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Sam's just zipping up his backpack when Dean comes in the room. "Where do you think you're going?"
Sam stands slowly, swinging his backpack over his shoulder, ignoring the twinge in his muscles. "To school," he says hoarsely.
"Uh, try again. You're going back to bed."
"I already missed a day."
Sam starts making his way to the door. Dean follows closely behind. "Yeah, a day. One day." Sam starts coughing into his elbow. "Besides you can't go to school with a fever, right?"
"Yeah, but I don't have a fever," Sam says when the coughing ceases.
Dean puts a hand to his forehead before he can stop him. "Liar." Sam smacks his hand away. "Wait here." Dean walks over to the table, grabs the thermometer, and goes back to Sam. He holds it out to him. "If it's 99 or below, you can go." Dean shakes the thermometer when Sam doesn't take it right away. Sam reluctantly puts it under his tongue. He looks down at his shoes, waiting for it to finish. Sam hands it over when it beeps. "Sorry, kiddo. 101.5. No school for you."
"Dean," Sam practically whines, but he gives in; he does feel bad. He drops the bag on the ground and toes off his shoes.
"There ya go." The two walk back to Sam's bed. Dean picks up some sweatpants off the floor. "Put these on; you'll be more comfortable." Sam glares and swipes the pants from Dean. "I'll be back."
Sam changes and gets in bed. He's so cold; he pulls the blankets up to his chin.
Dean comes in a minute later carrying a plate with buttered toast on it. Sam uncovers himself and takes it hesitantly. He takes a small bite and chews it slowly. Dean seems satisfied, so he jumps on his own bed, crossing his arms and watching TV. "Did you hear from Dad?" Sam asks. He always hates when their dad leaves for a hunt alone, but Sam is sick and John insisted on leaving Dean in charge.
"Not yet. He probably doesn't want to call and wake you up. You know, since you're supposed to be in bed, sleeping." Dean looks over at his brother. The small plate is abandoned on his lap, only half the toast eaten. "Finish that. Gotta keep your strength up."
"You say that like I've got a terminal illness. It's just a cold or something." Sam sniffs then coughs once. He picks the toast back up, taking a tentative bite.
"'Or something," Dean responds absently, watching whatever movie is on.
When Sam's finished, he sets the plate aside and sinks back into the bed, hoping to sleep again. "Oh, hey," Dean says. The other bed creaks when he gets up. "Can't forget your meds." Sam groans. He hears pills rattling in bottles.
He sits up and starts coughing again. Dean comes over and sits next to Sam. "Easy, easy." He rubs Sam's back in soothing circles until it passes. When he sits back up, he leans against Dean. He's exhausted and trying to catch his breath. When he finally seems better, Dean offers him pills, one oblong and white and the other small and pink. Sam takes them without complaint. Dean measures out cough syrup and holds it out to his little brother. The thick, orange liquid makes him wrinkle his nose. "I know you hate it, Sammy, but you gotta take it. Unless you want a repeat of what just happened." Sam makes a point to glare at Dean before taking it and downing it like a shot. Dean gets up. "Go to sleep. I'll wake you in four hours." Sam gratefully gets back under the covers.
• • •
The shivering is what wakes him up. The chill all the way down to his bones and the splitting headache is what keeps him awake. "Dean," he says, almost involuntarily, through chattering teeth.
Dean's there in an instant. "Sammy? What's wrong? Open your eyes." He wasn't aware they were closed. He opens his eyes to see his brother's worried face only a few inches from his own.
"I'm c-cold. And my head hurts." He curls in on himself, trying to get warm.
Dean gets the covers off his own bed and puts them over his brother. "I'll get you something for the headache." He rushes off to the kitchen. Sam almost laughs. Dean Winchester never rushes anywhere. He comes back in the room carrying some pills and a thermometer. "Open up." Not wanting to move his arm out from under the covers, Sam opens his mouth and Dean puts the thermometer under his tongue. They waited, Sam with his eyes shut tight and trying to keep the shivering under control. When it's done and Dean reads it, he doesn't say anything, just hands Sam the pills and says he'll be back in a few minutes.
