A/N: One-shot, set season 1-2ish.
Warnings: language (nothing too strong), and some really up close and personal and kinda detailed puking. Like, if you have any problems with other people being sick, I would probably not recommend reading this. I even grossed myself out writing it, ha ha!
sSsSsSsSsSs

"Well, shit," Dean muttered. "Shit, shit, shit."

Sam didn't say anything, just curled tighter in on himself and bit down hard on a pained moan, making it come out all high-pitched and squeaky.

Dean spared him a quick glance, sympathy crinkling his eyes. "That was a really low blow, man."

"Bastard," Sam agreed in a strangled murmur.

"Don't worry, we'll get 'im," Dean assured softly, returning his gaze to the door left ajar, and, unable to resist, adding with a chuckle, "then we can check and make sure all of you's still there."

Sam just coughed weakly in reply, and Dean felt an angry shiver curl around his belly. Damn ghoul- ghouls, he reminded himself- were a piece of work alright. They'd come into this fully expecting only one, which they actually kind of easily overpowered and relieved of its head, just to be taken completely off guard by a second, like a termite emerging from the woodwork of this crappy dump of a house.

They had fairly stumbled onto the second ghoul in the dim hallway on their way out and it had barely registered their presence before lashing out, directing a hard, well-aimed kick at Sam's manhood and then bolting. In one swift movement, Dean had caught Sam mid-collapse and yanked him back through a dark doorway, slamming them both up against a wall and letting the door swing mostly shut. He had wanted to push the door all the way closed, but he didn't want it to make noise, and anyways both hands had been occupied with keeping Sam from slumping to the floor.

After almost a complete minute of silence, however, he had let Sam slide to the floor where he listed over a bit, holding himself and trying to keep back rising nausea with wheezing gasps and convulsive swallows.
So there they were, and Dean had yet to hear any sound outside the room, though he had a feeling the ghoul probably wasn't far.

With a whisper of "watch the door," to Sam, he slipped further into the room to see what he could in the dim light. He had just started to wonder at the body sized crawl space under some loose floorboards when Sam wheezed out what sounded suspiciously like "De-" and he was back at his side as fast as he possibly could.

Sam was pale and fidgety, obviously still in pain, but his gaze was locked on the ceiling and when Dean held his breath and listened, he realized why. He could hear not one, but two sets of footfalls in the room just over them.

"Holy crap," he breathed, wide eyes seeking out Sam's in the low light. "There's a third, huh?"

Sam closed his eyes and jerked his head up and down in an affirmative gesture as he swallowed tightly. They sat still for a moment, and when Dean heard the footsteps start to travel, the unmistakable sound of them descending stairs, he lapsed back into his previous litany of "shit, shit, SHIT."

Sam was pretty much useless to him, and in Dean's hurry to conceal them in the room he had somehow misplaced his machete. "Where the hell's your knife, Sam?" He hissed out, moving back to the center of the room and reaching his arm into the dark space under the floor, feeling out its depth.

"Drop...dropped it," Sam choked out.

Dean felt a momentary flash of panic before he mentally told himself to calm the hell down and just deal with it. "Alright Sam, get over here, now," he said, keeping his voice hushed. Sam bit back on a whimper as he tried to hurry and comply, but his legs were so wobbly he could hardly stand. He finally joined Dean in the middle of the room in time to watch his older brother clamber into the crawl space, and when he knelt and hesitated, Dean just reached up and grabbed him, rolling him into the space too.

Sam didn't have far to go before he landed right on top of Dean. It audibly forced the breath out of both of them, but Dean just kicked at Sam's ankles until he uncurled his legs and then reached up past him to pull the loose floorboards back over the gaping hole, effectively concealing them under the floor.

"Okay, okay," he muttered, worming a hand up to brush some of Sam's wayward hair away from his face. "Just keep quiet now, they won't find us."

Sam wanted to say that he had no way of knowing that for sure, but talking was just out of the option right then. His face was pressed into Dean's collarbone, hands curled loosely on either side of his brother, and every time Dean shifted or fidgeted beneath him throbbing pain shot up through Sam's abdomen. He couldn't breathe, and when he tried to push up off of Dean a little so he could get in a breath he felt his back hit the bottom of the floorboards. It was... a bit of a tight fit, especially considering his elbows were brushing the sides of the hole just as it was.

"Jeeze, Sammy," Dean whispered. "Would you... stop... fidgeting..." he punctuated each word with an only slightly annoyed nudge and bodily shoved at his brother, wishing Sam was just a little on the lighter side.

Sam didn't answer, but Dean felt his hand come up to grip a handful of the front of his shirt as he buried his face into the flannel and suddenly tried to curl in on himself, his entire body convulsing against Dean.

