sam’s condition.
Dean’s got an arm slung around his brother, holding him up, sometimes dragging him, toward a grouping of hard plastic seats, shared armrests sticky with an accretion of indefinite things, kids running and shoving, parents yelling, old folks grumbling to themselves. A woman in a business suit clacks along briskly, suitcase trailing behind her on obedient wheels. Two men, both in track suits, hustle toward the loading area as the loudspeaker announces a six a.m. departure to Boise.
Dean almost wishes they were going to Boise, if only to be out of the bustle and rush of the place.
He leaves Sam reluctantly and only after many stern instructions. “Don’t talk to anybody. If anybody talks to you, say our dad’s in the men’s room. Don’t let anyone touch your bag. I’ll be right back, okay, Sammy? I just gotta get us our tickets.”
Sam nods, shiver wracking his shoulders, face a mask of misery. Dean relents.
Kneeling on the hard, cold tile, Dean ducks so that he can see his little brother’s down-turned face. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, Sammy. Really. Dad will call any minute now, you’ll see. And Pastor Jim’s awesome, remember?”
Another nod, this one less coordinated as a shiver catches him in the middle of it.
“Sammy?”
At last, glassy eyes meet Dean’s. “I’ll be okay, Dean. You can leave me here. Just get our tickets.”
“That’s my Sammy,” Dean says, slapping his brother lightly on the knee. Despite Sam’s reassurances, Dean can’t help but look back when he’s halfway across the concourse. His brother looks small and helpless, like the tide of people passing on every side might sweep him up and carry him off, never to be seen again.
Dean doubles his time to the window.
He shifts his weight impatiently, foot to foot, while the line crawls forward one person at a time. Finally, though, it’s his turn, and he sighs with relief that the counter help is too distracted by the holiday rush to notice exactly how old Dean is.
Tickets tucked inside his shirt pocket under his jacket, Dean heads back to Sam, who he’s relieved to find right where he left him and thankfully unmolested.
Their luck holds until they’re in their bus seats, tickets validated, bags stowed beneath their seats.
A woman two rows ahead keeps craning her head over her seat to look at Dean and Sam. Just as the driver announces that they’re about to leave the station, she gets up and walks back to them.
“Where are your parents, sweetie?” She asks, her voice cloying and sugary.
Dean puts on his best happy-boy smile and says, “Mom’s dead. Dad’s got to work the holiday, so we’re going to stay with Pastor Jim for Christmas.”
He makes it sound like toy trains and candy canes are looming large in their immediate future.
“Oh,” she answers, her do-gooding obviously deflated by the mention of a man of God. “Well, I hope you have a merry Christmas.”
“Thank you, ma’am. You, too,” Dean says.
Sam, who’d feigned sleep through the exchange, slits one eye open as she resumes her seat. The brothers share a look that levers a weak smile out of Sam.
Soon, they’re on the road, Sam asleep, cough quiet for once, cheeks still fever-red, hair sweaty. Dean settles in with a back issue of Popular Mechanics he swiped from the terminal and tries to read. But he’s tired, too, and it’s warm on the bus, the seats plush and comfortable, the gentle hum of forward motion familiar.
He awakens with a start to a hand on his arm.
“Is he alright?”
The woman again, this time her face worried, eyes fixed on Sam, whose cough has just now penetrated the haze of Dean’s exhaustion.
Dean takes in Sam’s condition, heart clutching in his chest at how pale Sam is, how hard he’s struggling to take a full breath.
“He just needs his medicine,” Dean asserts confidently, trying not to show her how his hands shake as he gets his bag out from under the seat and digs around for the Tylenol. The bottle is almost empty.
He gives her a look to try to move her along, but she sticks stubbornly beside him as he pours out the last drop of the liquid and turns carefully toward Sam to give it to him.
“Hey, kid,” Dean says, careful not to use his brother’s name in front of the stranger, “Open up. Time for your medicine.”
But Sammy’s not really with them, eyes open but unfocused, breath rasping in his chest, cheeks on fire with fever.
Dean tries not to let his alarm show on his face when he touches Sam’s cheek and feels its heat. “Open up, kid,” he says again, letting out a silent breath of relief when Sam does as he’s told.
Sammy gets maybe half the liquid down before a coughing fit spatters the sticky red over Dean’s face and hands.
“Oh, dear,” the woman murmurs, pulling a tissue from her purse and handing it to Dean.
“He’s okay. The Tylenol helps. And we’ll be at Pastor Jim’s soon.” Dean repeats the minister’s title in the hopes that it will get the woman to back off.
