A Sam-focused h/c meme!

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Awww! Our fledgling community already has 136 members! *beams proudly* You guys ROCK!

So in order to celebrate the glory that is hurt!sick!Sam, we are hosting a comment-fic meme. You guys probably know the drill by now, but just to be on the safe side, I'll post a couple of rules below.

I will be keeping track of the meme and compiling a master list as new stories appear.




SPREAD THE WORD
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Ground Rules:

1. This is a Sam-focused hurt/comfort community, so Sam should be the one in the hurt/comforted role. Your prompts may involve sick!Sam, hurt!Sam, angsty!Sam, basically anything that results in Sam being on the receiving end of hurt/comfort. (No rules against whumping other characters as well, of course, but you have to whump Sam first. ;) )

2. Comment to this post with your desired characters or pairings, and a prompt. All genres/pairings are welcome, BUT no RPF/RPS, please. Please focus on the fictional characters only.

Example A: “Sam, Dean, gen, set in season 2. Sam has a vision and passes out. Cue caring!Dean and limp!Sam.”
Example B: “Sam/Dean, trauma. Sam is injured on a hunt, Dean freaks out when he thinks Sam might be dead.”

3. You can leave as many prompts as you like, but please write one prompt per comment. If you've got a few (and feel free to prompt at will!), comment with each separately. This is to keep the meme manageable.

4. Your prompts can be as short or as detailed as you’d like. i.e. "Sam, Dean. Fever." Or a three-paragraph epic with details. The more detailed your prompt, the less wriggle room you're giving the writer, though, so bear that in mind.

5. Scroll through the comments and when you find a prompt you like, write a fic in reply to the comment. There is no word count limit.

6. More than one comment-fic response to a prompt is totally acceptable, and in fact encouraged. The more fic, the better!

7. When replying to a prompt with your comment-fic, put ‘FILLED’ in your subject line and then anything else you want, ie: a title if you have one/part numbers. It’s not a big deal if you forget this step, but it will make it easier for people to find your fic, and for me when I’m compiling the master list.

8. Anonymous posting is enabled, but I haven't figured out whether I.P. logging is off because I suck at this sort of thing. If you're embarrassed by how schmoopy your prompts are, don't worry, we won't tell on you. ;)

9. No spoilers for future episodes. NONE. We will send Missouri after you with a spoon.

10. Standard rules of politeness apply. Do NOT bash any characters. Do NOT say rude things to prompters and writers. In short, don't be a douchebag. The mods will ruthlessly delete any ridiculousness we see.

11. Questions about the meme? Comments? PM your mods! We will be happy to answer your queries.

12. Do feed your authors! They’re awesome. Feedback is THE BEST DRUG EVER.

13. If you want to advertise this, that’s fantastic! It would be really appreciated. Just copy and paste the code provided above into your journal.

In conclusion, have FUN!

Master List

redrum669: Season 5 Sam needs to be forgiven and loved regardless of what he is and what he's done. For the love of God, do it! Gen, Slash, whatever. Just get that boy some damned hugs.

pkwench: Permanent injury. Any flavour.

blubird_pie: I'd love to see both boys get taken (for whatever reason) and Dean cares/comforts a distressed young Sam whilst in captivity.

dime_for_12: Are you brave enough to kill one of them? Your choice. Sam's either in agony and dying. Or Sam's trying to hold it together while Dean's slipping away.

lassiterfics: Pre-series: Sam's first week in the dorms at Stanford. He draws a single room and is shyly buying a plant, school supplies, and congratulating himself on making his tiny little room a home. Trouble is? He can't sleep. No matter how much he tries to wear himself out, he can’t sleep without Dean. Gen or slash is fine.

dime_for_12:Sam is shut down and hurting after Jess dies. Dean takes care of him through the next few days and the funeral.

blubird_pie: Season 5 Dean finds himself with DeAged Sam & he'd forgotten how much that kid like hugs - especially when scared.

blood_ecstasy: Wee!Sam gets the chicken pox and Dean gets to deal with it. I expect there to be lots of whining, smacking hands off of itchy spots, and tomato rice soup.

dither_river: Sam is shut down and hurting after Jess dies. Dean takes care of him through the next few days and the funeral.

annonwrite: Sam had a bad back and it hurts. A LOT. Dean makes fun of him. Then Dean realizes how bad it is. Then Dean feels guilty.

callistosh65: On a hunt in midwinter, Sam almost freezes to death. Dean finds him blue-lipped and still in a snowbank, gets him inside + takes care of him.

authoressnebula: From episode Swap Meat: Sam-in-teenage-boy's body has an asthma attack. Dean helps.

wicked_crayon: Sam agrees to let Michael try him on for size. It's an extremely, extremely bad fit and lasts for all of maybe a minute. Agony, issues of self worth, and one distraught, angry older brother are the result.