"Sam!" Dean gasped when an elbow sharply dug into his stomach. "God- stop... stop humping me!" He jostled Sam again, squirming underneath him, and when his knee accidentally went between Sam's legs the reaction was immediate. Sam convulsed again, muffling a sort of whimper against Dean's chest, and then Dean remembered. Oh. Right.

"Sorry, sorry," he muttered, cringing in sympathy. "I forgot. You okay?" His hands were hovering enough to feel the brush of Sam's hair when he lifted his head to gulp in a few stilted breaths.

"De-" he gasped, his breath coming too fast for him to speak properly. "I think- think I'm gonna-"

No. Oh hell no. No way was this happening. Dean automatically tried to shift himself to one side so Sam wasn't completely on top of him, but there was no space to move into. "Sam," he started urgently, the warning in his hushed tone evident. "You'd better not mean what I think you mean."

Sam didn't answer, just lowered his face onto Dean's chest again and started to tremble, a practically violent quake that shook his entire frame. After five seconds -Dean counted- he distinctly felt Sam's stomach start to heave against his waist. Dean almost hyperventilated, right then and there.

"Sam..." he said again, ignoring the tremble in his own voice. "I swear to god, if you throw up on me-"

"I... can't..." Sam's breath was hot as he panted into Dean's shirt and trembled again. "Ah, god, Dean... hurts..."

"I know," Dean muttered quickly. "I know, I know, but please just... don't..." He trailed off, and wondered if he should just prepare for the worst. Sam heaved again, a high pitched noise of distress leaking out between his teeth, and jammed his elbows into the floor on either side of Dean so he could lift himself as high as he could off his brother.

Dean felt some of the pressure on his chest ease, and over the slightly frantic note of his own breathing he heard Sam start to make disturbing little noises that he was all too familiar with. In that moment Dean Winchester decided he wasn't above begging.

"Sammy," he whispered, pressing his back into the ground beneath him and angling his face up at the floor above him. "Please, please, don't be sick on me. I am so serious right now. C'mon man, just breathe through it, alright? You can do this. I know it hurts like a bitch, but you've made it through worse, right? Right?"

Sam's only answer was a gag, and then Dean felt the force of a violent retch all down his brother's body. Dean literally went light-headed, and more or less just shut down as Sam retched again, and then loosed a stomach-full of hot, slimy- oh god.

Ohgodohgodohgod.

He was gonna be sick, too, he just knew it. He could feel the warm wetness soaking through his shirt on his chest, liquid trickling down the side of his neck, and his eyes teared up as he bit down on a gag of his own, half from the smell and half from the principal of the matter. "Saaamm..." he moaned under his breath, shutting his eyes and swallowing hard. "No, no, dammit..."

Sam just gave another shudder, a tiny, strangled sob breaking out before he was heaving again so hard that he leaned his full weight into Dean, releasing onto Dean's neck another flood of hot bile and slimy bits and- Dean shook his head, shut his mouth tight, and willed himself to not think about it. Instead he held his breath and listened, trying to distinguish any telling sounds over Sam's soft gasping.

Their feet were all tangled up together, and he knew that they would be abso-friggin-lutely screwed if the ghouls found them right now. He was surprised they hadn't heard all the ruckus under the floor by now, but as hard as he was listening he couldn't hear a sound. Sam was a mess, dripping tears and snot to join the mess on Dean's chest, and Dean could hear soft noises of distress emitting from him.

"Quiet, Sammy," he managed to murmur hoarsely, his own stomach turning somersaults as his fingernails dug into the rotting wood surrounding them. "I can't hear."

Sam swallowed and sniffed, but held his breath for a minute, his entire frame still wracked by the occasional tremor while Dean listened- hard. Nothing. Except... he breathed a curse and felt Sam tense on top of him. A solitary set of footsteps had entered the room and faltered a bit. Dean squinted in the dark, wondering if he recognized that tread, and just when he was about to panic over his lack of a plan, he heard a familiar, gruff voice echo around the room.

"HOLY... shit," he wheezed, his heart nearly skipping a beat as he fumbled a hand up to push at the floorboards. "Bobby!" He fairly yelped, hardly noticing the note of hysteria in his own voice.

The rest of the boards were flipped aside, and Dean was suddenly looking up at Bobby Singer in the light of a Coleman lantern. "What in the hell..." Bobby said, almost at a loss for words as he looked down at them. "Thought you idjits were huntin' ghouls, not hidin' from 'em."

