Okay. I am new to writing Supernatural fan fic, but I’ve been reading the hurt/sick/comfort stuff forever. And I have written other fan fic so I kind of know what’s going on. I love the show beyond reason but I need to point out that my viewing of it has been slightly sporadic at times -- some episodes I haven’t seen quite to the extent as I’ve seen others. . .so if in my story I miss some sort of nuance between the Winchesters, or get some fact wrong, let me apologize in advance. . .and as far as writing the supernatural stuff they do -- all of that is my own, I like to think up my own “situations” Sam and Dean might find themselves in instead of just rehashing what’s been on the show.

I know there are many incredible writers in this fandom -- I can’t even begin to compare what I’ve written. Mine's just one more in the mix among so many already well-done stories but I can only hope it offers someone something (besides myself, that is). I just know that I love me some sick/hurt Dean and/or some hurt/sick Sam. . . and then some angsty Dean and/or angsty, worried Sam. . .reading your stories has been my greatest inspiration to try my hand at this fandom. . .so whether anyone likes this piece or not, I thank you all in advance for giving me the motivation to try.

*Special thanks to Mad Server, who is one of my favorite authors and a great source of inspiration. (In some ways, this is for her, not that she has to take it, but it's here if she would like it). . .

Okay, no more talking, just do what you see fit with it and thanks again.

Disclaimer: Don’t own Supernatural, Sam and Dean Winchester or any of the characters associated with the show. I don’t own anything involving the show. I make no money off these writings, nor off anything else for that matter, so suing me would be pretty fruitless. I’m just one sick puppy who loves to see the boys ailing and uncomfortable and awesome. I’m harmless, really. All mistakes are mine and unintentional and very much apologized for in advance.

Rated “T” for some language. Not slash, not even real plot though I pretend there is. Some Sam angst in this one and much sick Dean.

Spoilers? I don’t thinks so -- takes place (vaguely) after “Lazarus Rising” and before “Heaven and Hell.” But not “literally” -- I don’t always follow the show's timeline/storyline to a "T", and I take things out, put other stuff in. . . I make it how I want it, not necessarily exacting to the show, using “creative license” I guess you’d call it. I don’t think there are any spoilers but I am not a great judge of that because I assume everyone reading SN fan fic is aware of the plot/storyline of the show.

/

It starts off as almost nothing, no fever, not even the beginnings of a cold -- nothing -- which is why neither Sam nor Dean pay it any mind, not when there are far more important things to keep focused on, things like what they’d first thought was a simple case of dispensing with some shadow people but eventually turning into something much more sinister, something to do with baby sacrifice and Legion, of all fucking things. What had been a plan to stay maybe a few days, get everything all squared away with some holy water and light techniques and maybe a few ritualistic prayers had ended up turning into a month long ride of demonic battle and full-blown exorcism. Near the end, they were barely sleeping, and eating like crap, if at all -- but they’d managed to take care of business, drive Legion out and save both the baby and the twelve year-old boy right at the last minute.

So, yeah. A lot going on. It’s no wonder that neither of them notices that Dean is maybe coming down with something. Dean himself doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary; his voice is a little weird, a bit scratchy and rough; other times, seemingly out of nowhere, the back of his throat will tickle, often later at night when he’s lying down or just about to fall asleep, but that’s all. Neither of these things really enters his radar, at least not at first. This all starts coming on right at the end of this particular hunt, this hunt from -- literally -- hell, so it stands to reason that neither he nor Sam are exactly noticing how off he’s sounding.

But once the hunt is over, and they’ve had time to put a little distance between it and themselves -- a freezing little hamlet in southern Minnesota -- it’s Dean who begins to get that he isn’t fully a hundred percent, that the weird voice scratchiness and the annoying throat tickle is possibly the advent of something a little more weird and annoying. Like a cold. A virus of some kind. That sort of shit.

He may be the first to notice it, but it’s Sam who’s first to mention it, point it out. Because it always is, that’s just how it works with them. “What’s wrong with your voice?”

This, at breakfast while they’re easing through Iowa, plowing through a breakfast that tastes damn good, especially since there’d been few of those kind of breakfasts one state back.

Dean shrugs, scoops a mess of waffle, bacon and egg into his mouth. He’s just said something to Sam about one of the waitresses and her hotness when his voice does that giving-way thing, where it sort of cracks and fades before returning in a slightly lower octave than is normal for him.