slsh_lvr08: A younger Sam gives birth on Dean's lap. Impala.

annonwrite: Early S1, Sam gets a cold/flu from not sleeping. Possibly also related to going swimming with his clothes on (1.3) or riding on an airplane (1.4)?

ancastar: S5 Sam is out of his head with fever for whatever reason. Thinks Dean is Ruby and that his brother is still in Hell.

pkwench: Sam's trapped inside his body with Lucifer in control. His thoughts/anguish/fighting to break free as Lucifer kills present!Dean and confronts past!Dean.

ratherastory: Crucifixion. *cough*

rosestoo: Michael and Lucifer face off in their best Winchester suits. Michael wins and sends Lucifer back to hell. He also sends Sam with him. Dean goes to find his brother. Sam suffers. A lot.

shyriann: S5 Sam is out of his head with fever for whatever reason. Thinks Dean is Ruby and that his brother is still in Hell.

ratherastory: Eye patch Sam! Sam loses one of those pretty eyes and has to cope with altered visual perception and looking like a pirate. Dean is awesome, over protective, angry as hell that this happened to Sam, and a completely amusing little shit.

sytaxia: After Sam has gone through detox after My Bloody Valentine he's still weak and feverish. Dean and Cas take care of him.

dime_for_12: Aftermath of Mystery Spot. Sam in serious fucking trauma, Dean slowly realizing the extent of what happened (hundred days of watching him die, six months without him). Sam needs to touch him at night to know he's real, afraid to sleep because he may wake up back in the Trickster's world without Dean, etc.

authoressnebula: 5x14. At the end of the ep, Sam locks himself inside the panic room using the original locking system (keep those inside safe from those outside). They've added anti-angel protection since last time so neither Dean nor Castiel can break in.

4422shini: The semi-bulletproof advantages of being marked as the devil's chosen vessel - being able to get between your brother and bullets. Trouble is? It fucking hurts, reapers turn their backs to you/hide behind their hands when you die, being brought back to life is scary, and your brother is really fucking pissed off at you for having done it.

dime_for_12: Something involving a bullet wound. Either one that Dean has to clean and stitch up or one that is already healed.

wicked_crayon: Sam's absolutely terrified to drive, feels just as guilty over John's death as Dean, has the occasional nightmare, and refuses to get behind the wheel.

ratherastory: Sam and Dean go undercover as Manly!Maids to investigate a haunting. Sadly, Sam has a dust allergy and just keeps sneezing.

pixymisa:Sam's always eaten more healthy than Dean, but he does have the occasional greasy burger. However, Dean's noticed since 4x22 Sam's eaten nothing but salads at every meal. They don't even have any meat in them. Can that be healthy? (Sam's gone vegetarian after quitting demon blood, avoiding the taste of anything even remotely like blood/meat.)

dante_s_hell: After Jump the Shark, Sam was bleeding so profusely. Surely there should be some h/c after that? :) He'd be weak and in pain and unable to do a lot of things for a few days after that.

dime_for_12:
Aftermath of "Heart." As soon as they walk out of that apartment, Sam falls back in the same place he was after Jess's death, except worse because it's the second time it's happened and he had to pull the trigger this time. He's shut down, doesn't want to talk, and Dean has to pull him out of it.

pixymisa: a severely injured S5 Sam gets sent to the past and is met by his preseries self/S1 self.

saberivojo: Pre-series, Sam is cleaning the knives at his father's request, and Dean's out for the night. In typical teenage boy fashions, screws around with them, trying out fight fighting moves he's not ready for. He cuts himself and tries to hide it from John, but John finds out.

saberivojo: Old Weschesters. It's no secret that Sam doesn't have as good of a seat on a horse as Dean does...

dime_for_12: Michael and Lucifer face off in their best Winchester suits. Michael wins and sends Lucifer back to hell. He also sends Sam with him. Dean goes to find his brother. Sam suffers. A lot.

faye_dartmouth: Some baddie is beating the crap out of our boy. The beating could be physical (fists and feet) or more magic related (along the lines of what happened to Dean in the season one finale). Dean is being forced to watch, but cannot intervene. All Sam has to do to get the whumping to stop is to tell the baddie to go pick on Dean instead. But he won't. No matter how much Dean begs him to.

pkwench: Wee!Chesters - Sam experiences night terrors.

melanth0: Sam goes insane. Not, oh, I'm a little crazy, but INSANE in whatever form you choose and Dean must reach him somehow.

m14mouse: The shifter in Skin really worked Sam over good. Some Dean taking care of him after and the two of them not dealing with what the shifter told Sam.

rosestoo: Michael and Lucifer face off in their best Winchester suits. Michael wins and sends Lucifer back to hell. He also sends Sam with him. Dean goes to find his brother. Sam suffers. A lot.

