A/N: Thank you to the lovely angeltrap (angeltrap dot livejournal dot com) for betaing this sucker, which was written for the hoodie_time (hoodie_time dot livejournal dot com) Sick!Dean fic/art Week! I'm sorry if the formatting doesn't quite work like it should, but there seems to be no way to get my computer and this website to agree on anything, so... You're stuck with it until I have the patience to try to fix it. Again.

As always, reviews (or whatevs) are love.

Disclaimer: Supernatural doesn't belong to me.

Runnin' down a dream

It strikes Dean sometimes that he's really, really, really sick of girls.

Not of sex itself, or.. Or yeah, maybe sex, too. Maybe all of it.

He hasn't really thought it through, because it's a situation he doesn't find himself in very often.

He'll watch a girl the way he normally does, because his eyes are drawn to them. Drawn to the hair and the lips, the nape of her neck or the way her hair falls over the top of her ear, loose from the pony tail riding high on her head. Tiny, soft, white little hairs almost invisible against flawless pale skin, carefully sculptured eyebrows.

Sometimes to the clavicle. Sometimes the wrists.

Not the boobs. Not as often as you'd think, but sometimes... Sometimes those too. Sometimes lower.

Sometimes just the way she moves, or the way her eyes narrow and her pupils dilate when she talks to him. Half the time he's either riding a high or trying to fill up a well of disappointment inside himself, and it doesn't matter who she is. She's just something to do for tonight. God, he's such a fucking cliché.

He'll be geared up to work towards tasting that lipgloss, to see if it's peach or raspberry, to find out if she's one of those girls that still wear a thong even though thongs should have died years ago, and then...

And then it'll just hit him. That thing that makes him wonder if there's anything out there that's worth it. Whatever "it" is. Even girls.

'What's the goddamned point?'

Because what is the point, really? He'll chat her up – he already knows he's good at that, so no newfound pride in himself there - with some cheap pickup-line ("I'm a firefighter/marine/FBI-agent"), she'll take him back to her place or he'll take her to the car or the bathroom or wherever is the closest (hey, he's a classy-ass firefighter/marine/FBI-agent), and within twenty minutes they'll both be sticky with sweat.

And then he'll sneak out, sweaty and smelly the way only a hangover and a walk of shame can make you, and spend the entire day feeling grumpy and wrung out.

He'll never talk to her again. Won't remember her name by the end of the week, and she won't remember his. She'll remember his abs or his smile or... Other parts of him, but she won't remember him. They're just having sex. He's not handing out mirrors to his soul.

And orgasms.

God, orgasms. They used to be his raison d'être. The only way he'd get out of bed in the morning, the only thing he'd think about doing before going to bed.

At one point he was pulling them out four or five times a day just to sit through English.

And they felt good. He had the red skin and sore palms to show for it, but they felt good.

God, did they ever feel good.

He supposes, though, that after 20-something years of jerking off excessively they had to get boring at some point. And in all fairness, it's the hobby he's managed to hold onto the longest. But sometimes... Sometimes the expected endorphin rush doesn't come. Doesn't relieve him of the little dark spots lurking just under the skin like normally. He's left a little sweaty, with a slightly achy right arm, feeling silly and ridiculous and not a little disappointed.

He skips the next time like he would a meal without a second thought.

And so on a Wednesday evening, in a tiny little place called Bangor, Maine, Dean leans back with his lukewarm beer, lets his good posture go and allows himself to scowl into the table surface, looking sulky and pissy all at once.

The one and only facial expression that just doesn't endear him to girls. Especially the brunette sitting at the bar that's been sending him looks that promise a long, long night and an even longer afternoon in the car with him tomorrow for Sam. Her hand stroked along the waistband of his jeans as he passed her to go to the bathroom, her fingers almost touching the insides of his underwear.

Not shy, then.

Just the way he likes it.

It takes Sam a while to notice that instead of chatting the girl up, Dean is still sitting on the other side of their table, long fingers toying with the little droplets of water gathering on his glass. He doesn't make it a habit to watch his brother and his conquests, mostly because Dean will regale him with the story tomorrow afternoon while the last of the buzz is still wearing off and the shades that spend most of their time buried deep in the pocket behind the driver's seat are pushed high enough to leave red marks in the skin around his eyes.

And suddenly what was originally a slightly tired and smelly guy with worn jeans and boxers just barely still holding onto the elastic banging a divorced mother of two in her trailer becomes a tale of sexual prowess and heated skin worthy of even the shiniest porn movie.

Really, Sam isn't much fussed. This has been the trend since Dean was sixteen and Sam was twelve and had only recently discovered that there were, in fact, things to do with the junk stuffed down his underpants that was more fun than not doing things with it.