Still she lingers.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Dean reiterates, shifting in his seat a little to get her out of their personal space.
“I don’t know…” she dithers.
At last, though, Sammy falls into a fitful doze, and the woman goes back to her seat.
Dean bumps his head against the seat back and wishes the bus along faster.
The nosy woman gets off at the station in Joliet, where the bus empties some. Dean would like to get out himself, stretch his legs, buy something from the vending machines for him and Sam, but he doesn’t want to leave his brother.
“Hey,” he hears, looking up to find a skinny girl with stringy brown hair standing in the aisle beside them. She’s got a guitar slung over her back, and her fingers, callused and raw-looking, clutch a stained Army duffle. “You want anything from inside? I’ll get it.”
Dean narrows his eyes, considering the likelihood that she’ll just take off with whatever money he gives her, but a look at Sam’s sweaty face, eyes twitching under their lids, convinces him that fluids, at least, are a good idea.
“Thanks, yeah, that’d be cool.” He hands her some money, asks her to get juice or water if they have it, soda if they don’t.
“What about something to eat?”
He shrugs. She’s holding the last of their own money, the three bucks he had left of what Dad had given Dean to spend. He feels weird breaking into the change left over from the bus tickets. It’s not his money, and every dime they spend, he’ll have to pay back.
“I’ll get you something,” she says, starting to move away.
“Wait!” He says it louder than he meant to, panic and discomfort driving his voice up. “Hang on,” he continues, quieter. “I’ve got some money.” He hands her a ten. “Get something for yourself, too, sweetheart.”
She gives him a strange look and then laughs a little. That’s not the reaction his father usually gets.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” he says again, feeling awkward and strange.
Beside him, Sam moans and tosses his head against the window, which is fogged up from the heat of his fever. Dean pats him on the arm. “Take it easy, Sammy. Just a few more hours.”
He hopes.
Go here for Part II.
Peace,
SW
Author: SylvanWitch
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Category: Gen, pre-series, angst, holiday-related, wee!chesters
Summary: Christmas Eve, blizzard, Kansas. And still, this isn't the worst holiday Dean's ever had.
Author's Notes: The title is taken from the rarely-sung (and darkest) verse of "Joy to the World." Great thanks to the lovely, talented, patient, and speedy
chemm80 , who beta'd for me. All mistakes are mine and mine alone. Disclaimer: If they were mine, they might sometimes have this kind of joy.
Scott City, Kansas, has little to recommend it except that it springs out of the prairie where two highways meet.
Since it’s the nearest thing to civilization Dean’s going to get, he’s hoping to find it soon.
Of course, caught in the middle of a driving snowstorm, he can’t see fuck-all but the two narrow cones of the headlights funneling snow in front of the Impala and the shadows that snow casts back at him, making him blink. He keeps the broken yellow to his left as best he can and startles every time headlights appear from the other direction out of the furious teeth of the storm.
He forgets between cars that the world still exists outside the dizzying tunnel of the blizzard.
His eyes feel like they’ve been rubbed with sand, and his hands are gripping the wheel so tightly his knuckles ache. All he wants to do is stop moving.
The first building looms ominously out of the storm, shadowy and uncertain, like the snow is forming into shapes to lure unsuspecting travelers. As he’s passing, he sees it’s a church, no lights on, no sanctuary there for him anyway.
The next building is almost by him when Dean realizes it’s a motel, the neon Lazy-R sign wavering mirage-like in the billowing gusts of white.
It takes him three tries to get the door of the Impala open. He’s frozen to the bone the minute he steps outside, and in the six hard steps it takes him to get to the office door, he’s soaked through except where the heavy leather does its work.
The guy behind the desk is withered, shrunken, skin hanging in strange folds from his cheekbones and jowls, eyes yellow behind coke-bottle glasses with heavy brown frames that stopped being fashionable when Eisenhower was in office. Hands brown with liver-spots shake in jerky rhythm as they hand him an old-fashioned ledger. His voice shakes, too, when he says, “Sign here.”
Dean uses the name on his credit card, “Joseph Gaspar,” and takes the key on its big wooden fob with a nod and a tired, “Thank you.”
A faint, “Happy holidays,” follows him out the door and is swallowed by the howling wind.
Once he’s in his room, wards up, wet clothes in a pile on the floor, steam billowing out of the bathroom as the shower stall warms up, Dean lets himself slump on the edge of the bed, closes his eyes and rests his head in his hands.
