Dads Don't Get Sick (SPN, Jack & Dean)

[lillian]

Content warning: contagion, and mild quarantine. I headcanon Sam as slightly germaphobic in a purely practical sense so naturally he wants sick Jack to be sneezing in another room to avoid getting all the hunters sick. He still loves him.

Jack comes down with a very… contagious cold and Sam (gently) banishes him to his room, where he spends a day cooped up trying to do research all by himself. Dean gets home and coaxes him out with hot chocolate and cowboy movies. **Jack is 18

Sam is settling down in his favorite chair in the library, setting up his laptop, notes, and stack of old tomes (plus a few glossy translation guides). It’s a familiar routine that brings him back to sunny speckle-top tables, dusty carpets, and the low, frantic sound of several hundred high-achieving twenty-somethings careening towards a deadline.

“Hello,” Jack croaks from the doorway. He’s got a cup of coffee in one hand and Sam’s old laptop tucked under his arm. “I’m here to help!”

Sam sighs.

“Jack–”

Jack sits at the table across and to the left of Sam and opens his laptop. Sam’s about to lose his attention if he doesn’t hurry. 

“Jack.” When he doesn’t get a response, he reaches across the table and gently pushes Jack’s laptop halfway closed. 

“What?” Sam can’t tell what Jack’s tone is supposed to be through the husky congestion. 

“You were up all night…” This time the guilt in Jack’s eyes is clear. “Cas told me,” Sam says quickly. “But regardless, you didn’t get a lot of sleep, and when you’re sick, rest is really important. You know that.”

“I’m just a little sniffly. I’m fine!” 

Sam rubs a hand across his face. Around 1am, Castiel had knocked urgently on Sam’s door to ask him if chamomile tea was caffeinated and where they kept the cold medicine. 

Sam, his temperature is 99.2, he is producing mucus at an alarming rate, and he’s sneezed thirteen times in the last forty-five minutes. He is very congested, he has a headache, and he will not stop whining. I don’t know what to do. Also I can’t find any more tissues. Is there a difference between toilet paper and —

That’s where Sam had managed to cut Cas off. Grumbling instructions from under the covers of his bed, he’d tiredly reassured him that it sounded like Jack just had a bad head cold. Rest, fluids, medicine, and he’d be fine.

___

“Where’s Jack?” Dean asks, setting his gear on the table.

“His room. He’s got a bad cold and I thought it best if he, uh, laid low for a bit.” Sam makes a squeamish face. 

“So you’re quarantining him?” 

“Look, we’ve got a lot going on trying to find Michael. We need all hands on deck. Jack sick is bad enough. We can’t really afford one of us getting sick too.”

“And your solution is to lock him up in his room to be sick all alone. That’s very fatherly of you, Sam.” 

___

Dean attempts a gentle knock on Jack’s door. From the startled “come in?” he thinks he doesn’t do a very good job.

He creaks the door open to find Jack laying on his stomach on the bed, watching a movie on Sam’s old laptop. He pauses the movie and looks up when Dean comes in.

“Hey, kid, heard you aren’t feeling so hot.” 

Jack nods. “I have a cold.”

Dean rubs the back of his neck, then fixes his face in a determined expression and crosses the room to sit on the edge of the bed. Jack sits up and scoots back reflexively. 

“Sam says I shouldn’t get close to anyone, so I don’t get them sick.” 

Jack’s eyes are teary, his nose is pink and raw around the edges, and his voice is croaky and stuffy. Dean definitely doesn’t want to catch whatever bug he’s got, but he feels for the kid, stuck in bed all alone. 

“Well, what Sam doesn’t know is… dads can’t get sick.”

“But you were sick a few weeks ago.” 

Dean shakes his head. “No, I mean dads can’t get sick from their kids. I’m naturally immune to whatever nasty germs you’ve picked up.” Jack frowns at the phrasing, and Dean quickly backpedals. “What I’m trying to say is, I don’t want you to be miserable all by yourself.” He’s struck with a sudden idea. “Want to watch a movie?” 