Dean claims he was a virgin until he was thirteen.

Sam is pretty sure he was nearly seventeen before he popped his cherry with a waitress from Albuquerque.

"I'm going home, man. You wanna keep the car or should I take it?"

It takes him a moment to realise that Dean is talking to him, telling him he's leaving. Instead of answering straight away he drains his glass, hears the tiny pieces of ice clink against the bottom of it as he drops it back to the table, wedge of lime firmly stuck between his teeth.

"It's barely 10 PM, dude. What are you going home for?"

He's still riding high on the thrill of the chase, and after two weeks of chasing down a ghoul he feels entitled to a little bit of celebrating.

If he wasn't too busy replacing his blood with cheap rum, he'd notice his that his brother isn't looking well. Is pasty and bleary eyed under the blueish light of the bar.

"Just not feelin' it tonight."

"Take the car," Sam says, slaps the table surface in front of his brother while smoothly getting to the set of feet that shouldn't technically be the size of surfboards, but they are, and that's a good thing, because this bar has one of those floors that move independently of everything else, and the blonde standing over in the corner watching him has clearly noticed if the way she's moving is any indication.

He surfs over to her, getting caught up when a table hits him in the hip. Pausing only to buy more rum.

He wants to dance, dammit.

A man with slightly slumped posture slinks out the door, hands buried deep in the pockets of his army green coat.

It's an unsettling feeling, heading home from a bar with his car this early in the evening. The street lights are all on, the asphalt dark and shiny from the slight rain outside. One of the wipers makes a squeaking noise whenever it swipes over the barely wet windshield on the lowest setting he has.

He turns it off. Listens to the engine rumble and the drops of rain hit the glass. Changes gear. Feels the light sweep over his face on regular intervals, swimming slowly over the dash as he moves from one light to the next.

He doesn't usually leave this early, but he was telling the truth earlier. Doesn't feel it tonight.

But he's not sure that's the right expression, because suddenly he can feel everything. Every last little thing in the world that sucks seems to hit him extra hard right now. His first beer is still almost full, the glass sweating onto the sticky little table by the window next to the last empty glass his brother left behind.

And tonight, just for a little while because his brother is out courting a plump girl that barely reaches his chest, he's just a sad guy in his thirties, sleeping in boxers with the fabric that's still barely holding onto the elastic and a t-shirt with a mustard stain and sweat marks on a cold motel bed.

The springs dig into his back, his skin suddenly sensitive to the cheap sheets. Shiny and clean, stiff and cold against his skin.

They don't seem to warm up, either. He imagines a little contraption fastened to the end of the bed, leeching off the warmth he feeds into the fabric to heat it up. Can see it in his mind's eye; warmth leaking out of his fingertips, bleeding into the sheets. Then a little animal with an open mouth at one corner sucking it all in like a vacuum cleaner.

He shivers a little. Tugs the covers closer to his back so the cold air can't leak in over the top and feels his head bounce on the foam filled pillow. His neck aches with the strain of the too high pillow, and he throws it to the floor in a fit of sheer frustration, then burrows deeper into the covers.

He gives in after about an hour of tossing and turning, of pretending that he's warm enough and feeling just fine and that sleep isn't a problem at all.

Not at all.

His woolen socks are at the bottom of his duffle, coated in the sticky residue from a shampoo bottle that went leaky on him a week ago. His sweats are stained by the same perfumed mess, and he sighs. Wishes, not for the first time, that he had the sense to take care of things straight away rather than leaving them until the mood hits him to clean his shit up.

Instead of standing in a cold-ass motel room in the middle of the night trying to find something warm to wear.

Sammy has a grey fleece sweater and woolen socks that are too big and where the heel reaches his calf when he pulls them on and sweats he has to roll up several times and re-tie around his waist.

They smell of fabric softener and hair gel. There's a receipt in one pocket, washed and crumbly.

He doesn't mind. Is too relieved to feel the soft fleece over his shoulders to feel guilty that he's rifling through his brother's stuff. His only belongings, and the only semblance of privacy either one of them has.

He curls up under the thin covers and tries to fall asleep again, convincing himself that he does feel warmer. That the chill he's feeling has everything to do with a cold-ass motel room instead of his own body rebelling on him.

It's another long while before he surfaces, but when he does he's not sure he was ever under at all. Not really. His mind is a mix of memories and dreams and half-forgotten conversations with too many too energetic people smack in the middle of his motel room while he twists in bed, feeling goose pimples rise on his skin and his hairs standing on end, rubbing painfully against the bedclothes and the sweater he has on.

He twists the covers under his chin, allows his teeth to chatter for a minute before closing his eyes again. Tries to fall asleep. Really asleep.

