Day 10

Title: Day 10
Author: tarotgal
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG
Pairing: None (Gen)
Disclaimer: Not my characters. I wish they were mine. I definitely don’t get paid for this.
Summary: Sam’s got a puppy! Unfortunately, he's allergic to it.
Notes: Written during my 12 Ficlets in 12 Days in 2013 project for shangrilada

ihtchh! Hah-Ihshhh!

Dean sighed and slammed his palm against the steering wheel. “This isn’t working.”

Sam sniffled into his cupped palm. “What isd’t?”

“These allergy shots are crap. Look at you. Half an hour after they stick you and you’re still sneezing. You’re not even near the dog.”

Sam rubbed his cuff at his nose. “That’s not how allergy shots work, Dean. They’re a vaccine full of allergens.”

“Wait, wait. Hold on a second. You’re saying once a week we’re paying forty bucks of hard-earned money and driving forty-five minutes to the other side of town just to have you injected with something that makes you sneeze your head off? What kind of sense does that make?”

“The idea is to desensitize a patient to the specific allergens. So if I keep having shots, eventually it’ll degrease my immune system’s reactions to the allergen.”

“And again in English?” Dean turned onto the parkway, which would be a straight shot back to their neighborhood.

“The more I get these shots, the less allergic I’ll be to Abby.”

Sam could practically hear Dean’s teeth grind from the other side of the car. A few times, he started to say something, but stopped.

“C’mon, Dean. What is it?”

Dean sighed. “You wouldn’t be allergic at all if we didn’t have Abby.”

Sam looked out the window. He knew Dean was right, but he didn’t like the idea. Abby was family now, and they didn’t have a lot of family left. They couldn’t get rid of her. Sam had wanted a dog for so long, and getting Abby had been the best thing that could have happened to him. “You said we could get a dog.” Sam had asked for one for almost a year before Dean had given in. They lived in a small apartment; it was all they could afford. And it probably wasn’t fair having a big dog in a small place, but once Dean agreed they could have a dog, Dean wasn’t going to have some froufrou yappy dog that shivered when the temperature dipped below sixty and who got carried around in a purse. So they’d gone to the pound and they’d gotten Abby. It had been love at first sight for Sam and, even after all this time, Dean still couldn’t refuse his brother anything.

“Yeah, but we could’ve had a dog that doesn’t make you sneeze. We still can. Like that one the president has…”

“I love Abby. We’re not getting rid of her just because she makes my nose tickle and my eyes itch. Sniff! The allergy shots will help. It’ll just take a while to work. But they’re worth it, Dean. Trust me.”

Dean glanced over at Sam. “Yeah… I do, kiddo. I just wish she didn’t make you miserable.” Dean leaned over and turned on the radio. That was the end of that conversation, and the music drowned out Sam’s sneezes and the frustrated whimpers as he scratched at his upper arms where he’d had the injection.  

When they got home, Abby was in the middle of the living room to greet them. Her tail went a mile a minute, thumping against the side table, making the lamp on it wobble; that was going to be a problem when she got bigger. And she barked excitedly, causing the shoe to tumble out of her mouth.

“Son of a…” Dean swooped in and grabbed the shoe, water-logged with drool and chomped beyond usefulness. “One of each pair? How the heck does she know?” An especially loud bark pierced his ears and caused the neighbors upstairs to thump the floor. “Hey, shut it, furry! No barking in the apartment!”

Abby continued to bark until Sam said, in a calm, assertive voice, “No barking.” Abby quieted at once, though her tail went right on thumping. “I’m telling you, Dean, you have to read those books—“

“Yeah, yeah. You’re the new freakin’ dog whisperer.”

Sam knelt down in front of the dog and ran his hands up and down her light golden-orange fur. Golden retrievers were gorgeous dogs, but he was pretty sure Abby was the most beautiful of them all. He wrapped his arms around her and she butted her head against the side of his playfully. He felt the urge to sneeze rise up in him, and he tilted his head, burying his arm in his sleeve. “ihhtchh! hihtshh! Ih-ihhschhhh!

“That didn’t take long. Bless you.”

Sam gave the puppy a tight squeeze of a hug and then pulled back. “heh-Ihtchhh!” he sneezed freely. He rubbed the back of his hand at his nose. “I’ll take her out for a walk, work out some of this energy and get some fresh… ih-ih-Hitshhhh! Some fresh air. You’ll start dinner? Ihh-KETChhh!