He’s had worse Christmas Eves. Like the one they spent in northern Idaho hunting rumors of a Wendigo that turned out to be an elaborate Christmas hoax planned by the local chamber of commerce to try to bring in tourists for snowmobile season.
Or the year Dad never made it back to him and Sam, when Dean had to tell his little brother a truth a lot more painful than the one about Santa Claus.
Dragging a hand over his face, Dean hauls himself to his feet and shuffles into the bathroom, shucking his damp boxers before climbing into the shower. At least the water is warm.
Later, heat cranked on the in-room radiator, last of the beers he had stashed in the trunk sliding smoothly down his throat, Jimmy Stewart talking about heaven on the little TV, Dean decides that yeah, he’s had worse holidays, for sure.
But he’s had better ones, too.
Of course, the best Christmas they ever had had started out really bad in Gladwin, Michigan.
Sam is seven and sick. Really sick. The kind of sick that has Dean thinking about hospitals and child services. It had started as a cold, the usual snotty nose, clogged throat crud that ran through elementary schools like rumor in the winter months.
But the cough had settled, growing wet and deep, and now Sam is wheezing, tightness in his chest making him gasp every third breath, face pale except for two high spots of red, one on each cheek.
He’s lost at least ten pounds in the last week.
Dean’s been letting Sam sleep on the couch because it’s easier for him to breathe when he’s propped up against the arm, flat pillows, all the life beaten out of them, stacked behind him. Dean hates not being close enough to hear his little brother in the middle of the night, though, so he’s taken to keeping watch in the ragged recliner that sits catty-corner to the couch.
The wobbly, imitation-oak coffee table between them is piled high with dirty tissues and the silver wrappers of store-brand strawberry toaster tarts, the only thing Sam’s wanted to eat for the last three days, if he eats at all.
It’s a good thing Sam’s appetite is mostly gone because Dean’s almost out of money. Dad was supposed to be back six days ago, and though Dean’s been making it stretch, going without meals himself, getting by five finger discount the Children’s Tylenol he’s been spooning into Sam, he’s pretty sure the three dollars and twenty-four cents he has left isn’t going to convince the gas company to turn the heat back on in their crappy two-room rental.
If he could get to the gas company.
If it wouldn’t mean bringing the authorities down on them.
He notices it’s colder than it should be when he’s startled out of sleep by Sam hacking, a long, ragged coughing jag that leaves him panting, face streaked with tears, one hand clutching high up on his ribs, like he’s trying to hold the cough in or keep his insides from bursting out.
“Hey,” Dean says, squatting beside his little brother, steadying himself on the cushion’s edge, the frayed, coarse fabric making his palm itch. With the other hand, he touches Sam’s forehead, alarmed to feel the heat radiating off of his skin even before his palm comes in contact with the damp flesh.
“I’ll get you some more Tylenol.”
He bites his lip on the way to the kitchen, where he keeps the bottle. Sam’s had double the recommended dosage already, and it’s not doing a damned bit of good as far as he can tell.
When his sock-clad feet hit the warped bare linoleum of the kitchenette floor, the cold drives through his heels like a knife blade, and he shudders, rubbing his arms convulsively. That’s when he remembers how cold it is in the house.
With rising dread, Tylenol momentarily forgotten, Dean moves to the ancient plastic thermostat on the wall by the hallway to the bedrooms.
Like he thought, it’s set at 63, like his dad always insists on, no matter the outside temperature.
But the little thermometer on the bottom of the dial reads 56.
“Fuck,” he breathes, shivering a little with the way the forbidden word hangs on the cold air about his lips.
Another coughing fit from Sam brings him back to his more immediate problem, and Dean’s back in the kitchen, floor freezing his toes numb, carefully measuring out the liquid in the little plastic shot-glass.
But Sam can hardly swallow it when Dean pours it into his mouth, holding him at the back of the neck, soothing him with meaningless and mostly untrue words.
“It hurts,” Sam says, voice reduced to a ragged whisper. Dean can hear the way his brother’s breath catches in the back of his throat, can see how it exhausts Sam even to sit up and swallow.
“I know, Sammy. But it’ll make you feel better.”
Sam’s eyes flutter shut, hiding whatever he might be thinking. Dean thinks maybe they both know that he’s lying.
Back in the kitchen, he busies himself to avoid dwelling on how cold it is.
“Fuck,” Dean says again, dropping his head to stare sightlessly at the water running out of the tap and into the sticky medicine cup, flowing over the edges, down his fingers, temporarily warming his hands.
