Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are owned by people with a whole lot more money than myself. I just borrow them for my own amusement.
A/N: Thanks for all of the reviews everyone, hope you like this next chapter. :D
Chapter 2
"Sammy...C'mon... Wake up, buddy."
The light tapping against Sam's face soon turned into more of a slap out of desperation to revive him, bringing on a moan from the younger Winchester and Dean sagged in relief.
"Hey, you with me?" he asked.
"Quit slapping me, man..." Sam groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "Not feelin' so good here...."
"No shit, Captain Obvious."
Sam opened his eyes and moaned again before another round of coughing hit and stole his breath away. He fought against the spots that formed over his vision as he rolled to his side.
"Here...up you go." Dean put an arm under Sam's shoulders and had him sit up to ride out the remainder of the fit as he patted his back.
"Okay, our job's done, Sam. " Dean began to point out. "Mills is toast and innocent naked chicks are safe to take showers once again, so let's get you out of here and to a hospital."
"I don't need a hospital." Sam tried to argue."I'm not dying."
"Right now, you're in no position to tell me what you need and don't need. I'm taking you to see a doctor...end of argument. Now, I sure hope you can walk, cause you're as heavy as you look and carrying you up the steps ain't gonna happen."
Sam rolled his eyes.
"I can walk."
Dean hauled Sam up to his feet then grabbed their weapons and supplies, shoving them back into the duffel bag before they left the boiler room.
The cool air in the hall outside of the boiler room was a welcome relief to Dean, but Sam shivered in the sudden change in temperature. Still sore from the encounter with the ghost, he cringed a little inwardly as he looked up the flight of stairs back up to the first floor and he cursed whoever designed the building and decided against having the elevator go down all the way to the basement.
As if sensing his discomfort and weariness, Dean wrapped and arm around Sam's middle to help him as they ascended the steps.
"Let's go, Sammy. Hot nurses await..."
OOOOOO
Dean pulled the car into the medical clinic and parked, cutting off the engine and ending The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again' halfway through the song. Looking over at his brother as he slept with his head against the window and mouth open, he knew now would have been the perfect time for pulling a prank on him and drawing a sharpie mustache on him would have been great fun, but seeing him sick like this had him worried.
Both brothers were no strangers to injuries and hospitals, but broken bones, knife wounds and concussions were things that Dean understood. Germs on the other hand, were foreign concepts to him and it was scary to think that after all they had been through, all of the evil demons, spirits and monsters they had fought, that it was tiny microorganisms that were wreaking such havoc.
"Hey Sasquatch, we're here. Wakey, wakey." Dean shook Sam's shoulder and could feel the heat emanating from him through his clothes.
"I'm awake." Sam mumbled with his eyes still closed. "Gimme a minute."
Dean got out of the car and walked around to open the door for Sam who continued to just sit there.
"Well, c'mon, you're not gonna get any better if you don't get off your ass and get inside." Dean tugged on Sam's arm, practically hauling him out of the passenger seat.
"Coming already." Sam grumbled as he got out.
Dean led the way to the front door and held it open for Sam and both of them groaned simultaneously as they walked in.
The waiting room was packed to the gills with people. There wasn't even a chair open for either of them to sit.
"Let's just go back to the motel, Dean..." Sam suggested with a slight whine, not wanting to spend the entire afternoon in that place.
"No way...You're sick. We're here and we're staying until you see a doctor. " Dean was steadfast in his determination to get Sam some help. "Go sit somewhere while I get you checked in."
"Where? There aren't any chairs left." Sam complained.
"Just sit against the wall over there." Dean pointed. Sam shook his head, but was too tired to fight anymore and obeyed his older brother's directive, sliding down the wall miserably to take a seat, shooting deadly looks towards his brother.
Dean watched him for a second then turned to walk up to the front desk.
"Is this where we sign in to see a doctor?" he asked the short, plump nurse or receptionist or whatever she was sitting behind the desk with a disinterested glance up at him.
"Take a number first and have a seat." She ordered with a pinched, nasally voice as if she had better things to do than deal with him.
"You mean I need to take a number to just sign in?" He asked in disbelief.
"Yep."
"How long is that gonna take?"
"Depends on how many people are ahead of you."
"How many people are ahead of us?"
"I dunno, pull a number and find out."
Dean shook his head at the absurdity of it all and pulled a number out of the ticket holder. #53. He looked up at the 'Now Serving' sign and sighed, his shoulders slumping when he saw that it read #25. He turned back to the lady at the front desk, growing angry in frustration.
"Look, my brother's pretty sick over there, he needs to be seen right away."
"Everyone here is sick or they wouldn't be here, sir." She came back in irritation. "This is not a hospital E.R., just a walk-in urgent care clinic, If you have a real emergency, I suggest you go there." Ignoring Dean's reddening face, she turned away from him and went back to her computer game of spider solitaire.