“It sounded weird last night, too,” Sam goes on.

Dean swallows, drinks down some coffee before answering. “It’s nothing,” he says. And just as quickly as it has come, the weird crackly hoarseness is gone. “It comes and goes. Maybe too much yelling the last few weeks.” He shovels more eggs in his mouth.

Sam can hardly argue with him there. They’d both been doing a lot of yelling, a lot of shouting as they’d taken care of the business at hand. Coupled with the lack of decent rest and the cold Minnesota air, it makes sense that Dean’s voice is a little worse for the wear.

Yet, Sam still needs to ask.

Not just because it’s what he does, how it goes with them. There’s that, there would always be that.

But also, because Dean has been to hell. And like it or not, that gives new meaning to the idea of having concerns for him now.

“You sure? That you’re okay? That you’re feeling all right?” He rushes everything together, in one fell swoop, spits it out there before Dean has a chance to brush him off like he always does when asked if he feels all right, before he even has a chance to finish the sentence.

“Yeah, sure, I feel fine,” Dean says, and the fact that he doesn’t snap Sam’s head off at the question, that he’s rifling down his breakfast without hesitation, that he’s made a crack about a hot waitress, tells Sam that he probably is feeling all right, and Sam lets it go.

For now.

They head west, no destination in mind, not really, until Bobby calls, just as they get into the heart of Iowa, mentions that there’s a changeling situation in Nebraska that they should look into. Sam is hesitant; it is so close to what they’ve just come out of and despite Dean’s reassurances that he’s okay, he wonders if it won’t be too much at the moment, if Dean couldn’t maybe use the rest, make sure he’s all right. But Dean is totally up for it, eager in fact, and Sam stays quiet, his silence a tacit agreement even though he is more than a little uneasy.

/

They never make it to Nebraska. They get sidetracked before they leave Iowa with a situation that they stumble into accidentally, some kind of snake person that has a hold of a small farming community in the middle of the state, in the middle of nowhere. It’s not the hardest hunt they’ve ever done, but there are some tricks to it and it takes a few days to get it taken care of. They are into November now, the days damp with a combination of cold rain and sleet, the nights thick with a dense fog that covers everything.

Snake people will go anywhere.

Woods. Trees. The damp ground underneath houses.

Water.

It is, in fact, on a freezing marshy riverbank that they finally do away with this particular -- Lizard King, as Dean has so aptly named him -- where they end up splashing through the freezing water for hours before getting hold of it and slitting it from head to tail before finally burning it. Catching it had been tricky -- killing it even trickier because the thing was huge and it kept changing from snake to -- for want of a better word -- person, and Dean wanted to get it when it was still snake, knew it would be the best chance to kill it, so without second thought he’d leaped into the river and fell on it, wrestling it back up on the riverbank by some sheer act of strength. It wasn’t a small creature, either, and without Sam there to help him gut the thing when it came out of the water, Dean might’ve had a harder time with it. It turns out fine, though, and both of them are relieved and pumped when they are done, an unexpected but easier hunt after what they’ve just been through in Minnesota and what they are about to take on in Nebraska.

Except when they are back in the motel, Dean is hoarse and his voice is -- messed up. Crackly. Like there's something coating his throat, some kind of fluid or something. It doesn’t just come and go like before, it now seems stuck that way, even when he clears his throat over and over. “What happened to your voice out there?” Sam asks. “You sound friggin’ awful.”

“I feel fine,” Dean counters. He certainly seems fine, happy and relieved that they’ve taken care of business. “I’m good.”

He looks okay -- at least from the sidelong glances Sam is able to give him as the night wears on. He doesn’t look feverish, Sam will give him that much but he doesn’t look right, either. Something about his eyes -- there’s a heaviness to them, or something, something Sam can’t quite put his finger on. And it’s no shit that he sounds awful -- the constant throat clearing ends up turning into a painful sounding cough that makes Sam wince.

But he keeps quiet, because Dean says he’s all right, and other than the cough, seems like himself.

But now there is a disquiet within Sam that he can’t talk himself out of, no matter how hard he tries.

/

Dean is in the shower when Sam punches in a phone call to Bobby. He is calling to let them know what’s up, how far away they are -- about a day and half drive out -- and Bobby casually drops mention that there is a “situation” not too far from where they are now. Something about a skin walker and a bunch of disappearing women. “Christ, Bobby, what’s up in this state?” Sam asks wearily. “Freaking ass snake in whatever town we were in, and now some skin walker.”