m14mouse: Wee!Chesters - A very wee Sam gets separated from John & Dean and winds up in protective services. He's sent to a state home while they try to figure out who he is, what to do with him. Sam does not thrive in this new environment and keeps looking under his bed and in the wardrobe, closets, big scary industrial kitchen, basements, attic ... everywhere for Dean and his Dad.

tifaching: History is littered with stories of brothers. This is one of them. Two brothers set out to save the world. The cost is high and the older brother is lost. It's said that the younger brother walks the country calling for him. From Maine to Kansas to Oregon, he walks. In torment, looking. Always looking. There are those that hunt things like him and they try, they do, but there are no bones to burn, no spells that will cast him out, no rituals that will ease his suffering. The only way to put this tormented spirit to rest lies in summoning the brother to take him home.

vail_kagami: Castiel takes care of Sam and Dean when Sam comes out of the panic room in 5.14.

vail_kagami: Following their separation in Good God Y'all, Sam gets a ride from someone allied against him. 'Break him,' they said. So the bad man, rapes him to a bloody mess.

Sorry, everyone. Spammers have found this entry, so I have to freeze all remaining comment threads. I think we're safe, it's a pretty old comment-fic meme. If anyone absolutely needs to comment here, PM me to let me know, okay? ~ratherastory

Comments

[hils.livejournal.com]

Go for it! I can never read too many of these :)

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 1/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the delay, took me a bit to figure out the comment length restrictions - I've never done a comment fic before, only full posts :P

I do hope it's okay for you *fingers crossed*

The light spilling out from between the blades of the pentacle-shaped rotary fan is blurred at the edges, fuzzy enough that Sam can’t tell at what speed the fan is spinning, or even if it’s actually spinning at all. For all he knows, the lazy rotation is just an effect of his fuzzy vision, and he stares at the ceiling willing himself to focus, to latch onto one of the blades. It’s time to get up…

Sam is rewarded when Dean’s face swims into view, hovering above him, eyes crinkled in that concerned expression he knows he’s not really supposed to see. He tries harder, harder… And Dean’s face is clear, the concern being pulled back behind that blank, closed off look that Dean has been using far too frequently these days – Dean has realized that he’s lucid. “Sammy? You ready to blow this joint?”

Sam isn’t quite sure what Dean means by that – it’s been longer than the last time, so much longer, but it’s only been a few hours since he was last screaming, hasn’t it? He tries to recall exactly what hallucinations, pains, and other torments fit into what days, and realized it’s more than futile – everything has blurred into one hideous amalgam of aches and despair. “How long?” He hopes that Dean can shed some light on the timeline.

“Eight days total. Two since you stopped…” For a moment, the mask cracks, and Sam can see the pain behind that even that great, yawning nothingness can’t smother, but then Dean forces it back. *He wouldn’t let me see that. Not now. Hell, he’d barely let me in before…* Sam’s thoughts draw his focus away, and as the memory of Dean’s voice echoes through his head, telling him that he can’t trust him, the room blurs again. No. He fights it, fights to come back towards… “Sammy?” Dean’s voice. He latches on, and clarity is restored to the room. It’s almost too sharp, now. Cutting. The panic room, once a refuge for all of them, now it just slices down to his core when he even thinks about it. Inaccessible to Bobby, a dungeon for him, who knows what for Dean. Sam hadn’t thought he could hate an actual place this much, but he did.

“Come on, let’s get you upstairs,” Dean’s voice breaks Sam out of his thoughts again, and he wonders if Dean has been talking to him the entire time. He feels an arm snaking around his shoulders, gripping him and lifting, and he does his part to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the cot. Christ, this was familiar – Dean had been doing this the entire time. Helping him up. Cleaning him up. The thought brought an embarrassed flush to his cheeks that only made the vertigo worse. He braced himself against the metal rails of his makeshift sickbed and willed the dizziness to away, focusing intently on the feeling of Dean’s arm around his shoulders, and then he felt the ground beneath his feet.

“Come on, Sammy, work with me here. Just gotta get upstairs, and then there’s a nice bed waiting for you. Bobby even rolled his ass out of the house to pick up a new set of sheets for you – WallyWorld special, but hey, clean sheets are clean sheets, right?” Sam relentlessly maintains his mental grip on Dean’s voice as the walls shift and sway when he stands, and the promise of an actual bed gives him something that is nowhere near a burst of adrenaline, but still bolsters him enough to keep going.

“Might need to get you into the shower before we get you into the bed, Sammy. You freakin’ stink, man,” Dean’s small talk is both encouragement and reassurance, he knows that. Dean really isn’t one for small talk, unless he wants to communicate something else. And then he’s the king of idle chatter. That much, at least, hasn’t changed. The idea of warm water against his aching body is more than enough to give him an even further boost, and he feels himself taking steps, not quite believing that it’s his own body that he’s sensing. He feels almost like he’s floating, somewhere between being trapped back in his flesh and between being totally out of his body, the odd, semi lucid interim of convalescence. He wishes that he wasn’t so familiar with it.

