Hallucinating Sammy can be hard on a big brother.

Extra-strength aspirin. Gatorade. Chicken noodle soup. Rice pudding. Mouthwash.

Dean reviewed his purchases from the corner quickie mart as he drove back to the room. Sam was sick and bound to stay sick for another day or two at least. Moose, nothing. When it came to respiratory infections, Sam had all the bounce-back ability of a flat basketball. Dean was laying in supplies for the long haul.

The motel was in sight when Dean's phone rang. Speak of the Moose, he was calling. Either he thought of something he wanted or he wanted to know how soon the painkillers would be arriving.

"Hey, Sam. Miss me already?"

There was a few seconds lag, probably Sam trying to get his throat to agree to talking. Then there was a thud, Sam probably dropped the phone, and Dean smiled; as sick as Sam was, he'd be back in the room before Sam got the phone back in his hand.

Then – Dean's heart jumped into this throat and froze there – then he heard Sam's harsh, panicked voice, from somewhere not near the phone - 'You're not real. You're not real."

"SAM!" Dean shouted into his phone. "SAMMY!"

There was no answer. Dean listened close as he pulled into the motel parking lot and floored it as fast as he could down to their room. He listened but there was no more sound from Sam's end of the phone call. No growls or shrieks or maniacal laughter.

Nothing from Sam.

Nothing at all.

Dean slammed the car to a stop in the parking space in front of their room. As he shut off the engine and hurried out of the car, he gave the motel room a quick once over. The door was shut, the windows were intact. No scrapes or scratches or obvious tampering.

He pulled his gun and then the room key and let himself in, on alert for anything.

Sam's bed was empty. The covers were twisted and half pulled off the bed, but there was no Sam.

"Sam?" Dean called. "Sammy?"

He heard something, a low noise from behind the closed bathroom door that he immediately recognized as Sam's voice. Dean was at the door in a second, ready to kick it down if he had to. But the knob turned and he went in.

And saw Sam's legs sticking out from the far side of the toilet, where he should never have been able to fit.

"Sam?" Dean stowed his gun and went to his brother. Sam was wedged awkwardly between the wall and the side of the tank and toilet. His eyes were wide and panicked, and his breath was coming so fast he was close to hyperventilating. Dean crouched near his feet. "Sammy?"

"C-c-clown." Sam stuttered out, breathless. His eyes didn't focus on Dean and his voice was even rougher than when he woke up. "C-c-c-clown. B-b-bed. And –and – " Sam made a swirling motion with his hand. "And - upside down. And – bite. It – Dean – " Sam swallowed hard and finally looked at Dean. "It crawled in under the bathroom door."

Dean looked around the bathroom but saw no evidence of anything clown-like. Hallucinations. Great.

"Okay. It's OK, Sam. There's no clowns. C'mon, let's get you out of there. Get back to bed. I've got more medicine for you. C'mon."

He reached in and took hold of Sam's arms, planning to pull Sam from his foxhole. But Sam grabbed hold of Dean.

"It was in the toilet." He told Dean in a rough whisper, like the thing might hear him. "It was staring at me from under the toilet seat."

Well, that was a creepy image.

"It was just an hallucination, Sam. It's not real." Dean told him, keeping his voice even and calm. "You've got a fever, you're burning up. You were hallucinating. C'mon out of there."

Dean tugged and Sam twisted and soon he was away from the toilet, sitting still on the floor with his back against the tub. He pulled his knees up and bent his head down, putting his hands over his face. He was shaking and Dean didn't know if it was fear or fever.

So Dean eased himself up to sit on the edge of the tub and Sam leaned his shoulder against Dean's knee.

"I think you've spent more time in the bathroom the past twenty four hours than anywhere else," Dean said.

"Sorry."

Dean sighed.

"It's not you being sick that's the problem. Other than – you know – you being sick. But I'm still fuzzy on why you got blitzed to start with."

Sam sighed, and swallowed, and lifted his head to look at Dean.

"Help me get back to bed?"

Not everything Dean wanted to hear. But he sighed, too.

"Yeah, c'mon. Can you get to your feet?"

Dean stood, helping Sam up with him, and they took the three or four short steps to the bathroom door. Sam stopped there and peered out into the room. Dean hated to ask, because they'd been down this road too many times in the past, but he asked.

"Do you see it?"

And like too many times in the past, Sam nodded.

"Under my bed. I see its eyes."

"Okay." Dean put one hand on Sam's back and the other hand he put on Sam's arm to pull his attention away from the bed. "Hey - look at me, okay? You know it's not real, right?" Another well-worn road they'd been down. "You know it can't hurt you."

"I know." Sam said, but he sounded weary. His face was flushed with fever, his skin was hot and dry, his voice was gravel, and he sounded so weary.