“Yeah, Iowa,” Bobby says. “Who knew? Lot of shit going on, it’s that time of year, we’re just coming off the Halloween season. But it’s up to you, I’d rather have you get over to Nebraska as soon as you can, that whole deal is what needs your attention most.”

Personally, Sam isn’t thrilled with the idea of either one, not at this particular moment. He’s tired himself, having been kept awake by Dean’s coughing the night before, but mostly he’s starting to get worried about him. “Dude, you kept me up last night,” Sam had told him, the minute he was awake. He acted like he was complaining but what he’d really been doing was fishing, trying to see how sick Dean really was. “Try some cough drops or something.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Dean had said, sounding anything but. “I wouldn’t want you to lose any beauty sleep.”

So, Dean is going to play it that way, throw little jibes in his direction to keep the heat off him, act like nothing’s wrong. Good. That’ll make it easier for Sam, easier to decide that maybe Dean doesn’t need to know every little thing Bobby has for them, every little hunt that’s in their path.

Easier to feel less guilty about being upfront with certain things.

If Dean finds out about this skin walker, he’ll insist on taking care of it, whether they should be somewhere else or not.

Skin walkers are notoriously difficult to kill.

Sam knows, just by listening to Dean last night, that he won’t last through a hunt like this. Not right now, not without some kind of rest.

“I’ll let you know,” Sam says into the phone, just as Dean comes out of the bathroom.

Dean looks at him. “Who was that?” His voice is still hoarse and Sam thinks he looks paler.

“Bobby,” he says. “I just called him to see what’s up.” He’s already made up his mind that he’s going to withhold the info on the skin walker from him, at least for now. It’s not a big deal if he doesn’t tell Dean. It’s not as if they won’t have other hunts to occupy themselves.

“And?” Dean rasps. “What is up?”

He says it as if he suspects Sam is holding out on him.

“Not much,” Sam says. “I told him we’re about a day and a half away. He said to call him when we get there.”

Dean doesn’t quite believe him, Sam can see that. But whatever. One thing at a time.

/

Of course, Dean finds out about the situation Bobby mentioned sooner rather than later.

He almost always does.

They’ve stopped for gas just as they are nearing the Iowa-Nebraska border and Dean’s gone inside. The ride so far has been mostly quiet, at least in the conversation department. Sam slips down in the seat, closes his eyes for a minute, the previous night’s antics with Dean hacking in the bed next to him catching up, tries to lull himself with the thought that maybe Dean isn’t that sick, that it sounds worse than it is.

Except, when Dean is sick, he’s sick. It’s never just something minor with him, it never has been. When they were kids, Sam would get sick constantly, seemingly picking up every virus or cold out there. But while he’d gotten sick often it had rarely been serious and he’d usually gotten over it quickly. Dean had rarely been sick, but when he was it would hit him hard and last forever.

A pattern that Dean still follows to this day. It’s never just a cold with him, it ends up being bronchitis. If he runs a fever it can never be some low-grade thing, it always has to climb to the one hundred and two or higher range. A twenty-four hour virus lasts five days with him.

It’s because he takes too much on, John told Sam once, when Dean was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, laid up for two weeks with some flu-turned-bronchial infection. Not just during the hunt but after.

Then maybe he shouldn’t do it so much, Sam had answered. Maybe it’s too hard for him, not good for him.

It’s the sign of a great hunter, John had said, the pride in his voice unmistakable, even to twelve year-old Sam. It’s what makes him ready for the next one. When you’re able to fully immerse yourself like that, every fiber of yourself given over to it. But, yeah, there comes a price with that, Sam, I won’t kid you. There always is, when you totally commit yourself like that.

“It’s what we do, Sam. It’s what I do.”

“It’s because he takes too much on.”

God only knows what meaning that has, especially now, given the things Dean’s seen and done and had done to him --

The sound of the door being yanked open and a bag of cellophane-wrapped chips hurtled at his head startle Sam out of his momentary reverie.

“Why didn’t you tell me there’s a skin walker Bobby wants us to take care of?”

Dean’s pissed. There’s no sense in Sam trying to talk his way out of it.

“When did you talk to Bobby?” Sam asks quietly.