He only finds more conversations and dreams he doesn't want.

Sam shouldn't dance. It's a hereditary thing. John wasn't light on his feet, either, and both he and Dean are like him. He only dances when he's really, really drunk. Stinking drunk.

The girl he's been talking to all night is rubbing up against him, but from his vantage point her head blocks most of the view down her plunging top.

Her hair is parted crookedly, a portion at the back weaving away from the rest so he can see the the roots where it's growing out. Mousy brown hair dyed a vanilla custard yellow.

Next to them there's a girl with a brown pony tail rubbing up against a man in his forties. He's got a belly, but she's drunk, too. The kind of drunk she didn't pay for on her own.

She looks to be having fun, he supposes, her eyes heavily lidded and unconcerned with the hands crawling up under her top.

She doesn't seem to mind.

The man dancing with her isn't handsome. He isn't tall or strong or secretly a hero that started and averted the apocalypse all at once, and there's something utterly wrong about that.

He's not Dean.

Definitely not Dean. So absolutely definitely not Dean, and that in itself is something he has trouble comprehending.

The girl rubbing up against him is more of an annoyance than a promise of fun to be had and shenanigans to get up to all of a sudden, the way her head rubs against his chest almost silly. He's almost surprised by her presence, feels clearer and more sober than he has been in a while.

She isn't.

She stumbles violently when he pushes her away as gently as he can, but she doesn't seem to want to let go. Her legs, short and stubby, lose balance. She ends up half sitting, half lying in a booth, her butt on display.

He doesn't want to look, but does anyway. Feels a little disgusted with himself when all he can think of to say is "Huh".

Ruffles. Really?

The girl with the brown ponytail is gone when he turns. So is the man with the huge belly dancing with her, and Sam heads out of the bar on feet that have turned the right size again, on a floor that's keeping perfectly level. The rainy air hits his face as he exits the front door along with a cloud of cigarette smoke and chatter. Laughter. Girls in pumps so high they can barely straighten up without looking like they're on stilts and someone else is holding the handles.

His feet slap against the wet pavement as he moves to the curb, phone to his ear already.

"Yeah? I need a cab."

All he can think when he reaches the motel is that he might be wrong. That he gave up a night of fun he'll strongly regret in the morning but highly enjoy in the moment just to find his brother happily cleaning the guns or whatever.

Dean should be watching TV when he enters, or he might have Sam's laptop balanced precariously on his chest while he's flat on his back whacking off to whatever Asian beauties are profiled this month, glaring at Sam while trying to pretend he wasn't... Reading the articles. Whatever.

There should be light and sound and life in that room, because it's barely past 1AM

Dean is a big boy. A big boy who rarely goes to bed at all, and protests against bed times loudly enough to make sure he only ever falls asleep on a couch or in a bathtub or in beds with girls in them.

It's dead quiet when Sam enters, the light from the street sending a beam of blueish clarity over the nightstand and headboard of a bed.

His eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness, and he decides he doesn't have the time. Flicks the light switch.

A lump in the furthest bed moves a little, and a face emerges bright red and sleepy. Dean's eyes are pinched almost closed against the light, the skin around them puffy and red.

"You okay?" Sam hears himself ask, his voice suddenly booming in the quiet room. Dean winces.

"Yeah. Fine."

"You don't... Look so fine. You sure?"

Dean shifts slightly, flops down on his side and pulls the covers tight under his chin again. He can see Sam's forehead contracting before he closes his eyes against the light.

"Don't know."

His forehead is dry and warm against Sam's cold fingers, and he feels himself frowning even harder down at the shivering form in the bed.

"You cold?"

"Yeah." Dean whispers, his eyes shut tight against the light again.

"Can't get warm."

"You're running a fever," Sam says, though he knows it's still low. Low grade enough to be annoying and painful and uncomfortable, but not high enough to be dangerous or enough to knock him out. The worst kind, he thinks.

"Maybe a shower?" he suggests, because he tested the water pressure before, and found it to be sufficient. Dean shrugs under the covers, looking like he doesn't ever want to move.

"Come on, man. It'll help. I'll go get the first aid kit from the car to see if we have any Tylenol PM to help you sleep."

Dean looks like he wants to protest for a moment, because this kind of help when he's just feeling a tiny bit under the weather is too much. Not what they usually do, their own preferred brand of ignoring and pretending not to notice.

But then he nods, hauling himself upright out from under the covers. He's fully dressed, and Sam winces. Can feel the fevered skin under his own sweaty button up, almost.

Dean moves like he's in pain, like his joints are all complaining and screaming for attention, and when the bathroom door closes behind him it's with a soft snick instead of a thud and a click of the lock.

