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To Keep from Drowning

January 27, 1987

Sammy won’t stop crying.

No amount of warm baths or bedtime stories or Gummi Bears reruns or calamine lotion will sooth him. Dean knows all the ways in the universe to make his baby brother feel better, but nothing is working anymore, and he doesn’t know what to do because Sammy just keeps crying, and it’s tearing him apart. He used to think he was a good at everything Sammy needed him to be good at, but he isn’t so sure anymore, not when Sammy is looking up at him with big brown eyes, his nose running and cheeks red with fever, expecting him to fix everything.

Dean doesn’t know how to fix this. He’s good at fixing the sink when it clogs up and fixing Sammy’s breakfast just the way he likes it and fixing the lock on the motel door when it breaks. But he’s eight now, and he’s supposed to be able to fix more. All of that is just kid stuff that anyone can do. What’s the point of getting older if he can’t help make his brother feel better? Sammy always makes him feel better, no matter what’s wrong.

Sammy’s rubbing his arms raw from scratching, even though he’s wearing his Spider-Man gloves to not leave scars. His messy hair splays across his fevered forehead. He sucks his thumb, something Dean has been trying so hard to get him to stop doing since Dad says Sammy isn’t a baby anymore, and curls into a tight ball in the middle of the queen-sized mattress. Tears stream down his cheeks, silent sobs shaking his entire body like an earthquake. Dean scratches the back of his head and then his neck before crawling into bed next to Sammy.

Dean rubs Sammy’s stomach gently with the tips of his fingers. His chest and belly are the worst, where the red dots have all but taken over. Some of them are bleeding, just a little bit, beneath Scooby Doo BandAids and antibiotic ointment. Dean palms Sammy’s forehead too, heart sinking once he realizes this is the warmest he’s felt. He checked an hour ago, and Sammy was sitting at 102.6, which is already way too high, but it’s worse now. This fever is bad. Dean’s pulse throbs. Butterflies, the nervous ones he used to get when Dad left them alone, dance in his stomach.

He needs to find a way to help him, but they’re out of kids cold medicine. Sammy’s too little to take anything else. Dean takes Tylenol when he hurts, but Sammy can’t until he’s bigger.

“Dee…” Sammy whimpers, clinging onto Dean’s t-shirt with the force of a thousand tiny dragons. Sam likes stories about dragons, the huge red ones because red’s his favorite color, but Dean knows Sammy doesn’t like anything right now. “Don’t feel good.” The crying picks up again, and suddenly these dragon-sized tears flow down Sammy’s cheeks, and Dean can’t stand it. He can’t stand seeing his baby brother hurt like this.

“I know, Sammy. I know,” he sooths. “How about another bath?”

Sammy shakes his head.

“C’mon. It’ll make you feel less gross.”

Sammy scowls. But he holds his arms out anyway. Dean picks him up carefully, Sammy slinging his tiny legs around Dean’s waist and burying his face in his neck. Tears soak his skin. He sighs and kisses the top of Sammy’s head. The toddler refuses to let go as Dean runs some more lukewarm water, getting his fifth bath of the afternoon ready. He adds the last of the bubbles in for good measure and helps Sammy out of his gloves and underwear. His baby brother cries out once he’s in the tub, scratching almost violently at his skin.

“Dee…” Sammy itches at his belly so hard a sore busts open and starts to bleed.

Sammy won’t stop crying.

His fever is way too high.

They’re out of medicine.

Dad says never to call when he’s on a hunt unless it’s an emergency. Dean goes back and forth in his own head, trying to determine if this is an emergency while he shampoos Sammy’s hair. The nearest gas station is about a mile down the road, but Dean can’t take Sammy there like this. It’s snowing a lot. The wind is bad. And he can’t leave Sammy alone here while he swipes medicine from the store, not when he’s this sick. Something bad could happen.

It’s a big deal to call Dad. Dean’s supposed to be big enough now to handle Sammy on his own, has been since he was six. Sammy’s his to take care of, to keep warm and fed and safe. Right now, he can’t do any of those things, and he can’t shake the awful, guilty feeling swallowing him whole. What if he doesn’t call Dad and Sammy gets worse? What then? He can’t call 911. No one is supposed to know they exist here in this motel room by themselves.

He doesn’t want to call Dad. He really doesn’t want to.

But what choice does he have?

Dean sighs and scratches his cheek. The butterflies are back and feel like they’re eating him alive.

“I’ll be right back,” Dean says.

Sammy sits up immediately. “Dee! No!”

Dean grabs the brick of a phone off the dresser and scurries back into the bathroom before his brother can really start throwing a fit. Not that Dean blames him though. The kid’s sick, and he isn’t getting better, and Dean can’t stand it anymore. He takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly as he dials Dad’s phone number.

Dad answers on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Sammy’s sick,” Dean blurts out the moment he hears his father’s voice. “He’s got chickenpox. A-And I know you said never to call, but it’s an emergency, and he’s out of medicine, and I’m doing my best to take care of him. I really am. But I don’t know what to do, and he won’t stop crying, and some of spots are bleeding, and –”

“Dammit, Dean.”

Dean sniffles and wipes his nose on his palm and inhales shakily. He hiccups.

He didn’t realize how scared he was until now.

“You’re not supposed to call,” Dad says. He sounds mad.

“But Sammy’s sick,” Dean repeats. Tears swell in his eyes, and Sammy looks at him with fright, but Dean can’t look away because Sammy is everything to him, and he’s sick, and if he looks away now Sammy could drown because his fever is too high, and there’s nothing left to help.

