Let me see if I can sum this up coherently: Dean is sick. What? No way. I know, what are the odds? But it’s not what it seems -- not completely. I mean, Dean is sick but he’s alone because this takes place after 5x02 (spoilers for that, just so you know -- vague spoilers, but spoilers nonetheless). . .and being sick and alone makes him all delirious and angsty. I could end it here -- it’s written to stand alone but I might have him recalling to mind other sicknesses he’s had in the past -- kind of a “sickness within a sickness” storyline. I don’t know, we’ll see how it goes, I wanted to try something a little different (keeping it within the confines of Dean being sick, of course, that must remain in place) and I have a good ending but don’t know if it’ll get a chance to play out, depending on how Kripke messes with the two of them in the upcoming episodes. Confused by the author’s notes? Yeah, me too. I freely admit that the separation of the Boys affected me deeply -- but not in a bad way, not at all, it just made me feel for them both so intensely. Love them both, really.

Dean Winchester is sick.

And alone.

Of course, he’s been both those things before, countless times, but now, as he lies in yet one more crappy motel room in some nameless town in -- Ohio, he thinks, not that it matters -- as whatever is wrong with him enters its second day and he finds himself cataloguing all his past injuries, his past illnesses to try and gauge what might be wrong with him right here and right now outside of Bumfuck, USA or wherever the hell he is, it occurs to him that while he’s been both alone in his life and sick and injured -- more than most -- in the thirty years he’s walked the planet, he’s never been both at the same time.

Sick and alone.

Not once.

Not even when Sam was away at Stanford. Not that Dean can really remember the timeline of that -- if he was sick during those years -- but he knows he was injured, and even then, he knows he wasn’t alone. He may have started off alone -- injured on some hunt where he was by himself -- but he always ended up getting with John, who had made sure he was properly taken care of, stitched up or what-have-you. So, yeah. Dean can’t remember ever being alone when he was physically -- incapacitated. Ever.

He can even remember Mary when he was really young -- one of his first memories is of her rocking him when he was maybe three -- in the dark, his ears hurting -- he doesn’t remember the pain, it’s John who told him why he remembers being rocked like that, that he’d had a double ear infection -- but he remembers being held, and rocked, and the sound of her voice as she alternately sang and talked to him, trying to soothe him. It was nighttime; Dean remembers it was dark. “Pregnant with your brother,” John later tells him, when Dean asks about it, the memory he is trying to sort out. “I was worried about her, stayin’ up all night and not getting any rest and her carrying Sam but she wouldn’t put you down, wouldn’t let me take you.”

And after that, when she’s gone, Dean knows he was never alone when he was ill or injured.

John was there sometimes.

Or Pastor Jim on occasion. Taken to his place, he and Sam, when John was hunting and the two boys were sick.

Sam, always.

As for being alone -- Dean’s been alone plenty. In many respects, he thinks of himself as solitary, a loner type. He prefers to be with family -- with Sam. He always has. It’s the one thing he’s ever really wanted his entire life -- to have his family intact. But he’s also able to be on his own if he has to -- a hunter’s life is, by definition, a solitary kind of life, one where it’s best to have few -- if any --ties, and just by the nature of the work, leads to periods where he’s often by himself.

Both in the physical sense and the emotional one.

So, yeah. One or the other. Alone or sick. But never both at the same time.

At least not until now.

Dean shivers, pulls the thin motel bedding around him tighter even though he knows it’s not going to do any good. He isn’t sure what’s wrong -- he thinks it’s some virus, maybe, something that’s taken hold of him because he’s worn down, has been pushing himself above and beyond his limit for the past few weeks now --

Past few weeks, hell, what the fuck are you talking about? Try the past few months -- past few years if you want to get right down to it --

But now he’s not so sure. So far it’s just a fever, a high one by the feel of it, but that’s it, no signs of a cold or the flu or any other kind of common sickness that he might’ve picked up somewhere. He doesn’t think it’s a wound infection -- he’s tried to be careful these past few weeks -- not that it’s really possible to be careful when you’re fighting demons and Lucifer and all that goes with that whole mess, but he’s at least tried to be careful about checking for wounds, assessing his injuries right away, and then making sure he doesn’t fuck around treating anything, something Sam is usually in charge of, that and getting on his case about proper cleaning techniques and keeping on the lookout for wound infection or whatever. But Sam isn’t here now, so Dean has to be more vigilant about such stuff, it’s all part of the territory and probably more important now than ever before, not just because he’s alone and doesn’t have Sam to back him up but more because Dean now has the entire fate of mankind resting on his shoulders.

