I went outside. Hearing somebody else being sick kind of gives my own stomach ideas, so I went outside and waited. But after awhile, I wanted to know what was going on, if Sam was okay. So I went back in and Mom was in the kitchen putting the last of the groceries away.

"Is Sam okay?" I asked her.

"Yeah, he'll be okay." She told me, but she said it in that too-high voice that means she's hoping more than she's sure.

"He said he drank something."

"Oh? Did he tell you what he drank?"

Uh oh. She was asking me in that stiff way that meant maybe she already knew what he drank and she was trying to find out if I knew. Which meant she was hoping I didn't know. Which meant I had to find out.

I shrugged, because - you know - I didn't want her to know that I had to know.

"Just that he drank something and he's not contagious and he could get delirious and stuff."

"Stuff? What do you mean by 'stuff'?"

She was sounding like she was only making conversation but she was really trying to find out what else I knew. If I knew more than she knew. If what I knew was what she thought was bad stuff to know.

I shrugged again because I didn't know if it was bad or not.

"I heard them talking about driving here from a convent and how Sam isn't as bad as 'last time' so it should be okay for them to stay here."

She looked at me a few seconds, like she was processing what I told her, and like if she looked away from me it would screw up the processing.

"Oh." She finally said. "Oh, okay."

Just as she said that, Dean came into the kitchen where we were.

"Sam's done taking his shower. He said as long as he kept his eyes shut, he stayed undizzy. He's back in bed now."

He had a roll of clothes under his arm, they looked like the ones Sam'd been wearing.

"Good." Mom said and pointed at the clothes. "And I mean it - bring in all your laundry so I can wash it. I've got the washer all ready and waiting for it."

"Okay. Yeah, sure. Thanks."

Dean looked down at the clothes then kind of looked at me like there was something he couldn't figure out. And then he looked like he did figure it out, whatever it was.

"Hey, Ben - do me a favor, will you? Go have a look at Sammy, see if he's okay. If he's awake, see if he thinks he could handle some 7-Up."

I was being gotten rid of, I could tell. Dean was looking blasé and cool and like nothing was up, and Mom was giving Dean a perplexed look, until she smiled at me like she realized all of a sudden that I was looking at her reaction. Yeah, I was being gotten rid of.

"Okay. Sure." I shrugged like I didn't know I was being gotten rid of (because it's better if adults don't know how much kids actually know) and I went to Mom's room.

The door was halfway open. The drapes were pulled shut. Sam was laying right at the edge of Mom's bed, laying under the not-as-good-as-the-good-bedspread bedspread. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt over a thermal shirt and still he was shaking like he was freezing. He was on his side and the mop bucket was on the floor beneath him, right where it needed to be. Somebody had cleaned it out. Eww, gross.

Sam's eyes were closed and I figured he was asleep and so I could go back to hear what Mom and Dean didn't want me to hear. But when I took a step to head back that way, Sam woke up.

"Ben? Is everything okay?"

I don't know Sam as much as I know Dean, and that's not a whole lot anyway. He saved me, Sam saved me and all those kids with me, and he could've died doing it, so you know he's a good guy. And right then, when he asked 'is everything okay', not even lifting his head off the pillow when he asked it, I could hear in his voice that as cold, shaking, aching, sweating dead as he was feeling, if there was something wrong, he'd get out of bed and take care of it.

That gave me an idea what his life was like all the time.

"Dean asked me to check on you." I told him. I walked up a little closer to him. "But I think they more wanted to get me out of the room so they could talk."

Well, maybe I shouldn't have said that, since it was pretty obviously Sam that they were going to be talking about. But Sam laughed. It sounded a lot like a cough or a choke, but some of it at least was a laugh.

"Sucks to be the kid, doesn't it?" He asked me. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

"All the time."

"No. Not all the time." He coughed, and it really was a cough this time, and he turned onto his back like he was uncomfortable and couldn't get comfortable.

"You want me to get Dean?" I asked, and he nodded, only nodded and didn't say anything, and kept shifting around like he really needed to get comfortable but couldn't really do it.

I was out the door and only halfway down the bedroom hallway, hurrying, when Dean came hurrying down the other half towards me. Mom was behind him.

"He wanted me to get you." I told Dean and he only nodded and didn't stop to hear anything else.

