TITLE: Five Times Dean Ran Out of Tissues and One Time He Didn’t

PROMPT: Sam and/or Dean. Five times he ran out of tissues and one time he didn’t.
NOTES: Written for my 2018 April meme

Five Times Dean Ran Out of Tissues and One Time He Didn’t

1.

“Dad? Sniff! Sniff! Cad I hab sub bore tissues? Sniff!” Dean rubbed the sleeve of his sweatshirt back and forth under his nose.

John glanced over his shoulder, at the backseat. Little Sammy was fast asleep, slumped against one side of the Impala, his first chapter book hugged to his chest, the bookmark sticking out of it brushing against his chin. On the other side of the backseat, Dean was bundled and buried in blankets, but still looked chilly. “I just gave you some tissues. I bought you a whole pack of them. Don’t tell me you’re out already.”

But he was. The little pack Dean’s dad had picked up at a gas station convenient store had only held twenty tissues. Dean had made his way through each one of them swiftly, wiping his nose, blowing his nose, and covering his nose when he felt a sneeze coming on. “Sniff! Sorry. Sniff! Cad I have sub bore though? Blease? By dose is all stuffy. Sniff!”

John sighed, his eyes fixed on the road. “I’ll get you some the next time we stop. But I can’t keep making these detours, or we’ll never get to South Carolina. Dean, people are counting on me. It’s a matter of life or death. You know what I do. You know how important it is.”

“Sniff! Sniff! Yes, Sir.”

“Sometimes being a Winchester means manning up even when you’re sick and making do with what you have without complaining. Do you understand?”

Dean swiped his sleeve under his nose again. “Yes, Sir. Sniff! I think so. Sniff!” All the same, he wished he had some more tissues already.

2.

Jeanie was playful. Jeanie was beautiful. And, most importantly, Jeanie was there, ready and willing, in the passenger seat. Dean was just one easy slide away from first base—hell, all the bases, if she was up for that. Dean was ready to play ball.

Finding a good place to park where the already black car would be virtually invisible was important in case any cop or other meddlesome adult should happen to come down this road. But in this town, there were more dark places than light; and given the number of creatures that tended to lurk in the dark, it was also one of the reasons they’d stayed here so long.

Pushing aside thoughts of his dad and of hunting for once, Dean turned off the car and shot a knowing smile in Jeanie’s direction. She smiled back and crooked a finger at him, inviting him over. Dean Winchester didn’t have to be told twice. He slid across the seat to her side of the car and immediately put an arm around her.

She pressed himself close and then began to wiggle. He spent a few seconds trying to figure out what she might be doing until she reached into one of her sleeves and slowly pulled her brassiere out. This girl was, he decided, magical. “Cool,” he breathed out, still grinning as he swooped in and attacked her neck with kisses. He swept her hair away, trailing wet kisses up the side of her face. Then he found her mouth and a tongue instantly willing to venture into his own mouth. The sensation was so overpoweringly arousing that he wasn’t even aware of his hand sneaking up the front of her shirt until her breast was already cupped in his hand, warm and heavy and, oh god, his pants felt tight. They needed to come off right fucking now.

His free hand went for his jeans, but he found Jeanie’s hands there already, popping open the button and sliding the zipper down. With a small moan of pleasure, he planted his face in her chest, right between breasts he knew were bare beneath her thin top.

And that was when he felt it—a powerful, intense itch in his nose. He tried rubbing his face into her chest, hoping the pressure applied might be enough to get rid of the feeling. Usually he could stay tough and use his will alone to drive a sneeze back. But sometimes a man was forced to improvise. However, even pressing his nose against her wasn’t helping. If anything, the itch got worse. Dean was sure there was nothing less sexy than a guy stopping in the middle of sex to scratch at his nose, unless it was a guy stopping in the middle of sex to sneeze.

Resignedly, he pulled back and rubbed his palm up and down his nose. Next, he trialed fingernails up and down the bridge, but the itch wouldn’t go away.  He cupped his hand to his nose and mouth as he took a quick, involuntary gasp in and then let out three even quicker sneezes. “hihtchi! Ihtchuh! Ihtchh!” The sneezes had been bad enough, but the sniffling sound he made just afterward was so embarrassingly loud he cringed.

