Sam was beginning to regret arguing with Dean the night before. Dean had exploded and kicked Sam out of the car and told him to get a motel room without remembering to give him any money, not to mention it was extremely after the closing hours of that motel. So Sam had to wait outside on the curb for Dean to come back, and better yet, it had started to pour cats, dogs, snakes, and all sorts of other various metaphorical animals for rain.
He had gotten up and went to knock on the door to the lobby once again, hopeful for an answer only to be disappointed. Sam stayed outside, in the slight cover of a tree for five long hours before Dean came back from whatever bar he'd found in an attempt to get hammered and pick up a girl or two.
Immediately after the car came into sight, it was a sprint to the passenger side of the car to get out of the pouring, freezing cold snow-rain mixture that had been falling for the past hour. He pulled at the door handle until Dean unlocked it then he opened it and jumped inside, teeth chattering and soaked shoes making a squishing sound against the flooring.
"Hey! Don't screw up the upholstery, dumbass." Dean said, still clearly pissed off and definitely drunk. "And why didn't you get a fucking room like I told you to?!"
"It-t was cl-closed-d," Sam said shortly, teeth still chattering from his cold, soaked clothing.
"Why are you so wet?" Dean asked with a small, immature giggle.
"Can yo-you not-t see it-t's pour-ring?" Sam snapped the best he could.
Dean looked out the window and shrugged. "Oh, so it is…. Well, let's go find a place to stay."
Now it was morning, in a cheap motel – as always-, and Sam felt like he'd been pushed off a cliff, hit by a bus, and then been exorcised. He couldn't even open his eyes without the light making his ever present headache firing up so badly he had to shut them again. If he even breathed it felt like a million pinpricks everywhere he moved. Not to mention the terrible urge to cough. He wouldn't though, Sam refused to make a sound, he didn't want Dean to know he was sick and worry about him instead of himself in these final few weeks (A/N: Takes place in mid-end of the third season)
"Up and at um, Sammy." Dean said, throwing a pillow at his head.
Sam groaned involuntarily, he was thankful that Dean wouldn't notice his unwillingness to get up as out of character, but being hit by a pillow hurt. A pillow. A fucking pillow.
"Fine, I'll go get breakfast without you." Dean said followed the explosively loud shutting of the door.
Sam let out a pathetic cough and he then squinted his eyes to make sure Dean was really gone. After affirming Dean had truly left, he ignored the pinpricks and pulled the blankets over his head. He was freezing cold, even though his eyes burned with a fever. Ugh, please let this be a dream and I wake up in a few minutes and I don't feel like the walls are collapsing on me? Sam thought.
He'd drifted off to sleep for another half hour, maybe forty-five minutes, before Dean came back. Sam knew because he could hear the door slam behind Dean.
"Really, Sam? Get up damn it." Dean yelled. "We have work to do."
"Five more minutes." Sam whimpered, face down onto the pillow.
"Nope," Dean said as he yanked the covers off of Sam. "Just found a case, if we leave now we can get there in time to do some recon."
"Can we go tomorrow instead?" Sam begged pathetically. Or maybe the day after that, He thought as his stomach started to churn.
"Sure, a couple more innocent children can die because you stayed up past your bed time." Dean mocked. "Just get up already." Dean shook Sam by the shoulders; the tall man had already begun to fall back asleep.
Sam moaned; he could hear the contents of his stomach going back and forth; an uncomfortable, nauseating swishing sound. He wanted to respond and tell Dean to stop, but he didn't trust himself to keep his dinner down if he opened his mouth to speak.
A few moments later, Dean realized something was wrong. He wasn't sure what it was that gave him away; the fever, the pale skin, or maybe the fact his hair was plastered to his face in sweat. "You okay, man?" Dean asked.
Sam stayed quiet, barley hearing Dean's voice over the churning sound in his stomach. Sam was trying to breathe steadily, hoping the wave of nausea would go away. His eyes were squinted closed, giving him a very pained expression.
"Sammy?" Dean asked again, reaching over to feel his forehead.
Sam tried to shake his head and push Dean's hand away, the final mistake. His stomach lurched up into his throat and he sprinted, hand over his mouth, into the tiny adjacent bathroom. He dropped to his knees in front of the off white porcelain toilet and retched up the warm, disgusting bile mixed with chunks of the previous night's take out dinner.