They don’t take charity. It's one of Dad's hard and fast rules. But Dad's not around, hasn’t even called to let them know why he’s late or when he might be back.
Measuring the likelihood of his father’s displeasure against the possibility of Sam’s illness turning into something worse than what his father’s out there hunting, Dean replaces the medicine cup and moves to the phone on the wall next to the ancient refrigerator.
With fingers that shake as much from cold as from the anxiety spiking through him, Dean dials the number his father made him memorize when he was five.
“Hello, Pastor Jim?”
*****
He’d been expecting the knock at the door, but it still startles him, late as the hour is, Sam having finally fallen into a fitful, feverish, tossing-and-turning kind of sleep.
He looks out the side window first, but the porch light’s been out since they moved in, and Dad never got around to replacing the bulb before he left. The gun makes him feel better, though, and the training helps him hold it steady while he unlocks and opens the door a crack.
“You Dean?”
He looks up—and up—at the guy, who’s wearing a uniform and cap with a familiar yellow logo.
“Yes, sir.”
“Sign here.”
Dean’s only eleven, but even he knows that Western Union guys don’t generally deliver at three o’clock in the morning. He’s also pretty sure they aren’t supposed to hand over four hundred bucks in cash to a kid.
Still, he figures Pastor Jim must know some people the same way their dad always does, so he stows the gun out of sight but within reach, signs where he’s told, and accepts the money with a, “Thanks.”
“Happy holidays,” the guy answers, already heading for the car idling out front.
Before he closes the door, Dean peers up into the night sky. It’s freezing out, and the stars are brilliant, so close he could almost grab one. He shivers, suddenly feeling exposed and small, and closes the door, locking it and then putting the door gun back where it belongs.
He has a bed gun, too, of course, but that’s in the back room.
“We’re in business, Sammy,” he says to his still-sleeping brother. He spends the hours before daylight getting them both ready to go, so when the cab pulls up out front to take them to the bus station, they’re waiting, even Sammy, though he’s swaying on his feet and shuddering enough that Dean can hear his teeth clacking together.
“Take it easy, Sammy. We’ll be there in no time. You’ll see.”
The bus station is an exercise in diverting attention. It’s three days before Christmas, and even at the crack of dawn, the place is bustling with people.
Good news and bad.
Good because they can blend in with the crowd, attach themselves to a family, hanging just on the indefinite edges, close enough to seem like they belong with the mom and dad and two blonde girls but just far enough out of range to avoid awkward questions from the family they’re borrowing for the occasion.
Bad because more people means more eyes, and more eyes means more likelihood of someone actually noticing Sam’s condition.
Dean’s got an arm slung around his brother, holding him up, sometimes dragging him, toward a grouping of hard plastic seats, shared armrests sticky with an accretion of indefinite things, kids running and shoving, parents yelling, old folks grumbling to themselves. A woman in a business suit clacks along briskly, suitcase trailing behind her on obedient wheels. Two men, both in track suits, hustle toward the loading area as the loudspeaker announces a six a.m. departure to Boise.
Dean almost wishes they were going to Boise, if only to be out of the bustle and rush of the place.
He leaves Sam reluctantly and only after many stern instructions. “Don’t talk to anybody. If anybody talks to you, say our dad’s in the men’s room. Don’t let anyone touch your bag. I’ll be right back, okay, Sammy? I just gotta get us our tickets.”
Sam nods, shiver wracking his shoulders, face a mask of misery. Dean relents.
Kneeling on the hard, cold tile, Dean ducks so that he can see his little brother’s down-turned face. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, Sammy. Really. Dad will call any minute now, you’ll see. And Pastor Jim’s awesome, remember?”
Another nod, this one less coordinated as a shiver catches him in the middle of it.
“Sammy?”
At last, glassy eyes meet Dean’s. “I’ll be okay, Dean. You can leave me here. Just get our tickets.”
“That’s my Sammy,” Dean says, slapping his brother lightly on the knee. Despite Sam’s reassurances, Dean can’t help but look back when he’s halfway across the concourse. His brother looks small and helpless, like the tide of people passing on every side might sweep him up and carry him off, never to be seen again.
Dean doubles his time to the window.
He shifts his weight impatiently, foot to foot, while the line crawls forward one person at a time. Finally, though, it’s his turn, and he sighs with relief that the counter help is too distracted by the holiday rush to notice exactly how old Dean is.
Tickets tucked inside his shirt pocket under his jacket, Dean heads back to Sam, who he’s relieved to find right where he left him and thankfully unmolested.
