Clown-free zone. Clown-free zone. Sam repeated it in his head. Dean's bed was a clown-free zone.
Even after soup ~ with Cars-shaped noodles ~ and more medicine and more Gatorade, Sam wasn't feeling any better. His acid-burned throat burned worse. He couldn't breathe any deeper than a pant, no matter how hard he tried. His skin was so hot, it felt shrunken.
And whenever he turned to look over his shoulder, his bed was swarming with clown heads on spider-clown bodies that waved brightly colored spidery little legs at him. They were swarming the walls and the ceiling and the bedside table, coming closer and closer to Dean's bed each time.
One more look and they'd be at his bed.
Clown-free zone. Clown-free zone. Clown-free zone, Sam thought desperately. Clown-free zone.
"Eyes on me, Sam." Dean said, again. He said it every time Sam looked back at his bed.
Dean was in a dinette chair at the side of the bed closest to the front window. He had a book in his hand and one foot on the edge of the mattress, holding the chair back at a tilt. Sam turned back towards him, trying to get comfortable on the pillow, pulling the blanket closer, trying not to feel tiny spidery clowny legs buzzing up and down his arms and legs and over his toes and around his fingers and over his ears and into his mouth and –
"NO!" Sam sat up and threw the blanket back, clawing at his arms, digging at his pajamas, scrubbing across his face, desperately trying to scrape off the feeling of skittering monster clown insects tunneling into his skin. "Get off! Get off me!"
Dean dropped the book and his chair slammed down to all four legs as he reached for Sam.
"Nothing's there. Nothing's there, Sam. C'mon. You know nothing's there."
He tried to hold Sam's hands still but Sam pulled one free to drag through his hair.
"They're all over me. Get them off of me." Sam pleaded. "Get them off."
"No, they're not. There's nothing on you, Sam. C'mon. C'mon. Look at me. Sam, look at me. Just look at me."
Dean got hold of Sam's hands then and held them still, but Sam still felt the skittery, tunnely, clowny buzzing that was making his skin twitch and burn as he looked at Dean.
"C'mon, Sam. Okay? It's hallucinations. You're burning up. There's nothing on you. Okay? Clown-free bed, remember?"
"But – but – "
"But what?"
"But – they're spider clowns." Sam whispered. "Hats and noses and –and –" His hand made the squeezing gesture because he couldn't think of the name and he wanted Dean to get what he meant " - clown horns."
Dean's face did that thing then, that 'really want to laugh but trying really hard not to' thing.
"Okay. And that sounds really creepy." Dean spoke slowly, exaggeratedly slowly. Probably because he was still trying not to laugh. "But they're not real, Sammy. You're hallucinating."
"They're on me." Sam whispered.
Dean pursed his lips, and scrubbed his hand over his face.
"All right. Hold on. Just – hold on. I'm just going to the fridge, okay? Not leaving the room. Hold on."
When Dean let go of Sam's hands to walk to the fridge, Sam held out for all of three seconds before he scrubbed at the tiny monsters again, futilely trying to force them off of his arms and legs and out of his hair. He barely realized when Dean came back and only just barely heard him say,
"All right, here. Sit forward, here."
"Get them off."
"We will. We'll get them off by getting your fever down, all right? Lean forward, I've got ice. Sam, sit forward and let me put it on your neck."
Sam's kept swiping and scrubbing and clawing at the multicolored little invaders, but he sat forward like Dean asked and bent his head down and Dean set a plastic bag of ice wrapped in a t-shirt across his neck.
"It's not working." Sam complained. Whined.
"Dude, y'gotta give it more than half a second." Dean said. Then he put his hand against Sam's forehead again and sighed. "All right, you know what? We gave this long enough. Time for the hospital."
"NO!" Sam said. He tried to sit up but the ice started to slide off and Dean pressed him forward again and resituated the ice. "No hospital." Sam ended up saying it down to his knees. "Dean, please. No hospital."
"I said we'd wait and see, and we've waited. But Sammy - c'mon." Dean sat on the bed in front of Sam. "When you start seeing spider clowns with gag horns, it's time to go to the hospital."
"But - " Sam turned his head as much as he could towards Dean without losing the ice. "But it's hallucinations."
"Exactly. Hallucinations that need to be taken care of."
Sam knew the moment Dean got what he was talking about. The 'duh' roll of his eyes and the huff of annoyance at himself.
"Hey," Dean said, quietly. He put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "They're not going to put you on the psych floor for fever-induced hallucinations, okay? I wouldn't let them and they won't want to. Okay?"
"They're going away, they are." Sam insisted. He curled his hands and into fists and willed himself to stop scrubbing at the frenzied little monsters still swarming over him. "Really, Dean, they are. They're going away."
Dean huffed again and leaned close.
"No, they aren't." He said, softly and slowly. "You're sick, Sam. Physically sick. Your throat's infected, you have a high fever, and you're having hallucinations. It's time to go to a doctor and get you well again. Okay? All right? I'll make some calls and see if there's a doctor we don't have to go to a hospital to see. But you need to see one."
Sam's body shuddered under the onslaught of clown spiders, but he gripped his fists closed tighter to keep himself from swiping at them. He sat up and looked full at Dean. The ice pack fell off to the side.
"Promise." He said. Asked. Needed to hear Dean say.
"No psych ward. Sammy, I promise."
Sam waited one more second, maybe the clowns would stop now.
But they didn't. They didn't stop.
"Okay. Find a doctor. Okay."
He fell back onto the bed and started swiping at them again.
.
Next: Sick Sammy needs his big brother