Jeanie reached down and grabbed her small, shiny gold purse from the passenger side footwell. She pulled a tissue out and handed it to him.

Even more embarrassed by this, Dean wasn’t sure what to do with it. He settled for mumbling a pathetic “thanks” and wiping his nose and hand dry with it. Before he could say or do anything else, she was on him again, reaching into his open pants and stroking what she found there. Dean drew in another gasp, this time worried about a whole other kind of premature explosion. He pulled her to him, his hands on her back, beneath her top, tugging at her top. He craned his neck and grabbed hold of the slick fabric with his teeth. He started to ease her top off but suddenly felt it again. This time, the itch was even stronger. Almost immediately he felt the urge to sneeze and wasn’t sure he could stop it.

He pulled back, breath hitching, hand cupped to his face again. “ihh hihhh uhh-Hihtch! Ihtchihh! Hihtchii! Ihhtchii!” The rapid-fire sneezes didn’t seem to want to stop until he slid back to the other side of the car, where he couldn’t accidentally sneeze on her.

She took another tissue from her purse and handed it over to him. “Maybe we should stop?”

He shook his head. “D’no. I’b fide.”

Frowning, “You don’t sound fine.”

He sniffed hard and cleared his throat. “I feel fine. In fact, I feel great…” He came at her again, determined to at least get a look at her breasts. But the itch came again as well. “ihhh!” He turned his head, brow furrowed with confusion and frustration. “Ihh-HIHtchhh! Ihtchiii! Hihtchiii!”

From her purse, she handed him another tissue. Then she closed her purse with a snap. “As soon as you stop sneezing, I think you should probably take me home.”

Dean looked hurt and disappointed as he wiped his nose. “But—”

“That’s my last tissue, but I have a feeling that’s not your last sneeze.” She gathered up her bra and folded it, not wanting to meet his gaze any more.

With a sigh, he turned the keys in the ignition and drove. And sneezed. The tissues were damp and useless, balled in his hand, but he pretended they were enough. He pretended that he wasn’t spraying his hand with each sneeze. He pretended this were all perfectly normal. He tried to salvage as much of his dignity as he could. But that was hard when his nose just would not stop itching. “ihhh-HIHchhh! Hihtchh!”

When Dean pulled into the driveway of the single family home, he attempted one last move. But she got out of the car and was up the walk to the front door before he even had time for a quick peck on the cheek. It was then that the itchiness in his nose finally decided to back down. Wondering if he should go after her and somehow convince her to come back, he saw her enter her house and close the door without looking back at him. Through the part in the curtains of the front window, he saw her walk across the living room, bend down, and scoop something up into her arms. Dean narrowed his eyes, wanting to be sure he saw properly. It was a cat.

She hugged the orange, striped furball to her chest. Then she turned, smiled, and picked up a black and white tuxedo kitten. She put one on each shoulder, laughing as they pawed each other behind her head.

With a sigh, Dean reversed the car down the driveway and back onto the street.  Maybe he’d move on and ask Adrienne Thompson out instead. She struck him as more of a dog person. 

3.

At the time, he’d been sure it was the right thing to do. He’d always tried to be a man about it and look after his little brother, making any sacrifice that was needed. But, looking back on it now—and hindsight was 20/20; he knew that—it was the worst decision he’d made all week.

“Hn’Khshhmmm! Kihshmmm!” Sam sneezed, his hands steepled around Dean’s bandanna, covering the lower half of his face and muffling Sam’s massive sneezes.

At the time, raising himself up in the seat, sliding his bandanna out of his back pocket, and handing it over to his younger brother, just returned from Stanford, had seemed like an easy decision. Sam was trying to hide it, but the guy was obviously coming down with a pretty bad head cold. Dean didn’t really want to catch that, so he offered over what he had so that Sam could keep his sneezes and germs to himself.  

And then he wound up with it anyway. Of course he did. They’d been cooped up in the Impala, breathing the same air, for three days straight now. There was no way the bug wouldn’t get him. Except now Sam had a lovely, thick, soft bandanna to sneeze and sniffle into and all Dean had was a pocket full of tissues he’d grabbed out of the box at the motel room they’d crashed at last night.

Normally, Dean would have driven straight through, but he’d felt tired and achy and Sam wasn’t in any state to take a turn behind the wheel. So they’d been forced to find a room.