Sam tries to go back to sleep, but his head is pounding. He hears Dean on the phone in the kitchen and tries to listen. Dean's voice is hushed like he doesn't want Sam to hear him. "Hey, Dad. How's the hunt?" He listens for a minute. "He's not doing so great. I thought he was okay this morning. Said he wanted to go to school. His temp's 102.7 now; it was only 101.5 a few hours ago." Another short pause. "Says he cold, but that's because the fever's so high, right?" Dean doesn't wait for an answer. "He's coughing a lot too. He's got a really bad headache now." Short pause. "Yeah, I gave him something." Pause. "Every four hours, just like you said. I'm making him soup now." A longer pause. "I know, I know. Thanks, Dad. Bye."
Sam drifts back to sleep and is woken soon by Dean. Sam takes a deep breath and sits up. He shivers when the air hits his skin. "I brought your hoodie." He helps Sam put it on despite his protests. Sam relishes the heat emitting from the bowl of soup Dean hands him. He just wants to sit there and hold it, but Dean says, "What do I gotta do, spoon feed you?"
Sam shakes his head and starts eating. After a minute of Dean staring, he says, "Do you mind?"
"What?" he asks, confused.
"I'm trying to eat and you're making it weird."
"Oh, okay." Dean goes over to his own bed and starts flipping through channels on the TV.
By the time Sam is halfway through the bowl, he's warm and no longer hungry. "I'm done," Sam says, but his voice is weak and quiet so he has to repeat himself.
Dean gets up and takes the bowl. He looks at it disapprovingly since only half of it is gone but again doesn't say anything because he doesn't think he can convince Sam to eat any more. "I'll be back in two hours with more Tylenol."
But when Sam wakes up about an hour later, his big brother isn't there. He feels a pang of fear in his chest, something he can't help. "Dean?" He asks loudly. Using his voice triggered another, painful coughing fit. He sits up, elbow covering his mouth. When it's gone, Sam gets up. Pain shoots through his head, but he ignores it. "Dean?" he asks again.
Sam walks to the bathroom. The door's open and Dean isn't there. He then goes to the kitchen, but he isn't there either. Sam goes to the door and swings it open. His brother is there, on the phone. Dean's eyes widen and he says, "I'll have to call you back," into the receiver. "Sam, what are you doing out of bed."
Sam's suddenly having a hard time breathing. "You weren't in the room when I woke up." Dean ushers him inside. The two head back to the bedroom where Sam sits down. Dean tries to push him, to make him lay down, but Sam's having none of it. "You always tell me when you're going somewhere." Sam starts coughing again, and, God, does it hurt – his chest, his throat, even his head.
"Relax, kid. I'm here," he says over the coughs. "I'm here. I was just talking to Dad." He waits to speak until the coughing ceases and Sam relaxes down into the pillows, his chest rising and falling quickly as he attempts to get his breath back. "Bad news. He needs me to go to the library. He thought it was a shifter, but now he's not so sure."
Sam nods. "It's okay. I'll be fine." He pulls the blankets up again.
"Are you sure? Because –"
"Yes, Dean," he says definitively.
"Okay. I won't be gone longer than I have to be. There's leftover soup in the fridge. I'll leave the medicine here. Don't skip out on the cough medicine just 'cause I'm not here to force feed it to you. I don't care how nasty it is." Dean picks his wallet up off the bedside table and puts it in his back pocket. "I'll call you in an hour for when it's time to take your next dose. If I'm not back for the third, I'll call you then too." He slips on his boots and starts tying them.
"Will you pick up my homework when you're done?" Sam gives him the best puppy dog look he can manage.
"Fine, but you can only work on it for an hour and you have to do it in bed." Then, he adds, "You can't go back to school tomorrow, either."
"What?" Sam practically shouts.
"Not when your fever's this high today. School policy, right? I'll ask the office lady when I get there," he placates.