“Just now. Why are you lying to me, Sam?”

“When did I lie?”

“Cut the crap, omission is the same thing as lying and you left out plenty of the conversation you had with Bobby earlier. I want to know why.”

“Settle down. It’s not a big deal. Bobby even said it was up to us, that he’d rather we get to Nebraska anyway.”

“How can you say it’s up to us when I didn’t even know anything about it?” But then his voice gives out as it begins to rise in his irritation and he starts to cough, can’t say anything else for a good twenty seconds.

“I think you’re probably answering your own question right there,” Sam says smoothly, when Dean’s done. “I think we could use the rest.” He’d almost said “you” but caught himself at the last minute. “We’ve been going non-stop the past couple months and then we had that bitch of a hunt in Minnesota and it’s been one thing after the other and nothing has been all that easy and now we’re supposed to tackle some changeling shit in Nebraska and you sound like you’re coming down with something and I just think we could use a break.”

But you especially, considering what you’ve been through.

“I feel fine,” Dean emphasizes. “It’s just a cough, I’ve been way worse off than this and hunted, no problem. So have you. And you know it.”

This is true. Sam can’t argue with him. He sighs, gives up, opens the bag of chips, looks out the window. “Go ahead,” he says. “Drive. I think Bobby said the name of the town is Sazalia or something. It’s just a little ways north of here.”

His voice is stony and he keeps his eyes on the road ahead of him. Now it’s Dean’s turn to give him the look, the what-the-fuck expression. To his credit, he manages to keep the usual cockiness out of his voice for the moment. “You okay?” he asks. He makes no move to start the car just yet. “Is something going on that I should know about?”

“Like what?” Sam makes sure to keep his gaze on the road in front of him. “Let’s just try and get there before dark, all right?”

He knows he sounds angry and he’s not. Well, he’s a little angry with Dean for pretending he’s not sick when he clearly is, but that’s an old battle, something they both know the routine to like the backs of their hands. But what is really worrying him, about what might be going on with Dean is not entirely related to him being sick, but what might be happening to him because of where he’s been and what he’s been through.

/

Their first two days in Sazalia, are spent doing research, checking things out. Actually, Sam does most of the research, because Dean is slowly beginning to crap out, the cough/cold/whatever he has starting to dig itself deeper so that everywhere they happen to go, all he does is cough, making it sort of tough to go into the reading room at the local historical society or talk to anyone without sounding as if he has the plague.

Sam also points out that he looks feverish but Dean denies it immediately, insists it’s just a chest cold that’ll be gone in a couple of days. Sam doesn’t argue, knows it’s futile, doesn’t point out that whatever chest cold Dean thinks he might be getting has already been evident for the past two weeks. He also knows that he’s right, that Dean is coming down with something serious, has had it for awhile and is a heartbeat away from being full-on sick. But this is an old song-and-dance with them, and all he can do is wait for Dean to admit it before they can do anything about it.

Day Three. Sam goes out for awhile, does some half-hearted checking into things but he knows it won’t matter, there’s not going to be a hunt until Dean is better. When he returns at noon with lunch, Dean is still asleep -- or the sick version of being asleep -- and Sam creeps around the room as quietly as he can, not wanting to wake him. When he finally does stir, around three in the afternoon, he is shivering and groaning, when he’s not putting all his efforts into coughing some kind of -- crap -- out of his chest.

“Should I run out for some cold medicine?” Sam asks at one point, when the sun is down and Sam’s gone through every article he can find on skin walkers.

“No.”

“It might help.”

“It’s not a cold, it’s a cough, so no, cold medicine isn’t going to do anything.”

“How about cough drops?”

“No. It’s not in my throat it’s--” He vaguely moves his hand down his chest. “In here.”

He must be entering delirium if he’s willing to give Sam so much information without Sam having to drag it out of him. “Fever?” Sam dares to ask, as long as Dean appears so willing to chat about his symptoms.

“Probably.” The irritation is back in Dean’s voice, but Sam has scored a partial admission nonetheless.

“We have Tylenol.”

Dean doesn’t answer, his eyes closed, his breathing loud and rattling. “Dean?”