Dean had pretended to be frustrated about it, but secretly he wanted to dive under the covers and blow his nose until he felt asleep, same as Sam did. Problem was, he’d woken up feeling twice as bad and having to get back on the road at dawn. Two cups of black sludge that claimed to be coffee were, Dean was finding out the hard way, not nearly as good for a cold as a bottle of Dayquil.

But Sam had finished that up this morning, and they hadn’t stopped for gas yet in order to raid a convenient store for more supplies. But it was okay. Winchester men made do with what they had… even if what they had was a pocket of tissues, horrible coffee, and a terrible head cold.

“huhh-Tihshhhhh! H’TIHShhhh! Huh-EHHShhhhh!” Dean’s grip on the steering wheel was tight as he snapped forward with sneezes, not wanting to jerk the car off the road. But he pried one hand free to get another tissue out of his pocket. His nose was sniffly and runny and he knew the sneeze he felt coming on was going to be a wet one. But as his hand slid into his pocket, he found nothing but the cotton lining there. He felt around, fingers stretching, but his pocket was most definitely empty.

And he was most definitely going to sneeze. “ehhh.. hnnghhh!” Dean tried to hold the sneeze in. “Nnggh!” But this urge to sneeze was just too strong. And he was just too damn tired to fight it.  “HUH-EHSHHHTTTTT!” He sprayed his hands. And the steering wheel. And the dashboard. And his lap. Basically, absolutely everything directly in front of him.

“Ew.” Sam snuffled into the bandanna—Dean’s bandanna—while frowning. “Did you really have to—”

“Yeah,” Dean croaked, sniffling. He dragged the side of his hand, then the side of his wrist, then the side of his sleeve under his nose. “This is your cold in my nose. Your cold that made me do that.  So I don’t want to hear another word about… abohh… abbeehhhhh-hehhh!” He pressed his hand hard to his nose, trying to drive the next sneeze away. But all he succeeded in doing was soaking his hand. “Hhh-HIHSHhhhhh!”

Silence fell between them again, apart from both men sniffling. A sign listing gas stations available at the next exit passed by the passenger side window. Sam spoke softly. “Hey, ah, I thidk I gotta take a leak.”

And Dean, trying to catch the runs in his nose against the back of his hand, used his free hand to flip the turn signal then slide the car right two lanes in time to catch the exit.

4.

Bobby frowned at the small decal stuck to the inside of the storm door. Fireman, please rescue my cats! it read. He straightened his tie in the reflection of the glass and looked up at Dean, who was doing the same. “Maybe we should split up? I’ll take this house and you hit the next one?”

Dean shook his head. “And you’re, what, just going to roll down those three stairs on your own?” Dean said, gesturing behind them to the concrete steps he’d just pulled Bobby’s wheelchair up. “Let’s just get this interview done fast. I’ll be fine.”

“Dean... there are cats…”

“I can handle it,” Dean insisted. Bobby looked doubtful. “No, really, I can. I’m tougher than I look, and I’m prepared. I’ve got tissues. I’ve even got…” He reached into an inner suit jacket pocket and pulled out a small blister pack of Benadryl tablets. “I started carrying these around for cases just like this. So don’t worry about me. I’ve got it covered.”

When the home owner—an older woman in a plush track suit—opened the door and invited them in, Dean was still confident he had it covered. He didn’t see the telltale signs of cat ownership anywhere in the living room. There were no climbing structures made of wood, rope, and shag carpeting. There were no toy mice on the coffee table. There was no cat hair on the couch cushions. Maybe the sign on the door was old? Or maybe they were basement cats who never came into the living room? Bobby rolled over to the couch where Dean sat on one end and the woman sat on the other, angled for conversation.

“hehh-TSHHHH!” Dean’s hand snapped to his face fast but not fast enough. He turned, rubbing his nose and sniffling. Over the back of the couch, he saw a long-haired, white and gray fluffball with bright blue eyes staring at from the threshold of the living room him as if it was there to make him sneeze on purpose.

“We just have a couple questions,” Bobby said, trying to sound professional as he eyed Dean warily. “But before we get started, would it be possible to get some water?”

“Oh, of course!” the woman was up and out of the room.

“All right there?” Bobby asked.

Dean nodded and popped a Benadryl into his mouth, swallowing it dry. “I can handle one cat.”

