Title: A Mess

Author: tarotgal
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG (language)

Disclaimer: not my characters! No money made!

Summary: The car is stuck. So are the boys.

Notes: Snow drabble written on March 5, 2015. Yay snow! (Sorry, boys)

A Mess

Dean kicked at the snow under the Impala’s left rear wheel. The wheel was down in there pretty deep, and his boot kept hitting tire more than snow. Sam leaned back against the rear of the car, hands shoved deep into his pockets, sniffling as the cold winter air continually struck his slightly-chapped and constantly running nose.

Clearing his throat, Dean stepped back to survey his work. They had to get the car out of this mess. “Let’s try it again now,” he said, turning to get back into the car.

“W-wait!” Sam called after him. “I have to sneeze.” Instinctively, he extracted a hand from his pocket, but he had decided already to not sneeze into his gloves. They were too thick to let him manipulate a tissue, though. So he was forced to sneeze freely… but not quickly. He saw the glare Dean was giving him just before his eyes shut. But he stood there, leaning back against the trunk of the car, eyes closed, mouth half open, nostrils flaring, for more than a full minute before the sneezes finally came out. “Huhshxxxxshhhhh! HehhKshhhh! Huh-huh-huhh-Khshixxxxshhhhhh!” Wanting desperately to return to the warm backseat of the car where his tissues and blanket waited for him, Sam sniffed a dozen times to try to right himself without rubbing his nose and getting snot all over his coat or gloves. It was a miserable technique, but ultimately effective wnough.

“Y’done?”

Sam nodded, sniffing, and Dean took off for the driver’s seat in a huff.

He called out of the open window, “Okay! Start pushing!”

Sam leaned back on the car, feet firmly planted in the snow that came up to his calves. He pushed as Dean eased his foot from brake pedal to accelerator. Sam pushed harder, teeth clenched, and the car lurched forward. Sam stumbled back, expecting to find himself in the snow, but the car only went forward an inch, just enough for the rear wheel to find a new patch of snow it couldn’t handle and start spinning on that.

Dean pushed harder on the pedal, thinking they were making good progress, and Sam flipped around, palms on the back bumper, pushing with all the strength he had in him. The car rocked and then both back wheels started spinning uselessly.

“Dean!” Sam called out over the roaring engine. “Stop! It’s worse!”

The engine died down to a gentle idle and the driver’s side door was thrown open. Dean came out again, looked at the car, and swore.

“We’ll have to call a tow truck,” Sam told him.

Dean swore again.

Sam sneezed again.

Dean glared again.

Sam shoved his hand back in his pocket, wanting more than ever to crawl into the backseat, into his nest of blankets. But that would look like he was admitting guilt and this wasn’t his fault. It absolutely wasn’t. Just because Dean wouldn’t admit he was coming down with this cold too didn’t mean this was Sam’s fault. Okay, it had been Sam’s cold to begin with. Sure. But he had done his best to not give it to Dean. They’d gotten separate rooms last night. Sam had taken medicine the second he started feeling sniffly. And he’d tried not to do so much as breathe in Dean’s general direction.

But Dean had still caught this. And he’d sneezed. He’d sneezed at exactly the wrong moment during the drive, right at the curve of the road. After skidding on the ice-covered shoulder, the car had found itself face-first in a snowbank. Backing out of that hadn’t been difficult to do, but the car had gone back too far and was stuck again in powdery snow that offered nothing for the back tires to grip onto.

“You can make the call and get us back onto the road or we can stand here shivering and getting sicker.” It was starting to snow again. Light flakes fell from the gray sky, whipped about by the wind. Sam shivered violently.

Grumbling, Dean pulled out one of his cell phones. “M’not sick,” he insisted. “I feel fine.” Even if that were true, even if his flushed cheeks had everything to do with the cold winter winds and nothing to do with a fever, the fact was that he’d sneezed. And not a normal ‘just a little tickle in my nose’ kind of sneeze either. It had been a huge ‘I’m coming down with a doozy of a head cold and I’ve been holding this sucker in for an hour so my brother won’t find out’ kind of sneeze.

“You feel fine?” Sam repeated, and Dean nodded. “Good. Then you can get us out of this mess yourself. Huh-huhKTSchhhhhhh! I feel like shit, so I’m going to lie down and stay warm.” Sam crawled into the backseat, pulled off his gloves, adjusted his blankets until he was comfortable, and blew his nose repeatedly until he fell asleep. He only woke up once, briefly, to see the flashing lights of a tow truck and feel it pulling the car back onto the road.

*

Colds always made Sam Winchester unusually tired, as if sleep were his body’s way of healing or maybe his body’s way of coping with the exhaustion from spending all day sneezing and blowing his nose. He could barely keep his eyes open by the end of the day and had stumbled into his bed at the motel fully clothed save his boots, sure he’d sleep right through until morning.

Except he hadn’t. He’d woken up in the middle of the night and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep.  Because Dean hadn’t been able to quit sneezing. Pillow over the head, fingers in the ears, nothing had worked for Sam to block out the sound.

So at exactly 3:19 am, Sam hauled himself out of bed. Head spinning with dizziness, he made it to Dean’s bed. He threw his blanket and comforter onto the bed then shoved his box of tissues into Dean’s chest. Then he climbed into bed and let his head sink deliciously into the cool pillow. Dean pulled back, making room on the bed but not telling Sam to leave. Instead, he mumbled, “’m not… sick… hahh-HNgxxxshhhh!” The bed shook beneath both of them even as Sam pulled a tissue out of the box and thrust it in the general direction of Dean’s face.

“Dod’t care…” Sam said, sleepily, eyes already closing. “Just blow your dose add get yourself out of this bess so we cad both get sub sleeb.”

“hhhhh… hhhhh-Ungshhhhh!” Dean ripped the tissue out of Sam’s hand and buried his nose in it with a series of desperate, stuffy blows. He went through handful after handful of tissues until finally there was silence in the room. Not a single sniffle.

Outside, snow fell softly over the roads, over the Impala. But inside Dean scooted to the middle of the bed, closer to the welcome warmth Sam had brought. He nestled the tissue box in-between them before falling asleep himself. Colds always made Dean Winchester uptight, defensive, and unusually tired.