He still doesn’t answer and despite how ragged and uneven Dean’s breathing sounds, Sam can tell he’s fallen asleep, probably worn out from all the useless coughing he’s just done. He gets up, gets the Tylenol, gets a glass of water, sets it on the table next to Dean, eats some stale snacks and crap he finds in the room -- a room that has decidedly begun to look like the biggest freaking dump on earth -- and tries to settle in, watch t.v., do something. He could leave for awhile, it would be fine, Dean’s asleep and Sam wouldn’t be gone that long, but the idea of leaving him like this, when he’s sick -- though never easy for him to do in the first place -- seems all but impossible now.

/

Sam wakes up with a start, completely disoriented, unable to figure out what time it is, where he is or what he’d been doing last. He finds himself sprawled on one of the motel beds, fully clothed, the t.v. still going.

Dean.

Sam checks; he’s still asleep. It’s only seven; Sam figures he’s gotten a few hours sleep, somehow. He’s amazed that Dean hasn’t kept him up all night with his coughing, that Sam had actually been exhausted enough to sleep through it or Dean has slept soundly himself, has maybe hit a turning point in all this.

He creeps over to the bed, sees the Tylenol and the water untouched. Should’ve made him take that last night, Sam briefly berates himself. “Dean.”

He wakes up right away, though he’s groggy and out-of-it, his face flushed, his lungs crackling. “You should take this,” Sam says, holding up the glass and the pills. “You need to knock your fever down. I’m going to run to the store.” He knows Dean doesn’t want any medicine but he’s going to go try and find some anyway, if nothing more than to make himself feel better, like he’s doing something useful.

He waits for Dean to fully wake up. But Dean closes his eyes again, mumbles something. “Hey,” Sam says. “I’m not messing. You need to sit up and take these.”

His eyes remain closed, but he shifts a little like he’s thinking about maybe sitting up. But all that happens is he groans and then coughs, puts his arm across his eyes. “Jus’ -- gimme a minute,” he says thickly. “My back hurts.”

“He speaks,” Sam says. “Listen, I’m going to get breakfast. You want anything?”

“No.” The word comes out so breathless, Sam barely hears it.

“You sure?”

“I’m good.”

Of course, he’s the furthest thing from good. “You should have something. At least something to drink.”

Dean doesn’t answer, but Sam can tell he’s awake. “I’ll be back,” he says, reluctantly. It’s not like Dean to be so -- quiet when he’s sick. If anything, he usually becomes more cranky, more irritable. “Don’t forget to take the Tylenol.”

"No."

"No" meaning "No, I won't forget," or "No, I'm not going to take it?" Sam doesn't know, doesn't ask and despite his resolve to keep this morning excursion short, keep his time away from Dean to a minimum, he finds himself being delayed by stupid shit, slow cashiers and obnoxious customers ahead of him as he tries to pay for whatever items he's managed to round up for Dean's cough/cold/illness/flu/whatever it is. He hasn't really paid all that much attention to what he he's just bought, just grabbed stuff that looks like it might work, things that Dean can drink or maybe eat, cold meds that might work. He doesn't really care much at this point what he's buying; he just knows that the longer he's gone, the more unnerved he's becoming.

When he finally comes back into the motel room he sees Dean’s not in the bed and that the bathroom door is wide open but dark; at first Sam is momentarily panicked until he spots Dean lying on the floor in between the two beds. Sam’s heart sinks, but after a moment, he sees that it’s okay: Dean is awake, though he’s panting, almost like a dog.

“My back,” he says. Gasps, really. “My back is killing me.”

And it must be, for him to ever let on to Sam that it hurts this bad. Sam drops the bags on the bed and reaches downward in one motion. “Well, what the hell?” he says. “Did you fall off the bed?”

“No.” The panting is giving way to a breathless whisper. “I -- thought laying on the hard floor -- would help.”

“Jesus, Dean, you couldn’t come up with a better plan than that?” Sam crouches in the space between the beds with him, though there isn’t all that much room. “First of all, I don’t even want to think how -- gross the floor is right here -- where does your back hurt and what did you do to it?”

“It’s --” he tries to reach behind him and show Sam where it hurts but he can’t manage it, can’t reach, just make some vague sort of motion with his right hand over his left shoulder. “Up.”

“Dude, can you stand?”

Dean doesn’t answer, just reaches onto the bed and starts to pull himself up. Sam grabs him by the arm, ready to help lift him to his feet.

All he notices is the heat radiating off Dean, blasting off him like an oven door’s been opened.