It’s probably the worst time in the world to be laid out with a sickness.

If that’s what this even is, Dean has time to think as he lies shivering, the chills effectively keeping him from falling asleep. He doesn’t have a thermometer, thinks that Sam probably has it with him since he was the one who always felt the need to have an official reading of their temperatures when they had fevers, but he does have Tylenol, and he’s been taking it pretty regularly since he knew he was running a fever, but so far it’s barely touched it, maybe knocked it back a little at first, but that’s about it. The last time he took some was about three hours ago, but it never really made a difference, at least not that Dean can tell, and he doesn’t know whether to be pissed that it’s not doing any good or worried that it’s not doing any good.

At the moment, he’d settle for some kind of sleep. Not the drift-into-a-feverish-doze-and-then-wake-up-every-twenty-minutes kind of sleep he’s been dealing with the past thirty-six hours, but just a nice, steady few hours of restful sleep, the kind that, when he wakes from it, will let him know that he’s getting better, that he’s able to do this alone, without anyone babying him along.

Without Sam.

He supposes he could call Sam, ask him what he thinks about what might be wrong with him -- it’s not as if they parted ways saying they never wanted to speak to each other again. They’ve texted each other a couple of times, either vague, meaningless messages borne out of duty or businesslike requests for information concerning the particular hunt they’re on. But they haven’t actually spoken to one another since they split up in Colorado, and Dean isn’t sure if this is the time or the situation to talk to him now.

Besides, he thinks as he hauls himself out of bed, wincing at how every motion is so exhausting, as of right now it’s just a fever. He gropes his way to the bathroom, stops for a moment to grip the wall between the bed and the bathroom door to steady himself because -- damn, his legs are just about threatening to give way from under him.

He makes it into the bathroom, turns on the water and fumbles for a glass, his fingers shaking as he tries to pull off the outer plastic encasing the cup. Can’t get dehydrated, he thinks, and that’s all Sam, one of the things he always drilled into his head when he was sick or recuperating from any sort of injury. He gets the glass unsheathed and fills it with lukewarm, metallic tap water that he has to force down because it’s so terrible.

His throat hurts a little when he swallows.

That’s not even true. It’s not painful enough for him to call it sore and it’s not even really his throat; it’s more along the side of his neck, where his glands are. “Are your glands swollen?” Sam would always ask, any time he started coming down with something. Dean would sometimes -- rarely -- allow him to lay his hand across his forehead to check for fever but he drew the line at Sam taking his hand and caressing Dean’s neck, checking to see if his glands were swollen. “How the hell would I know?” Dean would always say in irritation. “And no, you can’t, so keep your freaking hands off me.”

More Sam. It was kind of ironic how he was thinking about Sam so much now, when he was sick.

Oh, come off it Winchester, you think about him all the damn time. Even when you’re not thinking about him he’s in the back of your mind. Quit trying to kid yourself.

He shakes two more Tylenol out of the bottle on the counter and swallows them down with another gulp of the rancid water. The twinge is there again, a sharp sensation that hits somewhere deep within the space between his jaw line and the side of his throat.

He steals a look at himself in the mirror. Yeah, he definitely looks like crap, like he’s unwell. If someone knocked on the door right now and saw him, the first words out of his or her mouth would be, “What’s wrong with you?” His face is chalk-white, his eyes glazed and sunken. Even his lips are bloodless, like the fever has drained every bit of coloring from his face.

Still. There’s no other symptoms beside the fever and the painful twinge -- well, maybe his head hurts a little, but Dean thinks this is from the fever. Other than that, though, there’s nothing else, no puking, no cough, no snot either stuffing up or spilling out of his nose. So maybe it is just a virus, something minor that he’ll be over within the next day or two.

He makes his way back to the single bed, climbs in with a muffled groan. Too late, he realizes as he pulls the covers up over him, he should’ve remembered to bring some water in with him, crappy tasting as it is. You can’t get dehydrated, Dean. That’s the worst thing that can happen when you’re sick or hurt.

Sam again.

But he can’t get up again; it’ll take too much effort, be too much work to drag himself all the way into the bathroom just to get himself some water -- water that tasted horrible going down the first time, water that doesn’t really seem worth the hassle of getting.