But as soon as he said it, he turned to see another cat hop onto the coffee table in the middle of the living room. It was a pure white with bright blue eyes. It studied the newcomers then began to make a show of washing itself.

“Two cats,” Dean corrected. I can handle two cats. But already his nose felt a little itchy. He gave it a preemptive rub, which seemed to do the trick nicely.

The woman was back with water for each of them and one for herself as well. She tutted at her cat but made no move to usher it off the coffee table. She did, however, lean forward to speak softly, confidentially. “Don’t mind Snowy. He was born deaf and can’t hear anything we say.”

Dean shot Bobby a look, registering the level of crazy in this crazy cat lady they seemed to be dealing with here.

Then the woman burst out laughing. “Had you going for a moment there, didn’t I?” She relaxed back in her seat. “Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Well, it’s about your neighbor,” Bobby began. “Mr. Thompson.”

“Ohhh, poor Mr. Thompson. But I suppose he’s in a better place now.” From out of nowhere, a striped orange tabby cat leapt into her lap. It stood on her thighs, kneading. Then it turned around and kneaded some more before settling onto her lap for a nap. She stroked it absentmindedly. “You know, that poor man didn’t sleep a wink since his wife died.”

Dean saw Bobby stiffen infinitesimally and take a quick sip of water. Dean decided it was his turn to jump into the conversation, even if there were three cats. He gave his nose another rub. “How—“ and he stopped to clear his throat. He was starting to get congested. “How long ago was it that she died?”

“Oh…” She looked thoughtful and glanced over to the roll top desk standing in the corner of the room. There was a wall calendar featuring a photo of kittens rolling around with a giant ball of yarn. There was also a smoky gray cat stretched out across the back of the desk Dean hadn’t noticed before. This made four cats. And it made his nose not only itch but tickle a little. No… a lot, actually. “Let’s see. It’s, what, April 23 right now? So that would make it… about seven and a half years.”

Bobby nearly spit out his water. “What?” He clapped his chest and coughed. “Are you sayin’ he didn’t sleep in over seven years?”

“That’s right.”

“And you don’t find that strange?” Bobby asked.

She shook her head. “No, it’s sad, certainly, but not strange. That’s just how it is around here. My Linus, for example…” she pointed to the bay window where there was a gray and black striped cat with green eyes, “He hasn’t eaten a thing in all of the twenty-seven years I’ve known him.” Five cats. Or, rather, four cats and a completely impossible something that looked like a cat. What cat lives to be twenty-seven years old and never eats?

Before Dean could even think what to ask about that, a black, white, and orange calico jumped onto the arm and then the back of the couch. It rubbed against Dean’s back from one shoulder to the next. And not even Benadryl could protect Dean from the presence of six cats. Feeling the intense urge to sneeze fill him, he reached into his pocket for the tissues he always kept there and found nothing.

It was then that panic seized him. Maybe he had taken them out the last time he got his suit cleaned? But then why was the medicine right where it should have been? None of this really mattered, especially when a Siamese—seventh cat—rubbed against his leg. Dean was beyond anything he could tolerate.

Eyes squeezing shut and both hands coming up to his face, Dean hunched over. “hihh-Chhh! ihhChhhh! Hihchhii! Hhchii!”

“Ah, thanks for your time,” Bobby said to the woman, angling his chair so he could sort of kick Dean’s shin with the foot rest. “If you, ah, see something weird, please let us know.” Bobby handed the woman his business card.

She pocketed without even glancing at it or the FBI logo on it. “Oh, I will. But I’m afraid that nothing weird ever happens in this town.”

“hihhhChihhh!” Dean got up and nearly tripped over a black cat now standing in front of the couch. Eight. “hehh-IHchih! Hihchhh! Hihshhh!” A cat yowled when he stepped on its tail for a moment, and the black and white tuxedo cat took off across the room. Nine. “hih-hih-hih-IHshhh!” Dean’s hands were dripping wet. His eyes were burning and itching. And all he wanted was to get out of the house immediately and away from all these cats. A far brown and black cat with a marbley pattern to its fur lay across the front door. Ten.