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 2/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

“That sound like a plan, Sammy? Get you set up in the tub with Bobby’s soap-on-a-rope, couple minutes scrubbing, and voila – instant up-an-at-em-Sam. With any luck this’ll be the last time that I fumble your sorry ass into you boxers for you. Seriously – next time, we’re hiring a chick to do that. A hot chick. One look at your sorry excuse for waterworks and she’s bound to come running for a real man, and I tell you, I could use the action.” Sam turns towards Dean as he realizes that they’ve made it up the stairs, and tries not to show how out of breath he is from the short climb. It doesn’t work.

“You cannot tap a nurse. It’s beyond unethical. And dude, no mentioning my waterworks. Gross.” The few short sentences seem to take forever for him to huff out, broken up by panting and gasping, and he sways on his feet, feeling Dean’s grip about his shoulders tighten as he regains his balance.

“I can, I have, and I will. Suck it up, Emily Post,” Dean’s relief at finally garnering a response from Sam is obvious, and Sam feels a few pounds shift off of his own mega-ton load when he notices it. The world is coming truly into focus now: instead of shifts between razor sharp pieces surrounded by fuzz, everything is one plain, crisp picture. As much as he hates reality at the moment, it’s an amazing relief to have the world actually feel like reality. Concrete, firm beneath his feet. No more hallucinations. No more ghosts of guilt-mass past, present and future, no one… Appearing out of thin air directly in front of him.

Appearing out of thin air directly in front of him to the sound of a hundred beating wings, as a matter of fact.

“Damn it, Cas, I told you not to pull that Houdini shit inside of the personal space bubble. Remember that? The bubble?” Suddenly, Dean’s voice is far too much like the visual maze of exhaustion and fever: it is somehow both intensely sharp, and yet fuzzy and blended all at once. Dean and the nothingness, together as one. The thought stabs into his already aching head, making him want to cry as his brother berates the angel.

“We need to go. Now. I can’t transport you without risking Satan sensing the movement, so we’ll have to take your car. You’d prefer that, anyway. And of course I remember the conversation. I just choose to ignore it. It doesn’t help our situation.” Sam blinks, wondering if that’s the longest speech that he’s ever heard Castiel give, and then looks at Dean, whose face is darkening.

“We don’t need to do anything, except get Sasquatch here into bed. We can’t just take off and” Dean’s voice was building in that way of his, picking up speed and deepening in timber, words coming in closer and closer to the back of his lips. Sam is used to that by now, and, he suspects, so is Cas.

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 3/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

“They’re onto us. I don’t know how, but the devil is onto us. Bobby’s wards will only hold so long against power like that, and unless you want to put him in unnecessary danger, the three of us need to leave, now.” Cas is remarkably flat and matter of fact about the entire thing, and Sam feels his heart beat quicken. The devil is coming for him now. Now, when he can hardly think straight. Now, when every fiber of his body is a knot of heat and cold, of stabbing pain and throbbing ache, when the world just won’t stop spinning… He doesn’t know if he can say “no” in this state. Not if he’s promised an end to it all. Not if he’s promised that Dean will be safe, and sound, and away from all of his stupid, stupid demon-blood addiction. Not if…

“Dean,” he tries to meet Dean’s eyes as he says it, but the angle is all wrong, and he can’t tell what emotions are being played out on his brother’s face.

“Tell me you didn’t lead them here,” Dean’s voice is cold, dripping with venom, and Sam is shocked to hear him taking that tone with Cas. It’s the one tone that Dean has never taken with him, not through all that he’s dragged them both through.

“Not me, no. Famine. The demons that he… Fed to Sam, they must have gone through specific Enochian rituals to be tracked by Lucifer. Their blood, the essence of them that Sam consumed – it’s what’s leading them here. Bobby is adding more wards and sigils even now, but those will only work for so long. At the present, Sam and everything that he’s purged from his system are like two halves of a beacon. We need to get him away from whatever it is that was done, and we need to keep moving until… The beacon stops glowing.” Castiel’s face takes on an odd look as he finishes his statement, that not quite confused, not quite exasperated expression that he wears whenever he’s told something irrefutably true that contradicts his wishes, or whenever he’s forced to utilize the trickier conventions of human speech. Metaphor-face, Sam decides to call it. Because humans-can’t-fly face just doesn’t have the same ring.