I’ll be okay, Dean tells himself as he trembles beneath the thin blankets and tries to fall asleep. He’s shaking hard enough that his breath is coming in gasps, the muscles in his lower back tensing up in response to the shivering. It’ll pass, it always does.

He tries not to think about Sam because really, what’s the point?

He’s not here, not going to be here.

/

Sam awakens with a start, half-sitting up, the bedclothes tangled around his waist, his heart thudding, his hair sweat-plastered and dripping against his forehead, a gasp on his lips that’s nearly a cry out loud.

Bad dream, Sam tells himself, when he wakes up enough to remember where he is, get a hold of himself. He can tell it was bad, though he can’t actually remember what it was.

Dean, it was about Dean.

Oh, fuck, one of those dreams.

He sits up straight for a minute, gets his bearings. Everything seems all right; Bobby’s spare room is dark and quiet, the only sound being the steady fall of the rain on the roof. Nonetheless, Sam pushes himself out of bed and quietly makes his way into the living room. The room is lit by flashes of lightening but it’s soundless except for the rain.

All is quiet; Bobby is asleep on the couch, the only place he’s lain or propped himself since his return home. Sam had tried to force him to take the spare bedroom at least, thinking the bed had to be more comfortable than the couch, but Bobby refused on the grounds that he didn’t want to be stuck back in a bedroom somewhere, making it more difficult for Sam to have to, as Bobby put it: “Wait on him.” Sam thinks that’s just an excuse, that Bobby doesn’t want to be lying in a bed -- any bed -- because it makes it look as if he’s agreed to be an invalid the rest of his life, that if he’s stuck in bed all the time he’s telling everyone -- telling himself -- that he’s accepted that he’ll never walk again.

So it’s either been the couch or the wheelchair -- something else Sam knows Bobby detests, but at least in the wheelchair he’s able to have some kind of mobility. Sam goes into the kitchen without turning the lights on, lets the flickering lightening and his own familiarity with everything guide his way as he takes a glass and fills it with water from the kitchen sink, drinking it down in one gulp, the closeness of the humid air and the nightmare making him thirsty.

Everything is fine -- at least where he’s at -- but he still can’t shake the thoughts of Dean.

Or the nightmare he just had.

Because Sam knows that’s what it was about, even if he can’t recall exactly what the dream was, or even see any exact images in his head. It had to do with Dean, and heat and pain and -- something to do with the demon or whatever it was he’s been hunting. It’s not so much images Sam has of everything as much as it’s a -- knowing.

And he knows he just dreamed something about Dean that is -- unsettling.

Then again, every time he thinks of Dean it’s unsettling as of late, which is why Sam is glad he hasn’t had a whole lot of time to think about him, what with bringing Bobby home and getting him settled in and trying to come to terms with not hunting right now, with just trying to get a grip on his own damn problems. But now, wide awake, Sam takes another glass of water and silently sits at the kitchen table, and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

He has it on all the time now, is constantly having to make sure it’s charged. “Man, those things are nothing but a pain in the ass,” Bobby comments, more than once. Yet he is the one who asks Sam if his phone is on if he sees it lying around on a table or the counter. “Just makin’ sure,” he’ll say, when Sam looks at him. That’s all he says, but it’s enough for Sam to understand that Bobby won’t bring Dean up first, not now, but he will let him know that he needs to keep the lines of communication open as best he can, in this case having his damn phone on all the time.

Sam drinks some more water, begins scrolling through his messages. There aren’t many; two to be exact.

**New Message**

Sam, I need you to find me some books beside scripture re: rev. Ask bobby. D.

**New Message**

Thanks. Doing fine. Take care.

It takes Sam all of five seconds to read both messages, both sent a couple days ago, and he frowns as he does so, the dream coming to mind again. He’d done what Dean had asked, gotten the names of some books from Bobby, sent him the titles back via text, asked him how he was. He’d thought of actually calling him back and talking to him face-to-face but decided against it, and these brief texts are the extent of any conversation he and Dean have had the past weeks.

Now, as he sits and finishes the glass of water -- and for the life of him, Sam can’t figure out why the fuck he’s so thirsty, but it’s like he’s going to have to drink another glass and he’s already drank a ton -- he hesitantly types in a message to Dean. He has no idea where Dean is, if he’ll even see it or what he should even say.

But the damn dream won’t let him alone.

Need anything else? Let me know. Raining here. Sam.

He sends the message and instantly realizes how meaningless of a message it is, a message that Dean can’t even really respond to it’s so -- bland and flat, words filled with absolute nothingness.