He flung the door open as Bobby thanked the woman one last time. Dean made it as far as the front step before he stumbled and sat down, burying his nose in the crook of his arm, not caring that this was going to mean dry cleaning his suit again. He didn’t have tissues, and this couldn’t be avoided. “IHshhh! Ihchihh! HIHshii! Ihhchii! Hihtchh!”

He heard Bobby clear his throat, and Dean looked behind him, eyes streaming, at Bobby at the top of the short set of stairs, obviously unable to get down without his help.

5.

At the sound of the hiss, Sam sprinted from the room, pulling the heavy door closed behind him. Stopping in the middle of the bunker’s hallway, Sam lifted his arm and coughed into the crook. Dean emerged from another room, on high alert. “Where?” he asked, looking around.

Still coughing, Sam pointed down the hall. “Third… door…” he managed in-between coughs. “I set off a bomb. Don’t go in there.”

Dean nodded approvingly. “How many bombs do we have left?”

“Not enough.” Sam cleared his throat. “Not nearly enough. This place is enormous.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “But it’s ours now. And if we’re gonna live here, I want to be able to… able… abe-hehhh…” He pressed his nose into his shoulder, which did him absolutely no good. “hehhh-EHhihshhhhh!” He wiggled his nose and sniffled. “I want to be able to do it without sneezing.”

Catching his breath, Sam brandished the dust rag he held in one hand and the can of pledge in the other. A bag of Lysol bombs hung off one shoulder. “I’m ready. But I don’t feel like we’re much of a match for the decades upon decades of dust that accumulated here.”

Dean holds up the old vacuum cleaner he had been lugging from room to room. It had been a while since he last vacuumed, but he didn’t remember the thing being so heavy and clunky and hard to use. He also has to empty it frequently, which gets dust absolutely everywhere. “Yeah. This thing kicks more dust into the air than it sucks up. I cah… cahhh… cahh-hahhh-h’IHTschhhhh! Snrfff! Can’t stop sneezing. God, my nose itches!” He scrubs his wrist back and forth over his nose, sniffling. “You got a tissue on you or anything?”

Sam shakes his head. “Used my last one up a couple rooms back. But we can check the supply closet. Bet the Men of Letters were prepared and well stocked.”

As it turned out, they weren’t. Maybe cleaning wasn’t their forte either, or maybe they just had more important things to worry about, but there was only a single tissue box in the closet. And it was half empty already. The fact that Dean pulled out tissues by the handful didn’t help it last. By the time both brothers were done with another room each, the supply was dangerously low. An hour later, Dean was blowing his nose into his last two soggy tissues, hoping that somehow they would magically last the rest of the day.

There was still a lot of cleaning left to do, and it wasn’t as though they could call a cleaning service in.

“ihhhSchhhh! Heh-IHShhhh! Ihhshii!” Emerging from rooms on their respective sides of the hallway, Dean met Sam in the hallway. Sam was covered in dust from floppy hair to steel-toed boot as if he’d disturbed something somehow taller than he was that had rained dust all over him. “Sabby? I hahhh… I hahhh-hahh-IHSHhhhhhh! Ihttschhh! Hihtchhhh!”

Sam looked back at his brother and nodded, open mouthed. “B’me too,” Sam agreed. “ahhh-KIHTCHAHHH!” Dust fell from him as he shook from the force of the sneeze, getting absolutely everywhere and making Dean’s nose tickle even more.

“ihhShii! Hihshhiih! Ihhhschhhhhh! Ihhhshihhh!” Dean snuffled against the back of his hand, dragging his fingers against his runny, twitchy, itchy nose. “We have… ihhhshhhh! We have to… to… ihh… hihhh-Ihchiii!”

“I dknow,” Sam snuffled. “We gotta bmadn ub add… add… hh’KIHShhhooo! KEHShooo! Keebp cleadnidg. Kahhh-HIHSHooo! I’ll try.”

Dean shrugged. He was going to suggest they take a break, but now that Sam’s mentioned manning up, Dean can’t exactly wimp out on him now. “Right. Just let be go get bore tissues at the store.” The thought in his mind isn’t of cleaning, but of rolling down the windows of the Impala and letting his nose clear out there in the fresh air. He felt like he couldn’t possibly clean one more room without some nice, soft tissues for his itchy nose. “Okay?”