"We thought there was only one, but there were three," Dean protested, not caring that his voice cracked pitifully halfway through as he fairly babbled. "And we killed the first one but the second one kicked Sam in the balls and ran but we had lost our knives and it was dark and they were coming back and-" He blinked, affronted at the tears that had sprung to his eyes. "And Sam threw up on me," he finished in a tiny voice.

Bobby just stared at him for a minute longer before muttering "What in the hell," again, and setting the lantern and his... meat cleaver?... down and reaching into the hole to grab a shivering Sam under the arms and hoist him out.

Sam let out a pained whimper, but tried to coordinate his ungainly limbs enough to scramble out of the hole. Once on the floor, he curled on his side in the fetal position and pushed Bobby's hands off. "Get Dean out," he whispered. "Doesn't like small spaces."

"I know, kid," Bobby spared a quick smile, but leaned back over the hole and reached a hand down for Dean, who for his part had just been laying there covered in sick and looking appropriately traumatized. His grip on Bobby's proffered hand was strong though, and once out he dropped to his hands and knees to gag a couple times before he could breathe properly again. "I'm okay," he gasped, waving Bobby away. "D'you kill the bastards?"

"No," Bobby retorted, stepping out into the hall to look for Sam's knife. "I referred them to a therapist and said I'd check up on their social progress in a month- Yes, I killed them, Dean. Soon as you two yahoos headed out I realized that there had to be more than one, but you'd already turned your damned phones off."

"I was just... checking..." Dean muttered, sitting dejectedly back on his heels. He looked over at Sam, expression a little petulant.

Sam was watching him through teary, half-closed eyes. "Y'okay?" He asked softly.

Dean huffed a laugh and then gave a full body shudder. "I'm... fine," he managed. "Just... that was- that was really, really gross, Sam."

Sam grimaced, his arms wrapping tighter around his middle. "Sorry," he whispered. "God, Dean, I am so, so sorry..." He closed his eyes, and a minute or two later he heard Dean shuffle across the floor to crouch next to him.

"S'alright, Sammy," Dean's voice was an awkward mix of affection and concern as he curled an arm around Sam's back to tilt him back upright. "I probably woulda done the same."

Sam chuckled ruefully and sniffed before dragging the back of his arm across his nose and mouth. He pulled a face and slumped into Dean's hold, muttering something that sounded like "guh."

"Hold still, I'm gonna wipe all this barf off with your hair," Dean said nonchalantly, and Sam made a feeble noise of protest that made Dean laugh again. "Kidding, dude. Think you can walk to the car?"

Sam said yes, he could, but it took the combined efforts of Dean and Bobby to haul him outside and get him sprawled in the back seat of the Impala, where he curled up again, panting. Dean left Bobby to sort out some ice while he stood at the trunk and hurriedly stripped off his jacket, flannel, and t-shirt, contemplating just burning them here and now before deciding he couldn't really afford that and gingerly stuffing them into a plastic bag. He shivered a bit in the evening air, but snatched up a gallon jug of water and emptied half of it over his neck and chest before he felt even half clean enough to put another shirt on. He thrust his arms into the sleeves of a long sleeved t-shirt and yanked it over his head as he rounded the car to check on Sam. The soft cotton stuck to his still wet skin, but he ignored it as he carefully pushed Sam's feet off the seat to slip in next to him. "Got some ice down there?" He asked, a gentle note of teasing in his voice.

Sam nodded miserably, shifting uncomfortably under the blanket Bobby had tucked around him. "Mm-hmm," he said quietly. "It's really cold..."

"That's ice for ya, Sammy," Dean remarked, sliding down in the seat until his knees pressed into the back of the driver's seat. He looked over at Sam, noting the pained expression, and let a hand drop to rest on his brother's hip. "You gonna be alright?" He asked, surprisingly kindly, before adding, "everything still in working order?"

A faint hint of pink touched Sam's pale face and he shrugged with another grimace. "I honestly have no idea right now," he muttered. "I can't feel anything."

Dean grinned and looked back at the house, where Bobby was cursing his lighter, his hand still resting lightly on Sam's side. "You'll be okay in a couple days," he assured, falling quiet for a minute before continuing. "But Sam? If you ever throw up on me again I will willingly throw you to the ghouls, or whatever."

Sam shook in a silent little laugh. "I said sorry," he offered, his voice muffled by the blanket he had burrowed his face into. "Didn't think you'd be so affected."

"Affected?" Dean spluttered, looking askance. "I'm freaking traumatized, Sam!"

"Yeah, well, at least you're not the one who's..." Sam trailed off into muttering as he ducked under the blanket and fell to fidgeting.

Dean just shook his head with another grin and tilted it back against the seat, letting his eyes slide closed. "But seriously," he muttered. "Really, really gross, Sam."