It wasn't five seconds before Dean was right beside his younger brother. Through fighting all the demons, ghosts, shape shifters, the cast of twilight, and hundreds of other supernatural bitches and just springing back up without even having to see the doctors, Dean had almost forgotten that Sam was a normal human. But, as if it was only yesterday that Dean was 'Dad', he was pushing Sam's hair away from his face and rubbing his back in small circles.
A few minutes later, Sam had finally finished, flushed the toilet, and was gasping for air. Dean was still rubbing his back when he'd turned his head to look up at his brother with drooping, bloodshot eyes. Sam looked absolutely miserable; Dean could feel his entire body trembling in exhaustion from the effort it took him to keep his face out of the filthy toilet bowl. Dean helped Sam lean back against the bath tub and then quickly ran a towel under some cool water.
"You could have just told me you were sick." Dean said with a small smile, in a failed attempt to lighten the mood.
Sam sat there silently, still breathing hard. He barely looked alive, let alone conscious. Dean knelt down next to the slouched body that had become of his brother and did the best he could to wipe his face with the cool rag.
A few minutes passed before Dean was satisfied that Sam was really finished. "Come on." He said, giving Sam a pat on the shoulder. "Let's get you into bed."
Sam blinked his glassy, half asleep eyes and made somewhat of a nodding motion as Dean picked him up bridal style.
"Geez, what have you been eating?" Dean grunted with a bit of laughter.
This got a small smile out of Sam. "Check the plumbing." He responded in a raspy voice.
Dean put him down a nicely as he could onto one of the beds and tucking the long haired man in. "Now get some sleep," Dean instructed. "We leave tomorrow morning so… get better." Dean attempted a pep talk.
Dean didn't have to tell Sam twice, moments after his brother had stopped talking, Sam was out cold. The older brother sat down on the other bed, head in his hands. What was he going to do? He wasn't a doctor and he was pretty sure it was past optimistic to say they could leave tomorrow.
"Sam!" A familiar voice filled terror echoed through the dark motel room.
The long haired man shot up from the bed, looking around the room to see his brother was missing, as well as the laptop, the porn mags, and everything else that normally scattered the motel room.
"Dean?" Sam yelled, walking over to the window to check quickly and stealthily behind the curtains. Outside there was nothing unusual, the parking lot with a neon sign and a few cars.
"Sam!" The voice of his brother repeated.
Sam immediately sprinted back to the bed, pulling a silver knife out from under his pillow. He then went to carefully open the door and sneak his way along the side of the building.
"Sam!" Dean called yet again.
Sam then broke into an all-out sprint around the back of the building, following the voice.
"Hello, Sam." A girl with short, blonde hair and yellow eyes said. "It's nice to see you again."
"Meg." Sam said barley able to believe his eyes. He'd watched that body die and the demon be exorcised back to hell.
"Good guess, hot shot." The form of the person shifted to none other than Jessica.
"I'm going insane. I'm going to wake up and it's all going to be back to normal." Sam mumbled to himself, pacing around in circles.
"No, Sam." Jessica said, walking up to him. "You're stuck here for a while."
"Where's my brother?" Sam asked, remembering he'd heard his brother.
"Oh, Dean?" Jessica's impersonator asked. "Isn't that your brother?" She cocked her head and looked at Sam. "I don't know. You went off with him on a hunting trip or something a few weeks ago and now." She got closer to Sam. "I'm dead because you wouldn't tell me anything." Her hands morphed into claws and she raked them against Sam's face.
"I'm sorry!" Sam said, salty tears stinging the cuts on his cheeks.
"Too late for sorrys, sweetie."
Sam was tossing and turning in his bed, slowly tangling himself in the sheets. Dean ran from the other room because of Sam's shouting, "Dean!"
"Hey!" Dean yelled in Sam's hear, shaking him very slightly by the shoulder, "Sammy, wake up!"
Sam eyes shot open and he took a deep breath that immediately spun into a coughing fit. Dean helped him sit up and patted him on the back, his eyes filled with worry. "Just calm down, it's all okay." Damn, I sound like a mother. Dean thought.
Sam looked up at him a minute later after he'd finished his coughing attack, tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry." He said barley as a whisper.