“Shit, Dean, your burning up. Did you take the Tylenol?”

“Yeah.” His voice still a whisper, and now Sam begins to wonder if that’s all he can muster, if that’s all he’s got. Dean sags into the bed, head down, breathing as if he’s just run the mile when all he’s done is go from lying on the floor to sitting on the bed. “Maybe I should try and sleep some more.”

That Dean is suggesting he sleep, that he is so easily giving in to how shitty he is obviously feeling, tells Sam volumes, more than he needs to know. “What about a doctor?”

He hasn’t meant to ask this, knows how Dean feels about the subject but he can’t help himself. Now there’s a fucking fever that doesn’t seem to want to go down with a dose of Tylenol, and some kind of weird back pain that, for the life of him, Sam can’t seem to figure out where that might’ve come from. Dean smacking his back on something? But what? And when? A delayed injury or reaction from the last hunt?

A backache.

What the hell?

Not to mention all the other assorted issues that have been going on, the hoarse voice and the weird cough, the fact that he’s been gradually getting a little sicker with each passing day, despite his unwillingness to give in and Sam’s unease at letting things go.

But it’s obvious things can’t be let go any longer.

Sam waits for Dean to give some kind of response, one way or the other. The more he pushes, the more likely Dean is to nix the whole doctor idea.

“Sam.” Still the whisper; he starts to sway forward, as if he can’t even sit upright. “Dizzy. Hot.”

“You gonna puke?” Sam jumps up, poised, ready to leap for some sort of receptacle. The trash can is clear across the room, so Sam thinks about the water glass sitting on the table.

“No.” He clutches onto Sam, as if to keep himself from pitching forward. “Just -- so hot. Sam, help me.”

And then Sam gets it and he suddenly feels like bursting into tears. Not because Dean is sick and miserable and burning up with fever -- though Sam is definitely more than a little worried about all that -- but because he understands that what’s going on right now is more than just that, that this is hell for Dean, in every fucking sense of the word, that Dean is back there, that whatever sickness he has right now is feeding him back into the very depths of it, the fever relentlessly pulling him back in.

“Fuck it,” he says grimly, more to himself than to Dean because as of now, it doesn’t matter what Dean wants or doesn’t want to do, they’re going to a doctor somewhere, be it a clinic or an emergency room, it doesn’t matter, all that matters is that this get taken care of, that Dean not be put through anymore than he already has.

/

A clinic.

Mid-sized, seems like it has most of the modern amenities as compared to a lot of the holes-in-the-wall they’ve been to before. Fairly busy, so they are forced to sit in chairs that luckily aren’t too uncomfortable and wait.

Dean slouches in his chair and immediately falls into a doze, his head tilted on his shoulder. He’d somewhat revived on the drive over, the cold air injecting a minor burst of adrenalin into him so that he’d seemed almost lucid, his raspy voice barking orders to Sam, who’d just nodded, told him to chill. But now, once they are checked in, know they are going to be waiting, Dean’s light seems to go out again and he slumps, oblivious, though Sam can tell he isn’t out cold, can hear by his ragged breathing, see by the pained frown on his face, that he is just beneath the surface, not all the way down.

He rouses easily enough when the nurse calls him back after only a surprising twenty minute wait, and is led back to an exam room. Sam goes with, even though he knows there’s no reason for him to be traipsing along with him.

Except for the fact that Dean can hardly stand up on his own.

She does all the usual things, asks questions, takes Dean’s blood pressure, his temp. Frowns a little when the thing beeps and she looks at it. “One hundred and three point seven,” she says. “Have you taken anything for it?”

“Some Tylenol,” Dean croaks out. He clutches the sides of the exam table, shivering, and raises his arm to his mouth and coughs, eyes squinting painfully shut until he’s done.

The nurse looks up at him. “That sounds pretty rough,” she says, stating the obvious. “How long have you been coughing like that?”

“Not long,” Dean says, his breath coming in gasps. “A couple of days.”

But Sam knows it’s been longer, much longer than that, that this all started back in Minnesota, right around the end of October. Halloween. And that was almost three weeks ago. “At least a couple of weeks,” he interjects. “It’s been coming on for awhile.”

“I haven’t been sick for a couple of weeks,” Dean argues.

“She didn’t ask how long you’ve been sick,” Sam says. “She asked how long you’ve had the cough. And it’s been more than a couple of days.”