Jack grins, eyes lighting up. “A cowboy movie? Can we drink hot chocolate, too?” 

“Anything you want, kid.”

___

“hheh…. hih!” Dean’s head snaps up at the congested hitching breath. Jack’s squinting, head tilted back, pink nose flaring. He struggles through a false start, breath catching and eyes squeezing shut, before he finally jerks into the crook of his arm with a wet, wrenching “hih’TSHHieww!” He barely has time for another inhale when he collapses forward again, nose pressed tight against the sleeve of his hoodie, “hnng’XTSCHHewww!” 

“Jesus, Jack. When’s the last time someone gave you cold medicine?” 

Jack sniffles blearily, trying to mop up his face with his sleeve. “...I took sobe f-four–” he doesn’t have to adjust his aim, just curls in on himself with another snotty “nnnn’TISCHHhh!” 

“Gesundheit,” Dean says, raising his eyebrows. “Four hours ago? Probably time to get you some more.” 

“Sab said every six,” Jack rasps, voice thick. 

“Yeah, well, Sam’s not a real doctor. He just plays one on TV.” 

Jack tilts his head in confusion, then snuffles with a wet gurgle and coughs, still holding his arm to his face. “Do you have ady tissues?” 

Right. “Yeah, sorry, forgot those.” Dean glances around the man cave. Nada. Dammit. He’s supposed to be good at this. “Here,” he says, pulling his bandana out of his pocket. He shakes it out with a glance to make sure it’s clean, and hands it to Jack. 

Jack gets in two productive blows before he’s honking against the congestion in his swollen sinuses. When Jack pulls the bandana away for a few gasping breaths, Dean swears he can see a telling puffiness under his eyes and beside his nose. Jack tries again, but after one hopeful, crackly attempt, his nose clogs completely and he’s cut off, coughing, mid-blow. 

“Alright, alright, that’s not gonna work,” Dean says, wincing. 

Jack coughs harshly into the bandana again, stuffy and dry. He tries to sniffle, but can’t get any air. He looks at Dean, tired and miserable. 

“Have you been this stuffed up all day?” Dean asks, narrowing his eyes. Jack shakes his head. 

“After Sab sedt be to bed,” he stops to take a congested breath. “I wedt to sleep for a bit a’d whed I woke up by head felt… full.” 

Dean feels the need to clarify. Jack is so congested that he can barely understand him.“So you felt like this after you laid down for a while?” Jack nods. “That explains it. Sam didn’t give you an extra pillow to prop you up, did he?” Jack shakes his head, looking confused.  

Dean leans forward and lightly places his thumbs on either side of Jack’s nose, under his eyes. Jack flinches, nostrils flaring. 

“You gonna sneeze on me?” Dean asks warily, pulling back. Jack thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “Okay, good.” Dean presses very gently on one side. 

“Ow!” Jack jerks back, hand going to his cheek. “That hurts.” 

Dean sighs. “I think you’re getting a sinus infection, sport.”

“Oh,” Jack says softly, touching his face. He winces. “Is that bad?”

“It sure as hell doesn’t feel good.”

“Ndo, it doesd’t.” He frowns, watery eyes and pinkening nose indicating that there might be another sneeze hovering. “It feels ligke..” he stops, crinkles his nose, then takes in a shaky breath. “Hih! Hihh… ehh!”

Dean quickly scoots out of the line of fire. 

Jack tilts his head back, crook of his arm raised to catch it. His pink nostrils flare as his breath hitches. One tear sneaks out of a squeezed-shut eye. With an irritated sigh, he loses it. He scrubs at his nose and sniffles miserably. 

“Sometimes sneezing is better than not sneezing, huh? Wait here, I’ve got something for ya.” 

About ten minutes later, Dean returns.

“Is that… a sock?” Jack asks, staring at the bundle in Dean’s hand. Dean sets the tissues he was carrying on the table next to Jack, and tosses the item to Jack. 