“Sam is leaking demon-bait?” Dean’s voice isn’t really outraged, so much as it is incredulous. More and more shit piled onto his back, and he’s beginning to feel the weight more than ever, Sam decides. He tries to follow the conversation that Dean and Castiel have as they make their way out of the house, not even stopping to say goodbye to Bobby, but it’s all that he can do to concentrate on walking out into the sunlight and into the Impala without keeling over. The light itself is intense, and it stabs at his eyes, making his headache bloom, sending shards of pain through his skull. Enough is enough, isn’t it? He almost laughs at that. The world never has enough for the Winchesters. Reality is a goddamn energizer bunny of pain for them. He does laugh at that, the thought racing through his mind as he feels Dean plunk him down in the passenger side of the car’s front bench seat.

“Care to let me in on the joke?” Dean’s voice is slipping away from him, sliding about like a fish in his bare hands, and he can’t quite grasp onto it. Still, Dean is the one that loves the stupid puns, mixed metaphors, and pop culture references. He should know about the bunny…

“Goddamn bunny with its goddamn drum,” is all that Sam can manage to get out as darkness swallows him up, and deep, dreamless sleep claims him.

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 4/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

When he wakes, Sam isn’t sure how long he’s been asleep. Once he’s finally able to focus on the road, he notices that the sun seems low, as if it’s late afternoon – the lazy droop of golden light over browning cornfields sends watery shimmers over the highway, despite the fact that it is far too cold for heat lines. At least, he thinks it is. “Dean?” He looks over and sees Dean staring intently on the road, an odd look of concentration plastered to his face.

The car almost swerves off of the road as his voice breaks the silence, and he realizes what is so strange about this picture: there’s no music. “Dean?” He asks again, and he notices that Dean hasn’t slowed down at all, despite the fact that he now seems to have his full attention.

“Sammy? You okay? You need to up the chuck? Because A, the upholstery, and B, you know how long that smell lasts in this car.” Dean isn’t even bothering to hide his concern as he says this, and Sam wonders how bad he looks. He actually feels better now, it’s easier to concentrate, but that doesn’t seem to be something that Dean can tell. He understands everything that is said to him for the first time in over a week, and is grateful for it.

“Dude, I was 15, and I had food poisoning.”

“And I had just got my baby here as a reward for getting my GED, and I was still smelling your stink when you ran off to California.”

Sam tries to smile at the mere idea of them exchanging this sort of banter. “You didn’t pull over.”

“I will now, all right? You need me to?” He sees Dean’s hand reaching towards him, and is relieved to note that the perspective seems correct – nothing bent out of shape or contorted at inhuman angles, as it was when he was in the panic room. He feels his brother’s fingers against his face and leans into the touch, closing his eyes and relishing the cool relief that it brings to the hot throb of his head. He almost winces when the hand is withdrawn. “You’re fuckin’ on fire again.” Dean’s voice is lower, more quiet now, and the air in the Impala seems frozen, as if Dean’s apprehension is enough to alter the atmosphere inside of the care down to every molecule of air.

“Don’t need to stop. Just tired. Feel better, actually,” Sam smiles when he realizes that it’s true: he aches, he’s freezing and hot all at once, his head is being stabbed with each beat of his heart, which is pounding in his ears, and yet… Things are better. Better than they’ve been. He doesn’t know why. He’s afraid for his brother, for every aspect of his brother, from sanity to safety, and he’s afraid for the world. He’s afraid for the world, for all of the men, women, and children that make up the rest of the human race. He’s afraid of what he might do. He’s afraid of what he’s done. But in the end… Something just feels… Better. Darkness takes him again.

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 5/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

When Sam comes to again, he’s surrounded by water, and it’s freezing. Lost in the Antarctic tundra freezing. Trek to the north pole freezing. He screams, and feels four hands pressing down on him. “This seems to be causing him pain.” He recognizes that voice – gravelly, flat, somehow so obviously inhuman, and yet not…

“No shit, Sherlock. Here, hold him down, I’ll be back,” Dean’s voice. He’d know Dean’s voice anywhere.

“Dean?” He can still feel two hands on him, but he doesn’t think they’re Dean’s. They’re smooth, and hard, and… Almost like marble. They feel too perfect to be human hands. It’s then that his addled brain finally places the other voice. “Castiel.” He was always the best at Latin, even better than their father, and all the other languages of research and exorcism came just as naturally to him, snippets of Attik and Assyrian, Babylonian and Bayeux-Old English, it all rolled off his tongue just as well as the Angel’s name always does. It flows. He wonders if Castiel likes or dislikes that. He suddenly doubts that the angel is anything more than indifferent, considering that he’s never said anything about Dean’s repeated use of the nickname “Cas.”

“Dean will be back soon. You need to stop fighting us.” Castiel’s tone is as gently assertive as always, and he lets the words soak in.

“Fighting you? What did I…” He can’t say anything else, pain lances through him the cold seems to intensify, leaving him shaking, his teeth chattering too much for him to form words. It hurts. Exquisite, perfect, angelic-satanic-epitome pain. He gasps and hears the slosh of water around him. “Bath tub?”