Their luck holds until they’re in their bus seats, tickets validated, bags stowed beneath their seats.
A woman two rows ahead keeps craning her head over her seat to look at Dean and Sam. Just as the driver announces that they’re about to leave the station, she gets up and walks back to them.
“Where are your parents, sweetie?” She asks, her voice cloying and sugary.
Dean puts on his best happy-boy smile and says, “Mom’s dead. Dad’s got to work the holiday, so we’re going to stay with Pastor Jim for Christmas.”
He makes it sound like toy trains and candy canes are looming large in their immediate future.
“Oh,” she answers, her do-gooding obviously deflated by the mention of a man of God. “Well, I hope you have a merry Christmas.”
“Thank you, ma’am. You, too,” Dean says.
Sam, who’d feigned sleep through the exchange, slits one eye open as she resumes her seat. The brothers share a look that levers a weak smile out of Sam.
Soon, they’re on the road, Sam asleep, cough quiet for once, cheeks still fever-red, hair sweaty. Dean settles in with a back issue of Popular Mechanics he swiped from the terminal and tries to read. But he’s tired, too, and it’s warm on the bus, the seats plush and comfortable, the gentle hum of forward motion familiar.
He awakens with a start to a hand on his arm.
“Is he alright?”
The woman again, this time her face worried, eyes fixed on Sam, whose cough has just now penetrated the haze of Dean’s exhaustion.
Dean takes in Sam’s condition, heart clutching in his chest at how pale Sam is, how hard he’s struggling to take a full breath.
“He just needs his medicine,” Dean asserts confidently, trying not to show her how his hands shake as he gets his bag out from under the seat and digs around for the Tylenol. The bottle is almost empty.
He gives her a look to try to move her along, but she sticks stubbornly beside him as he pours out the last drop of the liquid and turns carefully toward Sam to give it to him.
“Hey, kid,” Dean says, careful not to use his brother’s name in front of the stranger, “Open up. Time for your medicine.”
But Sammy’s not really with them, eyes open but unfocused, breath rasping in his chest, cheeks on fire with fever.
Dean tries not to let his alarm show on his face when he touches Sam’s cheek and feels its heat. “Open up, kid,” he says again, letting out a silent breath of relief when Sam does as he’s told.
Sammy gets maybe half the liquid down before a coughing fit spatters the sticky red over Dean’s face and hands.
“Oh, dear,” the woman murmurs, pulling a tissue from her purse and handing it to Dean.
“He’s okay. The Tylenol helps. And we’ll be at Pastor Jim’s soon.” Dean repeats the minister’s title in the hopes that it will get the woman to back off.
Still she lingers.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Dean reiterates, shifting in his seat a little to get her out of their personal space.
“I don’t know…” she dithers.
At last, though, Sammy falls into a fitful doze, and the woman goes back to her seat.
Dean bumps his head against the seat back and wishes the bus along faster.
The nosy woman gets off at the station in Joliet, where the bus empties some. Dean would like to get out himself, stretch his legs, buy something from the vending machines for him and Sam, but he doesn’t want to leave his brother.
“Hey,” he hears, looking up to find a skinny girl with stringy brown hair standing in the aisle beside them. She’s got a guitar slung over her back, and her fingers, callused and raw-looking, clutch a stained Army duffle. “You want anything from inside? I’ll get it.”
Dean narrows his eyes, considering the likelihood that she’ll just take off with whatever money he gives her, but a look at Sam’s sweaty face, eyes twitching under their lids, convinces him that fluids, at least, are a good idea.
“Thanks, yeah, that’d be cool.” He hands her some money, asks her to get juice or water if they have it, soda if they don’t.
“What about something to eat?”
He shrugs. She’s holding the last of their own money, the three bucks he had left of what Dad had given Dean to spend. He feels weird breaking into the change left over from the bus tickets. It’s not his money, and every dime they spend, he’ll have to pay back.
“I’ll get you something,” she says, starting to move away.
“Wait!” He says it louder than he meant to, panic and discomfort driving his voice up. “Hang on,” he continues, quieter. “I’ve got some money.” He hands her a ten. “Get something for yourself, too, sweetheart.”
She gives him a strange look and then laughs a little. That’s not the reaction his father usually gets.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” he says again, feeling awkward and strange.
Beside him, Sam moans and tosses his head against the window, which is fogged up from the heat of his fever. Dean pats him on the arm. “Take it easy, Sammy. Just a few more hours.”
He hopes.
Go here for Part II.
Peace,
SW