“I heard you. You’re gonna have to wait til I can come home.”

Dean’s bottom lip trembles. “How long?”

“I can be back by morning.”

Dean shuffles his socked feet, staring down at the floor. He’s glad Dad can’t see him crying. He wants to shout, to scream that Sammy needs him now, to come quick, to drop everything and run, but he can’t. His tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth.

“Did you hear me?”

He stands straighter. “Yes, sir.”

“You shouldn’t have called. You know how busy I am. How important this job is.,” Dad says. “I’m really disappointed in you, Dean.”

Dad hangs up without another word.

Dean sits on the edge of the bathtub. He feels numb.

“Don’t worry, Sammy. Dad will be here soon.”

Sammy’s fever is 103.4.

The crying has stopped.

Sammy lays in his stomach, head buried beneath a pillow as he restlessly kicks his bare legs up and down with his thumb tucked in his mouth. He does this a lot when he’s tired. Dean can’t imagine how exhausted he is. But he’s quiet, and Dean’s got a fan he found stashed under the bed pointed at him and cold washcloths on his neck and back. Dean reads him story after story in hopes that something, anything, he does will help.

Useless. He’s useless.

It’s almost seven in the morning, and a winter sun is just getting ready to come out. It seems like it could be a good day, but it isn’t.

Dean itches the back of his head and looks down at his arms. The little red dots are angry from all his scratching. Many are bleeding, but it doesn’t matter. His bumps showed up two days after Sammy’s, but he can take Tylenol, and Sammy can’t. It’s not fair. Tears swell in his eyes again. Dammit. He’s eight now. He shouldn’t be crying like he’s just some little kid. He isn’t little, and he isn’t small, and he isn’t anything other than Sammy’s big brother who can’t do anything right.

He jumps when the door unlocks.

Dad bursts in, a whirlwind of chaos that Dean can barely follow.

Sammy cries, and Dad immediately scoops him up in his arms, pressing kisses to his neck, his cheek, his hair. Dean looks down. Listens as Dad murmurs about getting Sammy fixed up and feeling better in no time. He sinks further into the mattress, trying his best to dissolve and disappear completely.

Time passes, but Dean isn’t sure how much. His eyes are heavy, and his head hurts.

Sammy is fast asleep in Dad’s bed. Good. The little guy needs to rest.

Dean is nearly asleep too when he’s yanked out of bed and dragged into the bathroom. He stares at the ground, too ashamed, too embarrassed, to even look at his dad. He already knows what’s coming anyway. And he feels stupid. So so so stupid. Why would he call his father in the middle of a hunt? He lost control of his emotions and let Sammy and Dad down.

“How many times have I told you never to do that?”

“A few, sir,” Dean answers, voice small. “I’m really sorry.”

Dad scoffs. “You’re sorry? Well, you’ll be really sorry one day when that phone ringing gets me killed. You know what kinds of things are out there, Dean, and yet you continue to defy me. Why is that?”

Dean shrugs.

“Answer me when I’m talking to you.”

“I… I was worried about…” he stops himself. “I-I don’t know, sir.”

“Y’know, I was really starting to think I could trust you more. You’re getting older, but you’re not getting any smarter. You gotta start using your head.”

Dean nods. He stares at the floor. He does not cry.

He will not cry.

“Do you ever think about how much I do for you? For both of you? Do you know what I’ve sacrificed to keep this family together?”

Dean nods. He thinks about it all the time.

“You don’t act like it.”

Dean gulps, twisting his hands together in front of his waist. He chews his bottom lip so hard he tastes blood.

He shrinks back when Dad kneels down in front of him, grabbing his arms and forcing his hands apart.

“Stop that. You’re not a little kid anymore,” he says.

But then something changes.

Dad looks at his arms for a second and then gently lifts up his t-shirt. He rubs his fingers over Dean’s dots and lets out a big breath of air. He taps Dean’s chin and forces him to look up, to make eye contact, something Dean hates more than anything when it comes to his father.

“Listen, bud. I’m sorry. It’s just been… I’ve had a long day. Can we forget about this?”

Dean’s eyebrows furrow.

But he definitely isn’t going to say anything else, especially when Dad’s letting him off the hook.

He nods. “Yes, sir. I really am sorry, sir.”

“I know, Deano,” Dad says.

Dad wraps him up in a hug. Dean stiffens and pats his father’s back.

Sammy’s up and bouncing around in two days.

Dean’s just happy his brother feels better. Dean doesn’t feel good, not really anyway, but none of that matters.

Dad is home, Sammy isn’t sick anymore, and Dean goes on like normal. He cooks breakfast, lunch, and dinner for his brother and father. He cleans the motel and bathroom from top to bottom without missing a single nook or cranny. He washes the dishes and keeps Sammy quiet and happy.

“Dean,” Dad calls from where he’s lying on the messy bed, sprawled out with his bare ankles crossed. The remote is in one hand; there’s a beer in the other.

He tiptoes past Sammy playing on the floor with his plastic dinosaurs.

“Yes, sir?”

“Can you get me another beer?”

Dean nods. “Yes, sir."

He throws away the empty bottle and replaces it with a new one.

Dad flashes him a smile, a token of thanks and appreciation.

It’s the one thing Dean can do right.

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #john winchester #supernatural fic #supernatural fanfiction #john winchester's a+ parenting #fic #fanfiction #spn #spn fic

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