“Clean sock full of dry rice, nuked.”

Jack squishes the sock curiously. It’s warm and comfortingly heavy in his hands.

“It’s ndice.” Jack smiles. “Ub, what is it for?” He looks up at Dean expectantly. 

Dean takes it out of Jack’s hand and rests it gently over his face, making sure to cover his swollen cheekbones. Jack leans back and sighs in contentment, making Dean smile.

“Should help unstuff your face. Let me know if it’s too hot. Tissues are right next to you. You’ll probably need ‘em when it starts working.”

“It’s perfect,” Jack says softly. 

Five minutes later, Jack starts to sniffle. Suddenly, he sits up, taking the rice-sock off his face, and jerks forward with a congested-sounding, uncovered “hhh! EHGKSHHuuu!” 

“There we go,” Dean says, wincing. He scoots the tissues closer to Jack. Jack takes one, but another sneeze rushes him before he can bring it to his face. 

“het– ESHHuu!” He clamps the tissue over his nose and blows with a stuffy gurgle. 

Dean definitely understands why Sam was keeping Jack in a hazmat-suit-only zone. A slight squeamish feeling rises up in his chest but he takes a breath and pushes it down. Dads don’t get sick. Pull it together.

“huh… eh! eh…! EDJSHHuu!” The third is somehow wetter than the last. It soaks the tissue and overflows into Jack’s hands. He reaches blindly for another while his breath keeps hitching. Again, he can’t get one quick enough. He pinches his nose through the falling-apart tissue. “NGZZT–choo!”

“Gesundheit,” Dean says once it seems like he’s done. “Are you okay?”

Jack nods through the new handful of tissues pressed tight to his nose and blows again, thick but sounding less painful.

“Guess that worked a little too well,” Dean says sheepishly. 

Jack sniffs and sighs in still-slightly-stuffy relief. “No, I feel better.” He smiles at Dean again, nose red and eyes teary. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Dean warns, and hands him a capful of blue cold medicine. “Time for you to get some shut-eye.”

___

Three days later…

“hh… GXZT!” Dean stifled the squelchy sneeze against the side of his fist, sniffling thickly after. His head felt like it was full of cotton, his throat was scratchy and raw, and there was an insistent itch in the back of his nose that kept him… “GZZTCH–uu!” …sneezing. 

“Bless you,” came a guilty, congested voice from the doorway of the library. 

“Heh, thagks…” Dean held his bandana to his nose and blew with a stuffy honk. 

Jack stepped forward cautiously. He knew Dean could be grumpy when he just woke up, or was hurt, or generally incapacitated in any way. He didn’t like appearing weak. 

“I um, made you some tea,” Jack said, setting down a mug in front of him. “There’s whiskey in it,” he added. Dean’s eyes flashed angrily. 

“I thought I told you to stay out of the whiskey cabinet.” 

“I thought it might, um, help. The internet said whiskey, honey, and lemon are sometimes good for colds.” Jack rubbed his nose and sniffled. “I’m… I’m sorry I got you sick.” Tears welled in his eyes. 

“Hey, kid…” Dean faltered. “It’s okay, I promise.” He took a sip of the tea. “This is good,” he said. “Thank you.”

Jack beamed. 
 

Edited August 15, 2023 by lillian

[sneezysunshine]

Great work 🥰 Love Dean becoming a softy for his kid haha! 

[lillian]

41 minutes ago, sneezysunshine said:

Great work 🥰 Love Dean becoming a softy for his kid haha! 

Thank you!! Soft Dean is everything 

[secret19]

I originally wasn’t even going to comment because you already know I loved it, but just wanted to pop in and say good work as always and I love hearing from you! 

[lillian]

I always love comments! Glad y’all‘ve liked it! I also wrote another thing over on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/49241578/chapters/124249939

I know my subject matter is repetitive but I can’t get enough of this nephilim and his dads. one day I’ll find something else to write about 😅

Edited August 18, 2023 by lillian

[secret19]

Lillian? Where are you?