Title: Of Crushed Tissue Boxes and Bad Codes

Author: tarotgal

Fandom: Supernatural

Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Sam

Disclaimer: Not my boys!

Written for my own SPN comment meme.
Prompt:  I would like any fic, whatsoever, exploring the sharing of a cold between the two brothers. It can be gen, slash, sexy kinktimes, or not.

Of Crushed Tissue Boxes and Bad Codes

Dean’s a mile away, curled up in the passenger seat of the Impala, shivering in his leather jacket, arms crossed over his chest. Sam knows he’s awake when he starts up with the sniffling again. He’d hoped Dean would sleep for another thirty miles or so, but Dean’s cold is one of the harder forces they’ve been up against lately. Dean looks up at Sam, blinking sleepily.

“Hey, man. Did you sleep well?”

Dean shrugs and immediately sneezes. “ihkkktschhhh!” Sam feels the spray on his wrist and, discretely, drags that against his jeans. He knows that if it were the other way around, Dean would have complained and called him a bitch and discussed how disgusting it was for the next five minutes.

“Whed are we stobbig?”

“It’s about an hour until we hit the cape.”

Dean doesn’t look happy about that at all. He sniffles and kicks at the almost empty tissue box on the floor of the car.

“Hey, that box never did anything to you.”

Dean shivers violently and Sam cranks up the heat a little more.  Truth is, he’s not feeling so great either. He took over the driving when it was clear Dean was not going to be able to, and now it’s this race against time. He can almost feel the germs multiplying in his system, waiting to take over. All he has to do is make it to Cape May, find a motel room, and get Dean inside. Then, all of the sneezes and coughs and aches and shivers can have their way with him.

“Sab!”

Sam takes his eyes off the road and looks over at Dean, who has apparently been calling him. “Still cold.”

Sam takes one more look at the pathetic sickie in the passenger seat and decides they can spare a ten minute detour. The next exit promises a McDonalds. Their coffee isn’t the greatest, but it’s warm and it’ll keep Sam awake. That’s what’s important.

Before they’re even back on the interstate, Dean sneezes “etttttSchuhhh!” and spills on himself. He ends up not really caring and uses the napkins to honk and blow his nose instead of mopping up the puddle on his shirt.

*

At the motel, Sam pays for five days in advance, hoping desperately that the ghost will be dealt with and that one of them will feel well enough to drive by then. His money’s on Dean, because as bad as Dean looks right now, Sam’s head is starting to hurt and it’s just a matter of time before he comes down with this cold in full-blown format. Sam grabs their duffle bags from the car, along with a bag of weapons, and stows it in the motel room. Then he returns for his brother.

Dean is almost impossible to pry from the car. He’s belted in and curled in on himself. He moans when Sam shakes him awake and tries to get him to move. Sam ends up somehow squeezing in-between the glove compartment and Dean, clicking the seatbelt and pulling it out from the tangle of Dean’s limbs. Dean lifts his head and, for one second, Sam thinks Dean’s going to apologize and get up and haul himself into the motel.

Instead, Dean sneezes. “Yeeee-ITChah!” It catches Sam on the cheek. He closes his eyes in time to miss the brunt of it and scrunches his face in disgust. Oh Dean. Sam bends forward and wipes his face on the front of Dean’s jacket. “Nice one. Sneeze on the person trying to get you into a nice warm motel room and a nice warm bed with nice warm blankets and—”

“eh… ehhhh…” Sam leans to the side, just in time, and closes his eyes again, just in case. “ehhPTschhh!”

Dean is heavy, but Sam manages to extract him, hoist him to his feet, drag him inside. Wobbly on his legs, Dean stumbles to the bed and tries to burrow under the covers. He’s shaking with cold and still wearing a coffee-stained shirt. “C’mere.”

Sam strips him down and then bundles him up again, this time in sweat pants and a clean white undershirt. Dean coughs and reaches out, putting a hand on Sam’s chest, flexing his fingers, scratching, pawing on the fabric. “Want your hoodie.”

Sam’s kind of attached to it at the moment, but Dean looks so damn sick and pathetic. So Sam pulls it off his back and, still warm, gets Dean into it. He tugs the bottom down and Dean wiggles his head through the hole just in time to sneeze. “HETChhhhh!” Dean snuffles wetly and tries to wipe his nose, but the sleeves of Sam’s hoodie are so long his hands get lost inside of them.  Sam walks over at grabs a couple tissues from the box on the nightstand. He hands one to Dean and wipes his face with the other. It’s no wonder he’s coming down with this bug. Dean is sloppy as hell when he’s sick.

“Into bed. Now.” He pushes and shoves Dean into the bed. In a perfect world, he’d go take a hot shower and try to get rid of these germs. In a perfect world, he’d get into his own bed and stretch out and sleep for a full day to shake the bug he just knows he’s coming down with.

Instead, he kicks off his shoes and climbs into bed beside Dean. Dean snuggles in close, coughing and sniffling into Sam’s chest. Sam slides his arm around Dean and falls asleep for all of ten minutes before Dean’s latest sneeze shakes him and makes him reach for another tissue.

*

Dean practically cries when he’s woken in the middle of the night by the startlingly loud sounds of Sam’s sneezing fit. Sam hears and tries to stifle the rest, but his nose just won’t quit. He gives up on the now wet tissue and muffles the rest in his pillow. “IhShooooff! hapShoo! AhShoofffff!”

Scooting closer, despite the damp pillowcase, Dean’s expression is one of concern. “You sick, Sabby?” He reaches up and tries to feel Sam’s forehead, but can’t find the end of the sleeve and doesn’t seem to understand why.

It takes Sam a moment of clearing his throat before he can get the words out. “Are you surprised? Sniff! Sniff! You keep sneezing on me.”

Dean looks guilty. He always does whenever Sam catches his cold. “I did’t bead to. Oh, Sabby…”

“hah-Shoo! Ha-EHShooo!”

Dean feels too sick to get up for the medicine Sam needs. He can’t really think straight anyway. All he can do snuggle right up into Sam’s chest. Sam throws a tired arm around him, hugging him close. “You caught by code agaid.”

“Yeah,” Sam whispers. And, God, it’s an awful one this time. He’s not even sure how Dean’s able to function with it. The sneezes prickle constantly at his nose. His head thumps with each heartbeat. And his throat is quite literally on fire. “Bad cold,” he says, not knowing what else to say. He’s too sleepy to make much sense away.

“Bad code,” Dean agrees, snuffling. “But this feels good.”

Sam sort of feels like an idiot admitting it, but it feels damn good to be close to Dean. “Sometimes I think you get me sick, just for an excuse to snuggle in bed like this.”

Dean’s grin is a shy one. He is saved by the warm hand stroking the back of his head and the tickle in his nose. His breath hitches. “ihh... ehh…” Sam guides his head over, letting Dean sneeze against his jaw and neck. “HIH’IXSchhhh!”