“Yes.” Cas seems relieved that Sam understands where he is, and Sam tries to focus on his face, but he can’t. The world is nothing but a dark, fuzzy glare.

“Fever?” They’d thought he was through the worst of it, and even with the pain that constantly threatened to rip him from consciousness, he probably was. They’d never come this far before – he’d run off to meet Ruby long before they’d reached this point. This was new territory. Terrifyingly new.

“Yes.” The angel’s hands feel reassuringly solid against him – nothing else is confirming any sort of lucidity. He tries to look at them, but his eyes still aren’t focusing.

“Dean?” It’s getting harder and harder to get the few words that he can out, and before he can hear Castiel’s answer, the world is once again black.

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 6/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

Sam is getting used to losing chunks of time. When he comes to, he’s bundled up in a hotel bed, but he’s no longer shaking, or sweating. He takes this as a good sign. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling – popcorn ceiling. A hotel, then. His gaze shifts around him, and shapes swim into view – lamps, chairs, table, television. Ancient console television. A shitty hotel, then. He looks over, and sees Dean asleep on top of the covers on the second bed. He looks up, and sees Castiel sitting next to him, fixing him with an unblinking stare. It’s an odd thing to wake up to, being stared down by an angel.

“Castiel?” His voice cracks when he speaks, and he wonders how long it’s been since they arrived at the hotel. He certainly doesn’t remember arriving there.

“You kept calling out for your brother. When the two of you separated, he was ill and injured once. He spoke of you in a way that denounced you, but longed for you and your companionship whenever he was conscious. I could tell he wanted nothing more than to be reunited with you, even when he insulted you. But when he wasn’t conscious, he called for your mother. You have been unconscious, but you don’t call for her. You call for him. Over and over, for him, even when he was right here, holding your hand.” The angel says all this in a voice that is so lacking in comprehension, it’s strangely, amazingly innocent. And then he places his hand against Sam’s cheek, fingers lightly running down the side of his face, tracing the side of his sideburn, and then running down to his jaw. The motion is rhythmic, soothing.

“Your fever broke, and then your body went cold. We had you in room temperature water, and you seemed to chill it. He was terrified.” Castiel motions with his other hand towards Dean. “You’ve been a good temperature for nearly a day. He showed me how to check it.” Castiel reaches out and picks up a thermometer off of the bedside table. “We need to check it again.” Sam blinks a few times, distracted by the comforting feeling of the hand against his face and by the oddity of the angel’s flow of words. It takes him a moment to realize that Castiel is trying to push the small device into his mouth, but he does realize, and the minute it takes for the beeping sound to register flies by.

Castiel stares at the thermometer, “Ninety eight point seven. Dean said between ninety eight and ninety nine was good.” He sets it back down on the table and considers it for a moment, “Humans really are ingenious. All the contraptions. I shouldn’t be astounded, it’s all so unnecessary next to heaven’s power, but still… I am impressed. Humanity is astounding.”

“Yeah, we have the corner on cheap floor shows. And just wait until you see our lovely assistant,” Dean flips over and swings his legs over the edge of the other bed, and is sitting next to Castiel within a second. “How’re you feelin’, Sammy?” His voice is low and his eyes are even more shadowed than they were when last Sam saw him, and Sam wants to tell Cas to put him back to bed.

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 7/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

“Better than you look,” Sam manages to say, and it comes out a whisper. He’d meant it to be firm… He tries clearing his throat and then begins to sit up, and feels Castiel’s hands on his shoulders, drawing him up. Dean has a perturbed look on his face, as if he’s upset with the idea of anyone else helping Sam. Sam wonders if that isn’t the case.

“You think I look bad? You want me to get you a mirror?” Dean shifts himself back to his feet and looks down at Sam, trying to smile at him. “You hungry?”

Sam considers the question for a moment, and finds that he honestly doesn’t know the answer. “I don’t know.” When in doubt, honesty is the best policy. If only he’d remember that when… He mentally kicks himself. He shouldn’t be thinking about that. It’s the last thing that he needs. It’s the last thing that Dean needs.

“I’m freakin’ starving. I’ll be back. You want a burger, or am I just buyin’ for me and Sammy?” Dean turns his gaze to Castiel, who ticks his head to the side and stares at him in return.

“I have not been possessed by Famine’s spell for some days now, Dean. That was the only time that I ate.”

“Suit yourself. There’s a Runza down the street – lotsa ground beef in those things, Herr Hamburglar,” Dean is up quickly, almost too quickly, and is out the door within minutes. Sam watches the door slam shut behind him, and then turns a confused look to Castiel.