"We'll get you some more medicine and get you some more rest and I'll take clown watch. Okay?"

"It said it hurt you."

"But it didn't. And it can't. Okay? Hallucination or not, no clown is taking me down, right?"

And Sam's mouth twitched a smile and he nodded, "Right," and looked towards his bed again.

"It's still there."

Dean sighed. Again. He wanted Sam to rest, but Sam wouldn't get any rest if there was a clown under the bed. Even an imagined clown.

"Okay. Here. C'mon, let's put you in my bed. That's a certified clown-free zone."

"It is?" Sam asked. Dean had said it as an automatic, off-hand remark, but Sam was ready and eager to take it as the absolute truth. Dean smiled at the feeling it gave him to have Sam believe him so easily and be comforted.

"You bet it is. C'mon. Close your eyes if you want to. Just listen to me and let's get you over there. Okay?"

"Okay."

They started the short trek across the motel room towards the far bed, Dean's bed. Dean kept his hand on Sam's back and Sam kept his eyes closed.

"Okay, so we're going to get you into bed. I'll get you some more medicine, maybe some soup. Right?" Dean talked more to distract Sam than any other reason, to keep his attention focused on something other than what was or wasn't under the bed.

"Soup would be good." Sam agreed.

"I got chicken noodle. The kind with noodles shaped like cars from 'Cars'."

That made Sam open his eyes and look at Dean.

"'Cars'?"

"Hey – it's a good movie…"

Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head and sighed, but Dean saw a smirk, too.

"The Impala know you're cheating on her?"

"Hey, Baby knows I'd never cheat on her…here, we're at the bed. Have a seat."

Sam started to sit, then stopped and bent sideways a little, trying to see – Dean knew – under the bed. Dean held his breath. If there was a clown under there, their next choice was Sam sleeping in the car. Which normally wasn't a problem, but Sammy with a one hundred and five fever wasn't normal. Knock wood.

"What's the verdict?" Dean asked, when Sam didn't say anything or move any farther.

"No." Sam shook his head. "Nothing."

"Okay? We're good?"

Sam straightened up, slowly. The look he gave Dean didn't inspire any confidence that he was okay sitting – much less lying down – on the bed.

"Sammy, c'mon. You need to lie down before you collapse. It's an hallucination, it can't hurt you. Once we get some more medicine in you and your fever goes down, the hallucinations will go away. Okay?"

Sam nodded and swallowed.

"My throat hurts."

"Okay. We'll take care of that, too. C'mon."

So Sam stretched himself out on the bed with a deep, whistling, sigh.

Now, now, came the hard part.

"Okay." Dean started. "I'm going out to the car to get the –"

That was as far as he got and Sam was sitting up on the bed in a heartbeat.

"What? Why? What's in the car? Where's the car? You said – you said – "

"Hang on, hang on, Sammy." Dean tried to cut him off. "I just have to get the bag of stuff from the store. The medicine. The car's right outside the door. Ten feet there and back." Okay, more like twenty five but this was no time to be accurate. "I swear. There and back."

Sam didn't say anything but by the look on his face he wasn't relenting either.

"You're safe, Sam. Clown-free zone, remember? It's just an hallucination."

"I don't care if it's hallucinations." Sam snapped at him. "It's – it's – "

He didn't finish and he didn't have to. Dean knew what Sam didn't say – it was scary. Never mind that Sam had survived hell, had survived Plucky's, had killed hundreds of monsters and saved hundreds of lives, had survived broken Walls and mind-shattering grief. Never mind that he was Sam Winchester, Destroyer of All Things Evil. He was sick and exhausted and scared of an imaginary, fever-induced clown.

"You wanna come out to the car with me while I get the bag?"

Sam hesitated, like he was realizing just how silly that was, but then his eyes cut over to his bed for a long few seconds and he turned back to Dean and nodded.

"All right, c'mon. It's not cold out, you don't need shoes. It'll only take a minute. We'll get you the medicine and see about getting your fever down. Okay?"

Sam got out of bed on the side closest to the door and Dean let him go out the door first. Sam had to feel miserable - sick, achy, sore-throat, high-fever miserable – but he went out to the car and stood there while Dean snagged the bag of supplies from the front seat.

"Okay. Let's get you inside and taken care of."

He led the way back inside, shut the door, and waited until Sam had done another visual sweep under the bed before getting back in and sitting against the headboard, arms and legs and feet safely pulled close, to get him a glass of water and a dose of medicine.

"I'll make you some soup and you get some more rest. OK?"

"Yeah, OK." Sam nodded. "Thanks."

Dean smiled.

"You're welcome, Sammy."

~SPN~ ~SPN~ ~SPN~

Up next: sicker Sammy is harder on a big brother.