"Hey, Sammy." He was saying before he was hardly even in the room. "How're you holding on?" And for as freaked as he looked when he passed me, he sounded like he was just checking on Sam, nothing else.

Sam answered something, but I couldn't hear it and I wanted to hear it, so I was gonna walk back to the room, but Mom pulled me around.

"Do me a favor, okay? Take their laundry down to the basement for me, so I can wash it."

Laundry? She was giving me laundry duty when Dean and Sam were here and something seriously serious was going on?

"But Mom -."

All she had to do was arch her eyebrows and give me The Look and I was headed for the kitchen and the laundry basket. Only it wasn't the laundry basket, it was another duffel like the one Dean had brought in when he brought in Sam.

I got to carry one of their duffel bags? Cool. I pulled the strap over my shoulder just like Dean had done it. The bag dragged on the stairs a little when I carried it down to the basement, but it was still so cool to be carrying Dean's duffel. Maybe Mom would get me one just like it.

I set it on the table next to the washing machine and was just deciding it'd be a real help to Mom if I opened it up and started sorting the clothes (not because I wanted to look at their stuff) when Mom came down.

"Is Sam okay?"

"Yeah." Her voice was still too high saying that, so she was still hoping. She unzipped the duffel and man, did it reek.

"Yuck. Why does their stuff smell like rotten eggs?" I asked. I held my nose and Mom looked like maybe she wanted to, too.

"When clothes don't get washed, they smell," she said. It was so totally a non-answer answer.

She shoved all the clothes Sam was wearing when he collapsed into our house into the washer. But only those clothes and none of the rest that were stuffed into the duffel. As soon as the detergent (double dose) and the fabric softener ball (full to the top) were in and the lid was shut and the washing cycle started, the smell wasn't so bad. I let go of my nose.

"What're we gonna do now?" I asked her.

"I'm going to get dinner started and keep working on their laundry, and you're going to get started on that hour of reading you need to have done by Monday."

Homework. Ugh. Lame.

"I mean - Dean and Sam. What're we doing now?"

Only one eyebrow got arched that time. Mom-Code for - well, it's code for a lot of things from 'do you really want to die right now?' to 'did I ask for your opinion?' to 'do I really have a son that clueless?' And right now, it was Code Number 3.

"We're not doing anything with them. Dean got Sam settled down and they're both going to sleep. For a long time. So we're not going to bother them."

"But if they need anything -."

"If they need anything, Dean will let me know. Until then -."

She left the rest of the sentence unfinished because I was supposed to finish it.

"Until then I'll get started on my reading." I glummed out. Homework. Lame.

Mom just smiled at me and headed upstairs.

I trudged up the stairs behind her and down to my room to get the book I was supposed to be reading. Mom's door was closed all the way but when I walked past it, I heard Dean call "Lisa?" like he was trying to be quiet, and since she was in the kitchen I opened it, just enough, just in case.

Sam was at the edge of the bed like before, on his side, under the bedspread. He didn't move when I answered Dean, so probably he was asleep. Or maybe it was because Dean was sitting on the bed next to him with his hand on Sam's shoulder that Sam knew he didn't have to check who was coming into the room.

"Mom's in the kitchen." I told Dean. "I can get her for you."

"Thanks."

I left the door open and tried not to run to the kitchen because I'm not supposed to run in the house even though maybe this would be an exception. But I guess not because when I told Mom, "Dean needs you," she hurried, but didn't run to see what he needed.

I hurried too, along behind her.

"Dean?"

Dean stood up when Mom walked into the room.

"Hey, Leese -." (Cool! Dean gave my Mom a nickname!) "I - uh - I -." He looked back at Sam like he was worried about something, and Mom started looking like she was getting worried about something, but then Dean finished with "I'm gonna take a fast shower, it won't take more than a few minutes. Would you sit with Sammy until I'm done?"

"I will." Mom said, and her face went from worried to smiling like being asked to sit with a guy who could hurl at any second was the world's biggest compliment. And Dean's face went from worried to looking like asking her to sit with Sam was the world's biggest compliment and he was glad Mom understood that.

I rolled my eyes, for all the good it did because Mom and Dean were only looking at each other, and I went to get my book to read.

Adults - they're so weird.

to be continued