Dean didn't say anything in response; he just ruffled Sam's hair and sighed. The younger man drooped back into a slouched, sleeping form a moment later. Dean got back up from the bed and headed over to where the 'shared' laptop, which Sam would argue to be his and his alone, sat. Dean opened up the laptop and typed in Sam's password, which Sam thought he didn't know, opened the browser and waited for it to load.
Immediately, Dean went straight to the most trustworthy of sites, , and typed in Sam's symptoms. He wanted to know whether or not he needed to be worried and what he needed to be prepared for. The search engine came up with about three million results, and using the logic that resided in his mind he clicked the first result of some fancy medical dictionary.
Diseases with the symptoms listing "vomiting, coughing, tiredness, and fever" include but are not limited to… Disease he'd never heard of, cancer, food poisoning, random sickness, insanity, flu. The flu, it was about that season, they never did get their vaccine – like they had time for that – and there was that sick person at one of the dinners a few days ago.
Dean backed up to the Google homepage and typed in "flu". He read a couple of "how to take care of someone with the flu" articles, which pretty much all of them told him to get 'The patient' Antibiotics. Dean was pretty sure he wasn't going to find antibiotics just sitting around in the room, and normally antibiotics meant doctors. Dean had no intentions of taking Sam to a doctor, and he was pretty sure a sane Sam would agree. Nevertheless, he planned to ask Sam when Sam woke up.
The older brother then used the laptop for another half hour for a mixture of more research and Busty Asian Beauties before Sam woke up again. Dean immediately noticed that Sam was awake; he could hear the difference in breathing, shallow to deep. He turned around to face Sam who was sitting up with his eyes squeezed shut and hands clamped over his mouth.
It only took Dean a moment to register what was going on and grab the trash can that sat by the table. He speed across the room, getting the trash can under Sam just in time for him to spill his guts yet again. Dean rubbed his brother's back in small circles, "Just let it out." The two sat there for a few minutes before the vomiting became dry heaving and the dry heaving came to a stop. Sam fell back onto the pillow, completely exhausted and panting.
"That's it," Dean started. "I'm going to get you some medicine, right now."
Sam gave Dean puppy dog eyes, his expression saying Please, don't leave me alone.
Dean did his best to ignore the pleading expression. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes, tops. Call me if you need anything."
Dean headed out the door, not giving himself time to rethink leaving Sam alone. Dean almost ran to the Impala once he got outside, putting it into drive and speeding off towards a drug store where he could get something. Dean constantly checked the clock, he had said he would be back in fifteen minutes and he was going to keep his word. He pulled into the drug store parking lot, jumping out of the car as soon as it was parked he made a mad dash for anything labeled 'Flu' as well as Gatorade, crackers, a thermometer, and a few other items.
Dean went up to the lady at the cash register, tapping his foot impatiently as she slowly scanned the items. He paid for the supplies and ran back to the car, knowing that he was going to be longer than fifteen minutes. Dean went as fast as he could without being pulled over all the way until the car was at a stop outside the motel room. He slipped out of the car and inside the room.
"Dean?" Sam asked in a raspy voice, struggling to see who had entered.
"Yeah, Sammy, it's me. Lay back down." Dean said, going over to his bed and pouring out the contents of the bag to get the right medicines. First thing's first, Dean said, opening the thermometer packaging.
"Put this under your tongue." Dean said, handing the thermometer to his shivering brother and waiting for the beep.
A minute later he heard the beep and Sam handed Dean back the thermometer, 101.8. "You have a fever, alright." Dean told him, putting the thermometer on the bedside table and going back to opening the medicine.
A little while later, Dean had finally sorted out what Sam needed to take. He helped the ever weakening Sam sit up and take some pepto and flu medicine. "Now remember, no drinking or operating heavy machinery until you know how these medicines affect you." Dean joked.
Sam gave a weak smile, before lying back down and closing his eyes. "Thanks, Dean." He mumbled almost silently before drifting back to long, mostly peaceful slumber.
Dean watched over his brother for the better part of the next week as he recovered. Five days later the two of them were back on the road, driving off towards the next job in the black Chevy Impala. The only thing different from before Sam got sick was Dean having a new binder of potential black mail that he'd never use.