Dean felt like throwing something, but instead resorted to saying something indecent under his breath about the woman's questionable parentage that she couldn't hear as he made his was back to Sam, who just watched him sit next to him with droopy eyelids.
"Looks like we're going to be here a while, Sammy." Dean told him
Sam didn't answer and Dean turned his head to see that he was asleep again, the back of his head against the wall and tilted up in a way that had to be uncomfortable.
"Oh for God's sake...here." Dean nudged Sam and offered his shoulder for him to lay his head on.
A man sitting in one of the chairs across from them raised his eyebrows, appraising the brothers in a way that made Dean's skin crawl and he figured he must think that they might be an item given their closeness.
"What?" He asked him in irritation, not liking the creepy smile on the guy's face. "He's my brother- you perv." The man just turned away again with a look of disappointment.
It really was going to be a long, long, long afternoon.
OOOOOO
And it was a very, very, very long afternoon.
They waited for an hour just to have their number be called up to register, then they another hour for the triage nurse, who took Sam's vitals, recorded his symptoms and declared him to have a fever, but not in any danger of dying then sent them back to the waiting room to wait some more. Both brother's went through all of the five-year old copies of Good-housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal before Sam's name was finally called hours later to go to the exam room and wait for the doctor to finally make an appearance.
"The doctor will be with you shortly." A nurse informed them as she walked them into an exam room. Sam climbed up to the exam bed while Dean turned and addressed the nurse.
"When you say 'shortly' is that in normal time or clinic time?" Dean began shortly, but managed a sarcastic smile. "Because the last time someone told us my brother would see a doctor 'shortly' was four hours ago."
"I'm sorry, sir. It's been a busy day. The doctor will see you when he can get to you. So please have a seat. there are some magazines in the corner." With a flip of her ponytail, the now annoyed nurse left them and Dean walked over to the small end table topped with more copies of women's magazines.
"Damn, would it kill them to leave a couple copies of magazines that don't require a vjay-jay to read them." He complained then took up walking around the tiny room to pass the time.
Time slowed, or at least seemed to as the two brothers waited in the quiet. Dean continued his pacing and Sam tried taking a nap, but was too uncomfortable to get any actual sleep.
"Will you just sit, already? Your pacing is making me nauseous." Sam pleaded as he sat up, giving up on the nap and breaking the silence before he lay back down again on the exam table, draping an arm over his eyes to shield them from the overly-bright fluorescent lights above giving him a headache.
"How long have we been in this little room anyway?" Dean groused out loud. "It feels like hours, when is this douche-bag doctor finally going to show up? I mean come on...this is ridiculous." Reaching his breaking point, Dean's patience was pushed well beyond his tolerance.
"I hate to say I told you so." Sam replied in a mumble in way that meant just the opposite. " But you saw that waiting room, should have just gone back to the motel room, like I said. At then at least I wouldn't have had to use your bony shoulder as a pillow all afternoon."
"Oh Yeah, well you're welcome for that and for keeping the creepy guy sitting near us from molesting you with his eyes. By the way, you're paying for these drool marks to get removed from my jacket." Dean pointed to the dark, wet splotches on his shoulder.
Just then, there was a knock at the door and a young, tall, gangly man with thick glasses and a stethoscope wrapped around his thin neck strode into the room. He didn't even look old enough to shave, much less be a doctor and Dean did his best to hold back the Doogie Howser jokes at the tip of his tongue.
"Hello, I'm Doctor Newman, how are...?" the doctor began to introduce himself but was cut short as Sam began to cough again, darting up from the exam table to hack some more gunk up, grimacing from the pain it caused deep in his chest.
"Well, I guess I know what your chief complaint is." The doctor surmised.
One five-minute exam later with one very cold stethoscope and the doctor declared Sam to have a bad case of the flu and wrote him a prescription for cough syrup.
Sam wouldn't talk to Dean on the way back to the motel after that.
OOOOOOO
Dean had been in a rare, deep sleep, but was woken-up that night thanks to a strange feeling that something was wrong. Sam's unending coughing, which hadn't improved any even after taking the prescription cough syrup, had seemed to actually get worse since they got back to the room, but Sam had insited that they were absolutely not going back to the doctor after the clinic debacle that afternoon.
Sitting up and looking to his side, he realized with a start that Sam wasn't in his bed anymore and a weird gagging noise was coming from the bathroom.
"Sam?" He called out but got no answer. With a colorful expression, Dean flung off his covers and got up to investigate.
He pushed the bathroom door open to see Sam kneeling over the toilet, hands shaking as he gripped the porcelain tight. Bloodshot eyes looked up at Dean as he came in and stopped short by the sight that greeted him. With teeth chattering and bright-red blood dribbling from his lips, Sam struggled to breathe and address his shocked older brother.
"I think...this is more...than the flu..."
TBC...