For all his enigmatic and inhuman ways, the angel seems to know exactly what Sam is silently asking, and he answers in kind, “He was worried about you. He’s stopped outside of the door now, not moving. It’ll be some time before he actually leaves.” Sam considers this for a while, and as he does, the throbbing his head intensifies. He raises his fingertips to his temples, surprised at the way that his arms seem to resemble cement blocks.

“You’re in pain.” Sam didn’t realize that he’d closed his eyes as he feels Castiel’s hands lowering him back onto the pillows – all of the pillows, he realizes, from both of the beds. “I can make you sleep.” It’s not an offer, it’s a promise, and Sam feels the whisper of fingertips against his aching forehead before the black void pulls him down again. The lack of dreams is comforting.

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 8/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

“Sammy? Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty. Soup’s on,” Sam is drawn out of his rest by Dean’s voice, and he wakes to find Castiel missing, and Dean sitting in his former place at the side of the bed. The scent of greasy fast food permeates the room, mingling with soap, old leather, and sweat, and Sam finds a smile playing on his lips – the room smells like Dean now. And that smells like home. A thousand crappy motel rooms in a thousand crappy towns, and Dean can still make them all home. Home Crappy Home. He has to fight not to burst out laughing as Dean helps him to sit up against the headboard of his bed.

“You should’ve kept a pillow for yourself,” he says as Dean finishes propping him up, and Dean shakes his head.

“And miss out on a legitimate excuse to seduce that maid? No way in hell. Dude, she’s from Nicaragua, came to the states to try to get into modeling. Saving up for a boob job, then moving to Omaha. And I am SO in.” Dean’s enthusiasm falls a little too flat for his liking – it’s all so forced… He tries to ignore it as he watches his brother digging around in a paper sack with the familiar green and yellow logo. “I can’t believe they only have Runza in five damned states. Frings man, I’ve got two large orders of frings,” again, the smile is too far from genuine, although Sam does recall the actual gusto that his brother used to have when faced with the prospect of the fry/onion ring hybrid.

“I’ll pass,” even thinking of the greasy foodstuffs that Dean was sure to have purchased makes Sam’s stomach flip-flop, which in turn makes him balk at the prospect of eating. He tried to recall when the last time he ate was, and drew a blank – he has a vague sense of Dean and Castiel plying him with water, and sometimes with Gatorade or some other odd sports drink, but he didn’t recall any food. Eight days, then… Nine? No wonder he feels as weak as a kitten.

“I’m not ordering one of those girly salads when I don’t have you around to point at, so you don’t get one of those. I did get you some soup,” Dean reaches into the bag and pulls out a round, covered Styrofoam dish, and a plastic spoon, and then makes to hand them off to Sam. He tries to take them, and then realizes that his hands are shaking. “Dude…” Dean sets the food back on the table and presses one hand against Sam’s head. “Hold out your hands.”

“Dean, what?” Sam is confused by the order, and then realizes that Dean is checking his steadiness. Or lack thereof. He holds out his hands and notes that they’re shaking visibly in front of him; there’s nothing that he can do to stop it.

Dean’s smile has vanished, and he grabs hold of Sam’s hands for a moment before reaching back for the soup and spoon. “You make me do airplane noises, I swear to God you’re doing all of the digging on the next dozen ghost hunts, on your own.” Dean begins to feed him, slowly, one bite at a time, and Sam notices a third figure suddenly materializing in the room. He tries to focus on Castiel, and then on Dean, but it’s too difficult. And then he’s losing the world again…

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 9/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

“Dean… Dean...” When he comes to again, Sam barely recognizes his own voice. It’s calling out for his brother, almost without him even thinking to do so. It’s become involuntary, and he wonders when that began. Was it when he was a boy? Or later on? He honestly has no idea. All he knows is that he was woken up by the sound of his own voice, low and pitiful and begging for his brother, tears sliding down his cheeks. He’s crying. He doesn’t know why. And then it hits him..

Every inch of his body hurts. Aches. Bleeding weakness and pain and hot and cold from every pore, he becomes aware that the pain is condensed in his middle. He curls into fetal position to try and fight it, but it’s a white hot flare inside of him. He feels saliva rush to his mouth and the heat intensifies as he continues to call out.

“Cas, grab the damned waste basket,” Dean is pulling him, harshly and quickly and roughly, over the side of the bed, and he wants to shout out for him to stop, to not tug at him, but the retching starts the next moment that he opens his mouth. Castiel has the tiny plastic trash can under him just in time.

It lasts for what seems like hours, and the hot and cold flashes return to accompany the heaving. He tries to grasp onto the voices of his brother and their angel as they flutter about the room, twisting and turning around him as if on some sort of disjointed PA speaker. “It shouldn’t last much longer.”

“How the hell do you know that – this ever happened to someone else?”

“Never. But I can feel the essence of the demons leaving him. It’s as much a spiritual thing as it is a physical one. And that’s why we have to leave again. It’s become apparent again.”