Sam searches the first aid kid, but can only find regular Tylenol. Through the window to their room he can see the uncomfortable bright light from the ceiling light, steam escaping from around the frosted glass on the bathroom window.

There's a pharmacy only a couple blocks away, so he trudges out into the rain after checking to see if his wallet is still where he put it.

And meanwhile Dean showers. He stands, hands braced against the wall while letting the water pound down on his back. The shampoo washed away ages ago, the only soap suds left on his skin somewhere behind his legs where he hasn't rinsed it off yet, but it doesn't matter.

The warm water is warming his skin nicely, chasing the cold away with little shivers and trembles that feel fantastic. He turns up the heat after a while to feel more of them, to watch his skin pucker in goosebumps. The little room fills with steam, the mirror and tiled walls dripping wet from it after a little while.

And still Dean showers, waits for the last of the chill to be chased out of his bones.

Finally, when his legs begin to tremble he figures he'd better rinse off properly and go to bed before he falls asleep standing up. His head swims a little as he straightens up, and he waits a moment to let it settle.

It doesn't get any worse, so he rinses off and opens the door, stepping with a clumsy foot onto the towel spread over the wet tiles Sam left behind after his shower earlier in the evening. He feels heavy and strange, like he's only just woken up from a deep, deep sleep.

And then, as he leans over to get a towel from the towel rack, his vision fills with stars and flecks of nothing, like a migraine. Little flashing lights appear, blinking. Disappearing and reappearing, and his ears fill with a shrill kind of ringing. He has just the time to realize he's going to fall before he does, one hand so tight against the towel rack it actually stings with pain by the time gravity makes him let go.

And then...

Then there is nothing.

It takes almost 40 minutes before Sam sets his feet in the motel room again, this time with shoulders soaked from the rain. He shakes his head like a dog trying to get rid of the excess water, but mostly he only manages to make himself dizzy.

Still not sober, then.

Their motel room is still empty, the lights on and bright as ever. Dean is nowhere to be found, and it's dead silent in the room.

He feels angry for a moment, pissed off that he bothered to go out in the rain to get his stupid ass brother painkillers and flu medicine when all he seemed to want was to run off at the first possible chance.

Then he notices the bathroom door still only just closed, exactly the way Dean left it when he entered, and his stomach does a flip flop.

It's strangely heavy to open, and once he has enough room to peer in he knows why. Dean is wrapped around it, tucked in on himself on the wet towel he left there earlier. There's a sheen of sweat or water on his skin, and he's naked, his hair still wet from the shower.

"Dean!" he says. Growls. Shouts, and manages somehow to squeeze himself through the narrow doorway and kneel at Dean's side without moving him any further.

Dean's eyelids flicker when he's called, but that's the only sign of recognition or awareness Sam can find. Dean's skin is wet and cold, but his forehead is burning with fever.

"Dean," he says again, slapping his cheek slightly. Hazy green eyes open to slits, but the whites roll up before they can fasten on anything.

"Crap."

By the time he has Dean on the bed he's sweating a little himself, forehead sticky with perspiration. He wrangles his brother's dead weight back into the sweats he wore earlier, and when he wrestles a t-shirt over his head Dean opens his eyes again. Sam tries to lever him back down to the bed, but Dean's expression becomes pinched again. His face pasty white against the white shirt he's got wrapped around his neck like a scarf.
"Dizzy?" Sam asks, and Dean answers with a muffled "Mh."

So he takes his time, Dean's heavy head leaning on his bicep as he tries to lead arms that seem to be all elbows and unbending limbs through the right holes. And finally he has Dean leaning on the pillow again, eyes closed normally now. The way they should be, without the pinching and the pained frown.

"Tylenol," he says, and Dean manages to swallow them down without too much trouble, pulling feebly on the blankets.

Sam takes that as his cue to get up and turn off the lights and crawl under his own blankets, but a muffled sound from Dean's bed has him hurrying back.

He watches as a floppy hand pats the stretch of bed still available behind Dean's back, and snorts.

"Dude, if you wanted to cuddle you should've just said so."

There's a grunt from Dean, and an eye opens to glare at him forcefully enough to let loose a laugh.

"Whatever, man. This totally counts."

But he crawls in anyway, one arm around a too warm waist as Dean seems to sink into his chest, shivers and trembles tapering off into something mellow and sleepy.

Dean closes his eyes again, lets himself relax and breathe and feel thoroughly warm for the first time in forever. This? This right here? That moment when his body felt warm for the first time in forever, and he's still pleasantly dizzy and muddled, but his head doesn't hurt as bad anymore?

So beats sex.