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Hollow coughing woke Sam up from his far from peaceful slumber thanks to his body being forcibly tucked in the passenger seat. His legs were too long and even with his head pressed against the cool window, he felt uncomfortable and agitated especially with being woken up. Sleeping wasn’t the best, but it was better than staying awake with a mild fever, body aches, and a stuffy nose. More coughing seemed to grate on Sam’s nerves and he turned his head to the side to glare at the equally sniffling and coughing mess of an older brother beside him. The only difference between them was that Dean was at least awake and slightly managing to keep the Impala on the road. Sam may argue otherwise that Dean was doing a good job at driving his Baby judging by the amount of people that had passed them on the single lane road while furiously laying on their horn for the black Impala to hurry up. Sam wasn’t used to the Impala being passed while Dean was at the wheel. The fact that Dean didn’t seem that bent out of shape about it either made Sam feel like his brother was feeling worse than he originally had let on. “Want some water?” Sam nearly jumped at the sound of his own voice. His voice could sometimes have a bit of a growl too it if he was tired enough, but right now it sounded like he was competing with Castiel for deepest and roughest voice. It was foreign to his ears and he suddenly wondered if he had actually spoke or if the angel had appeared in the backseat as he so often did without warning. Dean appeared surprised as well at the state of his brother’s voice, and cocked his head to the side with eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “Sure you don’t need that for yourself?” “Shut up! Your voice sounds just as shot as mine,” Sam glowered. Dean shrugged and stretched out his hand toward Sam, asking for the water. Sam looked around until he found a half drank bottle of water under the seat. There was no telling how long it had been there or whose it had been, but its not like it mattered at this point. They didn’t exactly have anything to lose and it wasn’t like it would make Dean sicker. Sam unscrewed the cap—since he was trying to be a good brother for the time being—and handed it over to Dean. Dean stretched out his hand and took the bottle just as his eyelashes began to flutter rapidly. That led to frantic reaching over for Dean to take his hand with the half drank bottle of water up to his nose as he crushed forward into his wrist. “Hurshew! Hitchshew!” Sam recoiled immediately at the utterly desperate and wet sounding squelch that left Dean’s nose. “Oh, Dean, gross,” Sam complained. Ordinarily Dean would’ve had something sharp to say back to his brother, but right now he had more pressing issues. Sam had been right; his sneeze had been far from light and had released an unprecedented amount of thick, milky mucus. Dean had thought about stifling, but from experience he knew that it would only lead to even more sneezes that he would have to get out eventually. The sooner he reserved himself to that fact, the happier he would be. Unfortunately he wasn’t exactly feeling that joy right about now. “Ub, Sabby,” Dean requested, trying to keep his lips pressed into as much of a tight line as possible so not to allow anything to drip inside. “Dean!” Sam suddenly lunged forward and took the wheel desperately, turning it to the left before Dean could fly them off the road. Dean was quick to lift his right knee to take on most of the steering duties as he eased the car onto the shoulder over the dirt road, dust billowing behind them. He slammed on the breaks and almost sent Sam falling forward into the windshield had it not been for Sam’s hunting instincts telling him to brace himself to the best of his ability. Sam had been used to tense situations. The life of a hunter was fraught with danger. However, the Impala was supposed to be a safe place, especially when Dean was driving. Clearly that safety net had gone out the window when Dean was sick. “What the hell, Dean,” Sam croaked, tightness from fear making his already strangled voice sound that much more strained. Dean ducked back in embarrassment, wrist still staying where it was to keep things from leaking out. “I’b sorry, Sabby. Budt, do we have adythig I can use for this.” Dean tried to motion to his face with his other hand, but suddenly felt the need to hold onto his Baby for good measure. Sam stifled a groan and looked around. Now wasn’t the time to become short with his older brother over something he couldn’t technically help. After all, it was his cold that Dean had caught so Sam was sure he didn’t have the right to complain about his brother’s lack of awareness of what he needed when he coughed or sneezed. Ordinarily, Dean was very cautious and considerate when it came to sickness since he never wanted Sam to catch what he had, even though it was usually unavoidable. Since Sam was sick first, however, and was still sick, Dean had been less concerned about keeping his