Dean lies awake in his bed, unable to sleep for how worried he is about his brother. With much prompting, Sam had only managed to eat a little more than half of his sandwich before telling Dean if he ate any more, he wouldn't be able to keep it down. That's bad... that's so bad. What the hell is he supposed to do?
The next day is tense, Sam carefully avoiding breakfast in favor of black coffee, and Dean not sure what to say. Around noon, Dean announces that he's going to get some lunch, and asks Sam what he wants.
"I'm not hungry," Sam answers, even though he must know that there's no way Dean would believe him.
"Yeah, okay," Dean says sarcastically, and drives away with full intentions of getting Sam something. Of course, the hard part will come when he gets home and has to get Sam to eat his burger.
While Dean is gone, Sam has plenty of time to think. After his moment of weakness last night, he's realized that he needs to get back on track. He can't let this happen, let Dean force-feed him back to his starting weight, especially when he's worked so hard to get where he is. But there's no way he's going to be able to avoid eating completely - unfortunately, he'll probably have to go back to purging. He hates the feeling of purging, it makes him feel so dirty; he prefers to just not eat in the first place. But if he has to, the empty feeling is more than worth it.
He hears the bunker door open, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Sam, I'm back!" Dean calls out, entering the kitchen to find Sam exactly where he left him. "Got you a burger," he says, pushing it toward him.
Sam picks it up and stares at it for a minute before taking a bite. Dean watches in shock, but by the time Sam's finished chewing slowly 30 times, and swallowing, Dean has turned his attention to his own meal in some sort of effort to act natural.
Sam eats his entire burger and even some fries. Dean, who's been done eating for a while now, pats his brother on the back. "Good job, Sammy."
Sam nods quickly, his stomach feeling as if it's going to explode. "Um, I'm just gonna head to my room for a bit."
"Yeah, okay," Dean says, watching him leave the room with an unusual urgency. Something is definitely off. Dean tries to ignore the feeling, telling himself it's just because he ate more than he was used to. But after a couple of minutes, his big brother instincts take over and he heads to Sam's room.
"Sam?" He knocks on the door, getting no response. An uneasy feeling in his gut leads him to open the door. The bathroom door is open, the sink running, and he hears it before he sees it.
Sam is gagging over a toilet full of puke, middle and index fingers shoved down his throat. Dean rushes in without hesitation, pulling his fingers out of his mouth and getting him back from the toilet. "Sam, what the hell are you doing?!" he yells, panic spiking at the blood he's seeing in the toilet, on Sam's face.
"It's okay, Dean... Dean, it's fine..." Sam coughs his way through useless reassurances.
"Oh God, Sammy." He wipes the blood off Sam's face, but it keeps coming from his nose.
"Just... just a nosebleed," Sam says. He's pale and sweating, breathing hard. He feels horrible. And not just physically; Dean wasn't supposed to see this. "Just go, Dean," he says quietly. "I can take care of it. Please."
"No, I'm not leaving you, Sam," he states, his tone of finality weakened by the fear permeating every word.
Too exhausted to argue, Sam just lets his head drop back against the wall with a hard thud.
"Alright, no sleeping right now." Dean twists up a piece of toilet paper to put in Sam's nose. "That should stop the bleeding," he says. He gets no response from the shell of his brother sitting in front of him. "Okay, let's get you to bed." He hoists Sam up and half-drags, half-carries him to his bed.
"Ok, Sam, you..." Dean begins sternly, but stops to take a calming breath. It's really hard to be firm seeing his brother like this. Plus, any food he might force in right now would probably just come right back up. "You rest. Just... stay there. I'll be back," he promises. He goes back into the bathroom and flushes the toilet, ignoring the blood on the floor for now. There are more pressing matters at hand. He steps outside of the room to dial Cas.