But that’s where you’re at right now. Bland, flat.

Nothingness.

Fuck it, Sam says to himself, shutting the phone. This is where they’re at and he’s accepted it and it was nothing but a dream, a dream he can’t even remember or specifically attach any significance to, other than he knows it was about Dean.

Hardly any reason for him to get worked up about it.

He looks in on Bobby one more time, goes back into the spare room and gets back into bed, wishing he’d had another glass of water before he’s come back in, or better yet, thought to bring one with him, seeing as he’s still thirsty. But the sound of the rain lulls him before he has a chance to get back up and he falls asleep rather quickly, and if he has any other dreams about Dean -- or anything else, for that matter -- they don’t wake him up, and he’s able, once more, to put any thoughts of Dean out of his mind, at least for a little while.

/

The restful night of sleep Dean had hoped for doesn’t happen.

In fact, it goes pretty much as he expects, fitful dozing and alternate shivering and burning up. At one point, when he’s so warm he has to push the covers off him and onto the floor he thinks maybe the fever is breaking but the next time he “comes to,” he is shaking so hard his teeth are chattering and some kind of moan is escaping him, more than once. He tries to pull the covers off the floor and back onto the bed but he’s so weak and his body so sore, the best he can do is grab a corner of the sheet and just barely pull it around him before lapsing back into sleep -- or unconsciousness. Sleep is giving whatever state he's in too much credit.

The next time he wakes the light filtering into the room is gray and thick, but at least the sun isn’t blazing in because Dean’s eyes are killing him and he can barely get them to open.

Okay, so the fever is still there. The Tylenol he’s been taking isn’t doing shit for him. That much is apparent.

He pulls himself out of the bed and staggers to the bathroom where he gulps down a glassful of the wretched warm tap water. Each swallow is painful, more so than the previous night and he’s gasping by the time he’s finished drinking. Okay, maybe strep, he thinks, clutching the sides of the sink, trying to breathe at a less frantic rate. Not that he really knows what strep is, he’s pretty certain he’s never had it before, it’s Sam who takes charge of the medical stuff when there’s a need, checking crap out online or in books or whatever.

Christ, nothing like having Sam come to mind every five seconds just because he’s not well.

Well, he’s dicked around with this long enough, Dean decides. It’s going on three days of this bullshit, and he doesn’t have anymore time or desire to waste on what may or may not be wrong with him. He needs to get up out of the fucking bed, out of the motel and push through it, like he’s done countless times before, whether Sam and his encyclopedic reserve of medical knowledge and obnoxious forehead-feeling ways are here or not.

It’s difficult, but Dean manages to swallow more Tylenol -- not that it’s doing any good, at least not that he can tell -- and shower. But by the time he’s done with all that, he’s exhausted, out-of-breath and unsure how he’s going to drag himself around and try and do the things he’s supposed to do with the information Sam gave him a couple days ago.

He pulls out his phone, looks at it and sees a new message. *Need anything else? Let me know. Raining here. Sam*

Huh, Dean thinks, sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to think through the feverish droning in his head, get past how the soreness in his throat -- glands -- wherever the hell it actually is -- now feels as if there is some kind of fluid draining back there as well, some kind of hot, thick mess that feels like it could choke him if he doesn’t keep swallowing, but swallowing makes the pain worse so he’s stuck in some kind of catch-22.

“Need anything else? Let me know.”

Dean could call Sam -- no, not even call him but text him, ask him what he thinks the symptoms might signify, what sickness they might be, keeping it all vague and business-like, within the confines of the research he’s doing.

Supposed to be doing, you haven’t done anything close to research and from the looks of it, won’t be doing much of it right now.

Dean closes his eyes, shivers, unconsciously wraps his arms around his body to try and combat the shaking, warm himself up. No, he thinks. No, I can’t call Sam, not for this, I never asked for his help when I was sick before, I’m not about to start now.

You never had to ask before. He was always there.

You can’t have him there for every little thing. Get used to that. Sam certainly has.

He needs to stop this, focus on the mission at hand and not how awful he’s feeling, or worse, how Sam isn’t here right now.

But it’s damn hard to focus on anything when he now feels as if he might puke in addition to the chilling fever and the goopy slime coating the back of his throat. He needs to go out, buy a thermometer, buy some stronger drugs, do the fucking research. It would be nice if he could at least call Bobby, pick his brain for some sort of helpful info, but Dean can’t do that to him now, doesn’t want to lay his little woes on him, not when Bobby's facing way bigger issues than a sore throat and some kind of fever.