Dean nodded and handed Sam the leash. “Just quit rubbing your eyes. You’re only making it worse.”

*

Dean rolled over in bed, hearing the sound for probably a half a minute before he registered what it was. A fully belly of homemade pizza loaded with all the meat and veggies they had in the fridge and two beers had practically knocked him right out. Between work and cleaning the house and looking after the puppy, his energy was sapped; if his old self could see him now, it would have laughed at him. No more all-nighters researching demons or digging up graves, no more powering through stab wounds or gunshots to gank demons, no more driving for three days straight to get to the next job. Now, a good meal did him in.

A few seconds more of staring into the darkness of his bedroom passed before he realized he’d woken up for a reason, and that reason was the insane amount of barking coming from Sammy’s bedroom. He distinctly remembered Sam’s allergist saying Sam should keep the dog out of his bedroom, but Sam had selective hearing when it came to that dog. He didn’t even seem to hear the barking now. “Aw, shut up!” Dean moaned. Then, loudly, “No barking!” That didn’t work. So he pulled himself out of bed and stumbled next door. His hand was on the doorknob to Sam’s room when he heard a crash of glass. And a yell.

Dean burst in just as Sam fired a gunshot toward the broken window, just a few feet from the bed. Or, more specifically, fired at the man trying to get into the room through the window. The man yelled and fell back onto the fire escape, clutching his shoulder. He slid down a few stairs until his feet found purchase on the metal, then he was off and running. Dean stuck his head out of the window, careful to avoid the broken glass around the window frame, and saw the man make a clean getaway.

Then he turned to see Sam sitting up in bed, breathing heavily, sliding his gun back under his pillow. Sam leaned forward and spoke with a reassuring voice. “Hey, Abby. I’m okay. Relax.” The puppy sat on the edge of Sam’s bed, teeth bared and her whole body rigid with anger, aggression. She’d put herself between the intruder and Sam and hadn’t seemed to have any intention of letting the man near Sam. Her barks had changed to growls and snarls, but these died away when Sam spoke to her. When she turned, her posted changed so that her head was down and her tail tucked between her legs. She walked up the bouncy mattress to Sam, who lay back down to be on her level. She licked his face and lay down with her head on his chest.

Sam stroked her with one hand, murmuring “good dog. You’re such a good dog. Yes, you are, Abby…” while pinching his nose with the other. Though that didn’t help keep the sneezes away. “ihh-IHTchhh! Hihshhh!” He rubbed at his nose, then his eyes, then his nose again. “ihhkshhh! Ihshh! Ih-ih… ihhhShhh!” He swung his hand to the side, instinctively, but in all the excitement, the tissue box had been knocked onto the floor.

Dean walked over and grabbed it, held it out to Sam.

“eee-ihshh! Hihshhh! Thah-thadgs.” Sam stopped sneezing long enough to blow his nose twice then went right back to sneezing again.

Dean inspected the window then drew the curtains over it, as if not seeing it could somehow make it go away. “I’ll fix that in the morning.” Laying down a salt line wasn’t going to help this time. “Maybe I’ll put some bars on.”

“The building yihhtchh! supervisor isn’t going to ih-ihhIHshhh! isn’t gonna like that.”

“Tough. We’ve still got eight months on this lease and I don’t want to have to worry about you every time we turn in for the night.”

Sam scratched the puppy’s floppy ears. She looked so contented, like she was smiling. Her big brown eyes glanced at Dean, then Sam, and then fixed her gaze on the curtains, fluttering slightly from the breeze coming in through the open window.  Sam smiled back at her. “I-ihhh-I don’t think you hah-have to worry ihhschhh! about me as much anymore, Dean.”

Dean left Sam’s room, closing the door behind him, and leaned back against it with a sigh. He was always going to worry about his little brother. He was going to worry that he really should have thought about getting that GED and maybe some community college classes under his belt so he could get a better job that would land them an apartment in a better part of town. He was going to worry Sam was going to spend the rest of his life with a dog in his bed and a constantly sneezy expression on his face. He was going to worry that he wasn’t going to get any sleep for the rest of the night now. But he wasn’t going to worry about Sam’s safety. She might have the wrong kind of fur, she might have accidents on the carpet, and she might chew up every left shoe in Dean’s closet, but Dean recognized Abby as a kindred spirit. She cared about keeping Sam safe just as much as Dean did, and he had to love her for that.