germs to himself considering he had caught this from his brother and Sam was still slogging through it and bad as Dean was. Sam continued to frantically look around for what they could possibly use. He reached forward into the glove compartment and pulled out a napkin from some fast food chain he didn’t know. It looked like it had been here since Sam was about six and had mostly disintegrated. However, it was somewhat sturdy and the best that Sam could come up with on moments notice. He had used up the last of the travel pack of tissues before he fell asleep and he was certain Dean didn’t want his used tissues right now. Sam handed the meager offering over and Dean snatched it without hesitation, pivoting away from his brother so that Sam couldn’t catch a glimpse of the moist undersides of his twitching nostrils. Despite Dean’s attempts, Sam was still able to momentarily see what Dean was hiding, and it was just as explosive as he feared. He was quick to avert his eyes to give Dean as much privacy as he could muster all things considered. He hoped that Dean would’ve done the same thing if the roles were reversed. The napkin was hardly enough for Dean to clean up the mess dripping down his face, let alone blow his nose to clear it out. ‘This will have to be good enough,’ Dean thought as he rubbed his nose dry as possible on the outside while snorting back thick globs of milky white mucus down the back of his throat that made his stomach threaten to lurch. Sam wrinkled his nose in disgust. “That’s disgusting, Dean.” Dean shoved the shriveled bit of napkin practically dripping with snot into his pocket. “You think you’re any more glamorous when you’re sick? Look in the mirror, booger boy.” Sam’s hand instinctively shot up to his face to cup under his nose to hide the scene from his brother. He gave a liquidy sniffle as he tried to locate something that he could use to clean up his face. While he was looking, a forceful prick traveled down the length of Sam’s nose. It wouldn’t been painful if not for the deep tickle that it brought it with. Sam attempted to rub his nose through his cupped hand, but that only made the situation that more dire and Sam was ill equipped to deal with the fallout. With a puttering cough, Sam’s neck coiled forward even as he attempted to stifle the painful sneezes. “Chcshxxxh! Chchxxxh!” Sam swallowed thickly, realizing that even the stifles had allowed something to drip freely. “Chxhxxxh! Chrchsxxxh!” Dean winced in sympathy, knowing exactly how that felt. He had always felt less of a desire to stifle his sneezes since they weren’t that loud. Sam’s could be quite frightening if one wasn’t expecting them from what Dean could remember. Sam hadn’t allowed himself to sneeze fully in Dean’s presence since they had gotten back on the road hunting again after Stanford. Dean had tried multiple times to get Sam to stop to no avail unless Sam was in the shower (sometimes) or when he thought that Dean had already left the motel room. Dean didn’t have the heart to tell his little brother that he had overheard him since he didn’t want to embarrass him. “Bless ya,” mumbled Dean while still rubbing the side of his hand under his nose. Sam didn’t response, eyes welling with tears from the force of his stifled sneezes. He could feel warm liquid threatening to drip from his still flared nostrils despite his best effort to hold back the tide of mucus. Dean sensed why his brother was hesitant to speak and began to look around for something for Sam to blow his nose into. He didn’t expect to find anything since Sam had already looked for him, but Dean didn’t give up easily when it came to his little brother. “Um, let’s see what else we have.” Dean began to rifle around under his head, careful to avoid bashing his head on the steering wheel, and found a map. It was an old map, not that it was necessarily bad, but Dean mostly knew his way around at least some of the states and he could do without one of the many maps that his father had left behind in the Impala. Dean took the map and tossed it into Sam’s lap. “Us that,” he instructed. Sam’s eyes widened in surprise as he turned his head to the side to look at what his brother had tossed him without pulling his hand from his nose. “What is that,” he mumbled while poking it apprehensively with his free hand. Dean rolled his eyes. “It’s going to be a tissue for your sick ass.” He had tired to keep his tone mildly serious only to fail spectacularly. “Look, we don’t have much else and I know how to get to Brandon from here.” Sam wasn’t quite sure he believed his brother. They hadn’t been to Iowa that many times, and when they had, it had been nowhere near Brandon. But, Sam wasn’t going to risk bruising Dean’s already wavering ego about it. Besides, he was going to need something and a map was better than his hands at this point. Bashfully, Sam took the map and flattened it on his jeans to the best of his ability. It was softer than most maps due to being folded so much, yet it still held it’s shape in the creases where it had been folded at