How hard can it be to get a sick little brother to the doctor?

Pretty damn hard, Dean decided.

With more than a little help from Dean, Sam stayed upright and moving forward out of the motel room. But when they cleared the doorway he turned back and gave a last look into the room.

"They're waving goodbye," he said and Dean couldn't tell if he was touched, sorry, or baffled.

"Good, because that's the last you'll be seeing of them. C'mon. Car."

Dean propelled Sam toward the car, intending to set him into the passenger seat but he pulled away with a hoarse, petulant, "I can get to the car by myself," and Dean let him shuffle on while he locked up the motel room.

But he'd no sooner pulled the door closed and turned the key when his over-hot, over-tired, over-reacting Little Brother was pushed up against him, his back to Dean's side, his arms held out like he was trying to block him from something.

"Sam?"

"Hellhound," Sam harshed out. "Get back in the room, it's a hellhound."

Dean shoved the key back into the lock and moved aside enough to be sure Sam would be the first one back into the room, and took a fast glance towards where Sam was looking. But what he was seeing was so far from a hellhound, it was ridiculous.

He would've laughed but Sammy's feelings were so easily hurt.

"That's a puggle, Sam."

"What?" Sam asked. He risked a look between Dean and the little dog that was wandering their way and asked again, "What?"

"Puggle, Sam?" Dean took the key back out of the door and eased his way out from behind Sam to stand next to him. "I'll grant you, it has four legs, teeth and a tail, but it's not a hellhound, it's a puggle."

The puggle in question reached Sam's bare feet, where it stared up at Sam with pretty much the same expression Sam was staring down at it with: head-tilting confusion.

"But - that's not an ant-eater," he said.

"Ant-eater? You're hallucinating ant-eaters now?" Dean asked.

"No - puggle. You said puggle. That's - puggles - they're juvenile spiny ant-eaters. From Australia." Sam gestured to their tiny visitor. "That's a dog."

Dean bit his lip to keep from laughing as a sharp whistle from a room down the way had the dog running back the way it'd come. He put his hand on Sam's back and urged him toward the car again.

"Sammy, I bet you're the only person outside of Australia who knows what juvenile spiny ant-eaters are called. C'mon, watch your head. Watch your feet. Get in."

He opened the door and Sam eased himself into the passenger seat, where he sat with his head down and his hands in his lap, looking cold, feverish, and dejected. Dean got a blanket out of the trunk.

"You doing okay?" He asked when he got into the driver's seat. He unfolded the blanket and shoved it over Sam's lap. "Be about a half hour to get us to the doctor."

"I - yeah - I just- yeah."

"You sure? You wanna lie down in back?"

"No, Dean." Sam pressed his fingers against his eyes. "Just - drive. I'm - I'll last."

Dean wasn't buying it.

"Sammy - are you going to make me tickle you to tell me what's wrong, like when you were five?"

"If you tickle me," Sam said, raising dark, bloodshot eyes to Dean, "I swear I will vomit clown bile all over the inside of this car."

He was serious. He was deadly serious and Dean didn't doubt that Sam would be able to conjure up some revolting bodily fluids and he wasn't about to take that chance - not with the inside of the car, and not with the inside of Sammy. He started the car and pulled out of the motel parking lot and headed for the doctor.

"So, what's really going on?" He asked.

"Nothing." But Sam sighed which meant he was caving. "I just wish I could start yesterday all over again."

"With less drinking."

"With less…everything."

Dean gritted his teeth in aggravation.

"And that tells me nothing."

"Dean…." Sam complained but didn't say anything else.

"Sam, c'mon. What you were saying yesterday, talking about Cas and Benny. Talking about letting me down. What's going on?"

He looked over at Sam, intending to force an answer out of him, but Sam was staring at his hands, looking like his juvenile spiny ant-eater had just died and he couldn't cope, and Dean let it go.

"All right," he said, gently. "Let's just get you to the doctor."

"Yeah," Sam answered. He kept his head down and Dean kept a close eye on him.

After ten miles or so, they left the city limits and drove down a rural back road. Dean saw Sam swallow several times in a row and scrub a hand across his mouth, and by the time he had his hand wrapped around the door handle, saying "Dean" in a soft, pained voice, Dean was already pulling over to the side of the road.

Sam pushed the door opened and braced himself on it to lean over and cough out a mouthful of spit and bile onto the grassy shoulder. Dean patted his back a few times then went to the trunk to grab a bottle of water out of the cooler. He brought it back into the car and lightly tapped Sam's shoulder with it.

"Whenever you want it."

Sam nodded and coughed a few more times, sounding like he was trying to bring up a lung. When he sat back, his bangs were stuck to his forehead with the sweat that covered his face and neck. He tugged the car door shut.

"Thanks," he said as he took the cold bottle of water from Dean. Instead of drinking it, he pressed it against his neck. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat.

"Thanks," he said again. Then, other than moving the bottle of water from his neck to his forehead and down to his neck again, Sam remained still in his seat, with his eyes closed and his free hand restlessly clutching at the blanket and letting go, only to clutch it again.

Dean pulled the blanket straighter over Sam's legs, started the car, and got them back on the road.

Next Up: Big Brother takes his job seriously.