Dean glares at him, and the nurse doesn’t miss it, tries to keep the peace like they're two kids in middle school. “Well, I’m sure Dr. Sheridan will figure it out. She’ll be here in a little bit.”

They wait. And wait. Sam rifles through the women’s magazines and Dean lies flat on his back on the exam table when a half hour goes by and no one shows up. He starts to moan without knowing it, and the whimpering is unnerving. “Are you okay?” Sam asks.

“Great.” He is alternately panting or coughing when he isn’t busy groaning. “Except for the part where I feel like I was stabbed in the back.”

That again. “Someone will be here soon,” Sam says, because there’s nothing else to say.

Another half hour goes by, and by now the fever is soaring and Dean is miserable, ready to walk out the door. Sam feels bad for him but can’t see how they’ll get through the night if they don’t at least get something for this -- sickness, if nothing more than an actual diagnosis. “You can go out,” Dean whispers to him at one point, and Sam can see he’s inching his way toward the delirium stage, can tell by how glassy his eyes are, how his conversation is going on a different tack. “Wait for me in the car.”

“Dude, I’m fine right here.”

“But, like what if they need to give me some sort of weird -- exam or something?” Still the whisper; anything else sends him coughing after just a couple of words.

“Look, if they need to give you a rectal or whatever, I’ll step out. Don’t worry about it. Just try and rest.”

Finally, the doctor comes in -- a decent looking woman who doesn’t look much older than Dean. She nods, quickly washes her hands, scans Dean’s chart while Dean painfully pulls himself up. “Sorry I took so long,” she says, and to her credit, she does sound sincere about it. “I’m Dr. Sheridan. We are swamped -- it’s like everyone in Sazalia decided to get the flu all at once.” She looks up from the chart. “So -- is that why you’re here, Mr. -- ?” She consults the chart again. “Ulrich? The flu?”

“Maybe,” Dean says. He looks God-awful, like he’s about to slide off the exam table. The doctor notices as well and doesn’t ask him anything else, just starts listening to his lungs, front and back, deep breaths in and out for a long time. “My back is what’s killing me.”

“When did you hurt it?” she asks. She’s still listening to him breathing, as if she’s trying to decide something.

“I didn’t. It’s not hurting like that, it’s -- like someone stabbed me kind of -- on the left side.” The sentence takes him forever to spit out, each word a gasp.

She doesn’t say anything else until she’s done listening. “I’d like to get a film,” she says.

“For his back?” Sam asks, seeing how hard it is for Dean to string words, much less sentences, together.

“For his lungs, see how widespread the pneumonia is.”

Pneumonia. Shit. Sam had thought -- known -- this was serious, but had resigned himself to a bad case of the flu, maybe bronchitis at most. “So what do you think's wrong with his back?”

“His back is hurting because his lungs are so inflamed,” the doctor says. “It’s a pretty good indication of just how sick your brother really is.”

Sam catches Dean’s gaze -- and he might be dipping one foot in the pool of fevered delirium, but he’s still aware enough that Sam can read the message in his eyes: We can’t do any tests, not without risking getting caught right now. “We’re not from here,” Sam says. “Our insurance is kind of messed up right now so I -- we -- have to keep the cost down as much as we can. Can’t you just treat him without the x-rays or whatever? I mean, if you already know that it’s pneumonia?”

“I can,” she answers, hesitantly. “But maybe you qualify for some type of government assistance or something --?”

“Well, we’re just passing through, we’ll be where we need to be within the next couple of days,” Sam says smoothly. This part is old hat, something he doesn't really expect to have any problems with.

She looks at both of them, and Sam sees she’s going to give in. “All right,” she says, finally. “I’m not entirely comfortable with it, but if he takes the meds, he should be okay.” But she looks at Dean long and hard, as if she isn't happy with what she's giving into, as if it's against her better judgment.

And another victory. One more bullet dodged, one more situation wormed out of. Though what they’ve won, exactly, Sam can’t be sure.

Part 2 soon. If anyone wants it (*blushes furiously*). It was originally in one huge piece but I couldn't do it, make it so long. Anyway, I am running off to hide under the covers and freak out and again, apologize deeply if this isn't up to the standards of the great writing in the fandom. And real quick, to my other peeps waiting for my other updates -- soon. I haven't abandoned you and I never will. This is just -- something that I needed to do. Peace & joy --