Would be nice if Cas showed up, Dean thinks, as he unwillingly lies back down on the bed, pulls the blanket up over him. Not that he thinks he’ll be able to do anything about this -- current situation -- but still. It would just be nice to hear what he might have to say about -- well, anything.

Alone. You don’t like being alone. Just admit that.

Dean’s eyes drift shut and, while he knows he won’t sleep, he’s too sick for that at the moment, he wants to at least be able to think, try and remember when the last time he was ill, see if what he has now is similar to what he’s had in the past and then go ahead and treat it like he did previously.

You mean how Sam would’ve treated it. Or Dad. You’ve never taken care of yourself when you’re sick before. Ever.

His thoughts begin to slide into memories. Memories of past injuries, past sicknesses. Jesus, it really hasn’t been that long since he was sick, that whole pneumonia bit almost a year ago and that fucking poisoning/allergy bullshit by the demon hagfish thing a few months after that. What’s happening with him now kind of reminds Dean of both those incidents, except there’s no symptoms of either of those two things, so it can’t be anything like that.

It could be anything. If you’ve learned anything since you’ve been in Hell, you should know that the shit that’s happened to you -- is happening to you even now -- isn’t the stuff that usually happens to you. Best to open your mind a little, Winchester.

Oh, come off it. It’s a fucking virus and that’s it. Just because the End has started and you’re supposed to be some fucking Michael’s sword, some “Chosen” one doesn’t mean you can’t get some damn sickness just like everyone else.

He can’t think about it anymore, mainly because the urge to puke is beginning to take a stronger hold, and he really doesn’t need that right now. He swings one leg onto the floor to steady himself from the spinning the room is doing and eventually falls into terrible doze, one fraught with images and memories of past sicknesses that flood his dreams as vividly as if he were going through them right now.

/

It’s been a long day for Sam and he’s tired. Tired and not a little queasy, the sight of and even just the idea of food keeping him from eating or drinking anything except water. That, he can’t seem to get enough of. He’s also uncharacteristically quiet around Bobby, distracted almost, more than once not hearing what he says the first time around, discreetly checking his phone even more than he usually does.

If Bobby notices, he doesn’t let on. “You checked into any of those books I gave you the other day?” he asks, when they’re sitting down to dinner and Sam is listlessly pushing the meager amount of food around his plate.

It’s the closest he’s come to mentioning Dean; Sam knows he’d like to say more, way more. “I’m out of that, Bobby,” Sam answers quietly. “There’s no need for me to read that stuff right now.”

“Really?” Bobby narrows his eyes just the slightest. “I wasn’t aware that just reading about things was bad for you all of the sudden. Especially for someone who’s always read anything and everything he could get his hands on.”

He says no more, but it’s enough, more than enough to get Sam thinking, and when he checks his phone for any kind of message -- message from Dean -- and sees that there isn’t one, not even a quick, colorless response to the message Sam sent the night before, he grabs the first book on Bobby’s reading list that he relayed to Dean a few days ago -- something about the plagues in Egypt and the plagues in Revelation -- and settles in at the kitchen table to read. It doesn’t mean anything, Sam thinks, him just reading up on these things -- it isn’t as if he’s even going to know what to do with the information now that he’s not with Dean.

But it does bring Sam a small measure of peace, a thin sliver of comfort within him knowing that, for the first time in a long time, he and Dean, though miles apart in every possible way, are on the same page -- literally -- right now as they share this simple yet incredibly momentous act of being in agreement even though they’re not together.

I’m kind of writing this in response to some crap I’ve seen on some Supernatural forums about how they’re tired of the Sam/Dean angst, emotional stuff, and how they want to see more “violence?” (WTF)? Well, I personally can’t see enough of the brotherly stuff, for me that’s the heart and soul of the show and I think, even when I haven’t agreed with certain things, that part has always been well done. So, yeah, writing the guys’ thoughts and feelings is my small way of putting my voice out there and exclaiming proudly: “More brotherly emotion. That’s what it’s all about.” It’s also why you won’t see my fics having a lot of the myth-arc, Apocalypse-stuff in it -- that’s not what I focus on (though I do find it interesting, I’m not smart enough to think along those lines and make a good story from it). Anyway. Hope it’s okay. I have ideas and plans for this and if I can execute them properly, I'll be back. As always, thank you for reading.