one time. Sam knew it was going to be unpleasant at best against his highly sensitive nose. However, it beat sitting there uncomfortable with a helplessly full nose that he needed to blow and risking it continue to drip down his face and make an even bigger spectacle out of himself. Sam took the map to his nose and began to blow, feeling the congestion ebb enough for him to heave another breath and try again. He filled the cracks and crevices of the map nearly to the point of soaking through when his body mercilessly decided to send him on a coughing fit that allowed him to inconspicuously move to a bit of a dryer section. He tried not to think about how he was using a map like a tissue as they sat on the side of a dirt road with Metallica playing on low. At this point this was their family and Sam didn’t expect anything less. “You good,” broke in Dean when he saw Sam’s eyes begin to wander across the vacant fields surrounding them. Sam shot his brother a pointed glare. “What do you think?” Dean looked back and mouthed ‘okay’ as he rubbed the back of his ever warm neck roughly between his fingers. “Looks like someone could use a nap.” “Yeah, I could, at an actual motel!” Never before did Sam think that he would ever campaign for them to find the first sleazy motel they saw a sign for. The throbbing in his head and throat was enough that any semblance of a bed appeared increasingly enticing to him. Dean couldn’t have agreed more with his brother that they could use a break. He just wasn’t sure there was time. “Sam, there are people dying up in Brandon. Do you really want to take a break just because you’re a little sniffly?” Why did Dean always have to throw everything back at him like that? This was a tactic that their father had used countless times before to drill into their heads the importance of sacrificing everything to save people that they didn’t even know. Dean had grown up never batting an eye when John said that to them while Sam had grown more and more resentment of the sentiment as he grew older and heard it more and more often. “They can wait a few more days, Dean. I’m fairly certainly with the museum closed that may bide us sometime.” Throughout the sentence Sam’s voice began to crack, reminding him painfully of how he had sounded when he had first gone through puberty. Did Dean really think he was of that much use at the moment? Dean waved his hand dismissively as he swallowed down a few coughs that threatened to bubble up from his clearly aggravated lungs. Just that morning he had woken up coughing up sweet tasting shit. He had done his best to hide it from his little brother, knowing that Sam would freak the hell out even if Dean told him that there was nothing to worry about. Knowing his brother, Dean was sure that Sam would try to lug him to the nearest clinic and there wasn’t time for that in their hectic lives. Unfortunately, when Dean started coughing it was very difficult for him to stop. Sam began to wait patiently until it seemed that his brother was never going to stop. His eyes widened in alarm as he reached forward and began to thump on his brother’s back with a loose fist. Deep coughs thundered under Sam’s arm, jarring him to his bones to hear those sounds come from his brother. He wanted nothing more than to take this from his brother if ever possible even though knew that he was the reason that Dean felt like total crap. When the fit didn’t slow even a little, Sam picked up the nearly empty water bottle and practically shoved it into his brother’s grasp. “C’mon, Dean. You gotta help me out here.” Dean lifted the bottle to his mouth and started to finish the bottle off. He was on his last sip when Sam pivoted away from him so quickly that Dean was sure that someone had yanked him back. It wasn’t until he had quelled his own fire in his lungs was he able to look over at his younger brother. “Ch’chsSHsSH!” Dean nearly jumped out of his skin at the gunshot of a sneeze that left his brother. “Shit, Sam! Way to give a man a heart attack,” he exclaimed with a hand rested on his chest. Sam was too caught up in his own struggle to care. He crushed his towering frame against the passenger door, taking in short bursts of breath through his nose to either force the feeling out or back into his sinuses. He was fine with whichever at this point as long as he found relief one way or the other. “Chxhxxxh!” Sam’s entire body spasmed with the force of the stifled sneeze, sending waves of pain from his lungs all the way into the deep caverns of his sinuses and even into his head. That particular stifle was jarring to his entire body and had him nearly panting in pain with his hands still over his nose as he prepared for the rest. “Chchchxxxh! Chxhchxxxh! Chshcxxxh!” Dean pursed his lips together when he finished the last droplet of water. He tossed the discarded water bottle in the back to clean up later and tried to lean forward to catch Sam’s eyes. “Geez, Sammy, bless you. That was pretty violent. You alright?” Sam fought hard not to give into the embarrassment that made