So, Sam sleeps. He wakes up an hour later when Dean calls. He takes the medicine and then watches TV like a zombie, eyes glazed over, until he falls back to sleep. The sound of a doorknob being turned wakes him up. He reaches for his gun under his pillow instinctually. Sam relaxes as he hears keys being dropped on the table; it's just Dean. "Sammy, you awake?"
"It's Sam," he says just loud enough for Dean to hear.
Dean laughs. Sam gets up and goes to the kitchen where Dean is reheating the soup. The younger brother is hunched over slightly, arms crossed over his shivering frame. Dean turns to see Sam standing there like that. "Dude, sit down." Dean pulls out a chair and Sam sits.
Looking around and seeing no textbooks, Sam asks, "Where's my school stuff?."
"Sorry, buddy. School was closed by the time I got done at the library. I'll get it for you tomorrow morning."
"'Buddy?'" Sam asks, making a face.
Dean shrugs. "You're sick," is the only explanation he offers for the nickname. Dean leaves and when he comes back, he has more medicine and the thermometer in his hands. Sam puts the device in his mouth and waits while Dean prepares the food. After he sets down the bowl, he takes the thermometer from Sam. "Temp's lower. Not low enough. Take the pills." Dean points down at them. Sam does, but when he eyes the measuring cup full of cough syrup Dean holds out to him, Dean says, "Sammy," in a warning tone and he knows there's no way out. He takes the medicine.
• • •
Sam Winchester never half-asses anything. When he gets sick, he gets sick. His fever refuses to go down for three days; Dean seriously considered taking him to the doctor, but his dad convinced him to wait one more day. Good thing he did because the fever broke the next day. That wasn't necessarily a good thing, however. Rather than Sam being freezing, he was burning up and sweating, completely miserable.
Sam coughs weakly, making the pain in his head flare. Dean hasn't left his side all day. Who knew that his fever getting lower would make him feel so much worse. He can't do anything for himself. He's refusing to eat, but he does take the medicine. Dean has brought over a chair. He's been sitting at Sammy's bedside since six in the morning, wiping the sweat off his face and neck.
"Sammy, please eat something," he begs for the umpteenth time that day. Sam shakes his head slowly. "Dad will be home soon." To be honest, Dean doesn't know if that's true or not. "You don't want him to see you like this, do you?" Dean knows for a fact he doesn't. He knows it's already hard enough on Sam for Dean to see him like this, for Dean to be sitting here, wiping the sweat off his brow and begging him to eat. Sam shakes his head. "You want to go back to school, don't you?" he asks, again knowing the answer. Sam nods. "Then you need to eat something." Sam then turns his head away, refusing to acknowledge him. Dean sighs, frustrated and upset. "For me?" he asks as a last resort. If anything is going to work, it's going to be this. Sam doesn't move at first, but then he finally nods, thank God.
Dean immediately grabs some pillows. He uses them to prop his little brother up. Dean sets a packet of saltines on Sam's lap. It looks much harder than it should be for Sam to lift his hand and take a small bite of the cracker. After he finishes eating that one, he asks Dean for something to drink, his voice raspy and weak from coughing and lack of use. Dean happily obliges.
A quarter of the pack is finished after what feels like the longest half hour of Dean's life. Sam pushes them away. "I can't," is all he says.
"That's okay, Sammy. You did good." Dean takes the crackers and sets them aside. "How 'bout you stay awake for a little while and we watch TV, huh?" Sam nods slowly. Dean's not using his older brother commanding voice, he's using one Sam hardly ever hears. One that's quiet and makes him sound afraid. Sam can't say no to that voice because it's the sound of his brother's heart breaking for his own. When Sam's in pain, Dean's in pain, and sometimes, Sam thinks it's worse for Dean than it is for him.
So, they sit and watch TV until Sam can no longer keep his eyes open.
• • •
After a couple more days, Sam feels well enough to do his homework even if he has to do it in his bed rather than at the kitchen table. Dean makes Sam wait one more day before allowing him to go back to school which Sam resents a little, but he does understand. He's embarrassed, but he couldn't be more grateful for Dean who always made sure Sam had what he needed, even if he didn't want it. Honest to God, Dean is the best big brother anyone could have.