“You mean he’s fucking… Broadcasting… Again?”

“Exactly. I think this will be the… Last transmission.”

“Dude, you so do not get to share my metaphors, ever again.”

“I am merely trying to make myself seem more familiar by adapting your colloquialisms.”

“I don’t know what the hell that is, but I sure as shit don’t have any for you to adopt. And we can’t move him, not when he’s this damned sick again.”

“He’ll be fine. He’s not nearly as hot as he was before. It won’t last long. He’ll recover after this. I can sense it.”

“Forgive me if I’m not entirely reassured by your keen sense of demonic-whatchama-fuckery,” Dean hisses the last part out, and the vehemence helps to ground Sam. If nothing else, it’s true emotion. It’s the old Dean. One of the scarier aspects of the old Dean, but the old Dean nonetheless. Sam thinks he might be smiling at that, but he can’t tell. Everything is fuzzy or sharp again, cutting into him. The air is cutting into him, the blankets, everything. The world is spinning, but this time, he’s conscious for it. He notices that the retching has stopped, and tries to speak.

“Dean… Go… Kay…” He’d meant to say, ‘If we need to go, it’s okay with me,’ but under the circumstances, he’s happy with what he managed. Small victories were still victories, he supposes as he tries to stand, and he feels four hands around him once again. He doesn’t understand why it’s so hard to move, as if the world were underwater, sound and motion succumbing to pounds of pressure and light dampened by dozens of feet of sluggishly moving darkness. Fifty feet underwater, at least, he guesses. That’s what it’s like, slipping through that water, that pressure. Too much pressure… His head is going to explode… And then it stops.

FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

When Sam opens his eyes again, he is being propped against the headboard again, but it’s not the same – this one is brass bars, covered in pillows. He looks up and notices that the ceiling is that crappy white particle board, and not a popcorn ceiling. How the hell did they get to another motel? He lets his gaze focus, and sees Castiel approaching him with what appears to be a bowl of freshly microwaved oatmeal in his hands.

“Dean is doing laundry. I am to tell you that you are in… Deep shit,” he draws out the phrase and accompanies it with a slight lift of his eyebrows, and Sam doesn’t know whether he should laugh or be confounded by this, “for not telling him to pull over. And you should also know that I, too, do not make airplane noises,” Castiel finishes this by pushing a spoonful of oatmeal towards Sam’s mouth. The pain was ebbing now, almost gone… And the angel was still speaking in his flat, winding gravel road of a voice, “Nor will I imitate a choo-choo train.”

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[hils.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEEE!!!! YAY! I love it! Thank you so much for writing this

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

Aaah, glad you liked it :) I've got two other fics that are becoming much longer than I had thought they would be for the hoodie_time challenge, but this is actually my first posting of a Supernatural fic... Glad it went over well with the requester :)

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[jacyevans.livejournal.com]

I love this. It has the perfect amount of heart-break and humor and everyone is blissfully in character :D I wish we could see something like this in canon!

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

Thanks so very much! I really did want them to at least show Dean in there with Sam for a few seconds - but alas, we just didn't get it :(

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[4422shini.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

Thanks so very much!

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[pkwench.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Dude, that was really just spectacularly done. Sam's weariness, his aching, and disconnect from what's happening to him while, simultaneously, he can't really disconnect from it is so palpable that I felt every minute of it. You also did such a wonderful job conveying how heavy this all is on Dean's shoulders from Sam's POV. And Cas. God, do I just want to hug on Cas.

Really, really great stuff.

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

Wow - thanks so very much for the kind comment, I'm very glad that it went over well for you :) I really wasn't sure about putting it in Sam's POV. I've got another one in the works that is sort of Cas' POV (and becoming far too long, I think I'm overthinking it), and it was incredibly hard not to let that influence this. Glad it worked out :)

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD. I laughed so hard at the last lines. AND YET. This is a gorgeous, gorgeous fic with so much excellent hurt/comfort. ...I love how drawn it is. Will re-read again.

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

Thanks so very much, I really do appreciate it, and I'm very glad that you liked it :)

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[ailcia.livejournal.com]

Well, look who it is! I was OVERJOYED to see your name crop up in this and I was NOT disappointed. Perfect in every single way: and that last line is an ice-cold corker. Thankyou, love! xxxxa

Re: FILLED: Nor Will I Imitate A Choo-Choo Train 10/10

[sytaxia.livejournal.com]

Heya!

Yeah, I'm back - working on three things right now: 1) completing Jabberwocky for LoM, 2) a Wee-chesters prompt from a challenge for SPN and 3) a Pros fic from an old prompt... Evil plot bunnies abound, as do lovely prompts, in both of the old and the new fandoms :)

Thrilled to see you, and I'm glad you liked the fic!