heat rise into his cheeks and ears. It was uncomfortable to hear Dean comment on it even though he knew his brother didn’t mean anything by it. Sam would’ve been content for Dean never to mention it again. Clearly that didn’t seem to be the way Dean was going about it. Dean waited a moment for Sam to lower his hands so that they could talk, but that moment never came. “Sam, you can lower your hands now.” Sam’s head gave a tiny shake, mop of brown hair threatening to fall into his eyes. “I dond’t think thadt’s a good idea.” “Huh.....oh right!” Dean went into big brother mode again and began to search all around for something that his brother could use. They were definitely running low and their duffles were in the trunk which meant even a dirty shirt was out of their grasp. Sure, Dean could’ve gotten out of the car and walked around to it, but he feared that with the dizziness that had began to settle in the corners of his mind, that the moment he stood, his entire body would collapse and that would make things even more difficult on his brother. Dean patted his pockets one more time for good measure and still came up empty. The only thing that he could offer Sam was...... “Here,” Dean muttered as he threw off his jacket and then worked his way on tugging the sweatshirt over his head to hand it to his brother, leaving him in a thin cotton t-shirt. Sam looked up in surprise, hands still kept where they were. “What?” “We don’t have anything else and I’m not letting you snot over my Baby.” Dean gave a wiry smile, eyes remaining serious. “I’d rather you ruin my sweatshirt than the Impala.” Sam fought not to roll his eyes, fearing that Dean may take back the offer if he felt Sam was ungrateful. Besides, Dean’s sweatshirt was warm and soft. It would be far better than the dry napkin he had given his brother a couple minutes ago. Between letting his nose run embarrassingly or using his brother’s sweatshirt as a tissue, Sam picked the later. It was no contest really. He reached out and took it, bringing the cuff of a sleeve up to his nose and began to rub it dry. At least that way it was in a ‘typical’ place that one may wipe their nose and it may be easier to get out when they stopped at a laundromat. Then again, he doubted that Dean would put that much thought into it and would just throw it in with the rest of his clothing. It wasn’t like Dean separated his clothing or took any extra measures generally. Dean was hardly fazed at having to give up his sweatshirt. The only part he disliked was the fact that his own nose had started to act up and now he was left without the sweatshirt that he was planning on using. There were less and less possible things he could sneeze into and he wasn’t willing to use his hand just yet. There was one option he really hadn’t explored since he was still in single digits and his father had scolded him for it, but their father wasn’t here and he was beyond desperate. Dean ducked his head down and brought his thin t-shirt up over his nose and mouth to contain the spray. “Hitchshew! Hurshew! HitchsSHew!” Sure enough, Dean was glad he had used something. His shirt hadn’t been the best, even slightly, but at least it had caught it. Dean began to rub his nose dry with parts of his shirt that weren’t completely saturated in his mucus. It was difficult at best, but Dean wasn’t about to complain just because he didn’t have something to wipe his nose on. Sam watched his brother rub at his nose as discretely as possible with half his face ducked under his shirt. Sam clutched at the the sweatshirt Dean had given him and extended it back over to his brother. “You want to use it?” Watery eyes surfaced from over his collar and faced his brother with what Sam could only assume was a wiry smile underneath. “Naw, Sabby. You dneed id bore than be,” answered Dean with a flick of his wrist as he continued to rub his nose dry. “Ugh, we really dneed to gedt sobe actual tissues.” Sam rolled his eyes, only adding to the throb he felt blossoming into a real headache behind his eyes. “We need a place to stay for a few days, Dean. Never mind just getting some tissues.” Dean wasn’t one to ever shy away from traveling. After all, he often felt the most at home in the Impala. Then again, clearly his Baby was letting him down, and if they stayed there then it was only going to make it worse. “Ogay, ogay, led’s fide sobeplace to stop.” Dean dropped his shirt from his face and settled for a vicious rub of his shoulder before easing the car into drive and pulling it back onto the road from the shoulder. Sam slumped back in his own seat, still aimlessly rubbing the sweatshirt against his nose to quell the rising tickle that lurked deep within his sinuses. If he wasn’t careful the itch would turn into something much more difficult to contain and that was the last thing that Sam wanted. He had already used his brother’s sweatshirt much more than he had meant to. Looking forward to being somewhere with actual tissues or even toilet paper had Sam grinning ear to ear while Dean sneezed noisily beside him.