Sam barely got a nod of agreement out before he had to bury his face in the crook of his arm again. “hkk’kshmmmphhh! KShhmpmphh!” He lifted his head, eyes watery and nostrils flaring. “While you do that, I dneed a shower.”

Dean lifted his arm and gestured down the hallway. “I saw ode id that directiod earlier. Cub od.” He grabbed Sam’s arm to pull him forward and dislodged a small cloud of dust that had been clinging to Sam’s thick, flannel shirt. There wasn’t even time to register it before they were both coughing and sneezing and scrubbing at their noses without stop. And without tissues.

1.

Somehow, the guns seemed heavier than normal as he packed them into duffle bags. And he seemed to be moving slower as well. Maybe his cold was slowing him down, or maybe his cold just skewed the passage of time? Either way, he’d already lost track of what they were bringing on the hunt. Hell, he could barely remember what they were supposed to be hunting.

“Think this is enough for one nest?” Sam asked, looking at the bulging bags before them.

Vampires. Right. That was it. Dean closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. How could he have forgotten? “hehhh-EHTschhhh! HEHtschhhhh!”

 “Go lie down, Dean.”

His eyes flew open. His mom was standing right in front of him, assessing him the way Sam had looked at the bags of weapons. “What?”

She reached out, stroking his upper arm and looking at him sympathetically. “You’re sick. You should go lie down.  I’ll bring something warm to you there before we leave. And I’ll get you some tissues.”

His ears perked up at this, but he still felt confused. “What?” Did she mean he should lie down in the backseat of the car? “I don’t…”

“Your brother and I can handle the hunt, just the two of us. It’s just one nest. There’s no reason for you to go out if you’re feeling sick. In fact, it would be one less thing for us to worry about if you stayed here and rested.”

Sam nodded along as he slipped a knife into his belt. “She’s got a point there, Dean. Maybe you should take it easy until you get over being sick.”

Dean nodded back. His instincts told him to man up and fight through the cold like he always did, but he forced himself to entertain the suggestion. What they said made sense. Having another hunter on the team had its benefits. Besides, he did feel pretty terrible. “All right. So long as there are tissues.”

And there were tissues. He wasn’t in bed five minutes when Mary Winchester arrived with a tray that had everything he could want. There were pills in a blister pack, a bottle of water, a bowl of steaming tomato soup, and a brand new, never-before-opened box of Kleenex. Immediately, Dean tore open the Kleenex box, pressed at least a half dozen tissues to his nose, and blew to great relief. Dean was so grateful he didn’t even think to ask why there wasn’t any rice in the soup.

While enjoying the soup, he popped a movie into a laptop and snuffled his way through it. Every time his nose even started feeling ticklish or a little bit runny, he’d grab a tissue and wipe or blow his nose or maybe both. The level of tissues in the box dropped steadily. Eventually, the cold medicine knocked Dean out, and he didn’t wake up again until the evening.

Stomach rumbling, he set his sights on rooting through the freezer for a quick meal. Dean emerged from his room to find the Bunker pretty much were it had been before he’d fallen asleep, complete with his family members standing around several packed duffle bags. “Mom? Sam? Why haven’t you left yet?” Confused, he checked the time, but the clock on the wall agreed that it was a quarter past seven. “What about the vamps? Shouldn’t you be out hunting vamps before the sun sets?” They’d just about missed their window for the day.

“We got them already. Every single one of them.” Mary came over and stroked Dean’s forehead. “You don’t feel like you’re running a fever. Hungry?” Dean nodded against her touch, feeling her fingers brush his cheek soothingly. It might have taken more than thirty years for him to realize it, but absolutely no one could make him feel better when he was sick the way his mom could. “You’ve got a constitution like your father, don’t you?”

“Oh, Dean’s always hungry. Even when he’s sick,” Sam chuckled.

“How about a soup and sandwich then?” Without waiting for an answer, Mary was already heading toward the kitchen. Her boys both followed.

With a full belly but, sadly, an even fuller nose, Dean headed back to his room. He crawled under the covers and then immediately reached for the tissue box. He expected it to be significantly depleted or even empty, but he found it was as full as if it had just been opened. Knowing it couldn’t have magically refilled itself, he could only guess that Sam or his mom had brought him a new one. Frankly, Dean was feeling too sneezy to care which had done it; he was just grateful to have another tissue. “hihhh… IHSchuhhh!”