A/N: Written for day 20 of Whumptober 2019.

Prompt: trembling

Jack had never had a fever before, so this was new. He didn't know which of his dads to tell, or if he should even tell his dads.

No, probably shouldn't tell them.

Why worry them?

At first he hadn't even known what was wrong with him. Between the cold sweats, and the trembling, and the body aches, and the drowsiness but inability to sleep, he'd just been plain terrified. He'd looked it up on his laptop at some late hour of the night (it irked Jack that he couldn't just tell what time it was anyway without looking at some stupid device), and he'd read up on it.

So he was sick.

Well, he hadn't known for sure at first.

After reading the article, hands shaking fiercely from how he was trembling, body aching from the strain of it, he'd searched through all the cabinets in the bunker bathroom, trying to find a thermometer; that's where the article had said to keep a thermometer.

It hadn't been there.

So he'd checked the infirmary, had managed to find one, and after painstakingly reading the instructions on the back of the box, vision blurring, he put it in his mouth and waited for it to beep.

102.

That hadn't been good, not according to all the information he'd looked at in the past few minutes.

So now Jack was lying in bed with a 102 degree fever, body wracked with shivers, exhausted, and he just wanted it to stop so maybe he could go to sleep. He wasn't sure he had any other symptoms, except that stupid cough where the blood came up in his mouth.

Being human was all stupid, stupid, stupid.

It'd be gone by morning.

Yeah, that's what would happening.

Morning would come, and he'd stop trembling.

Oh, it was uncomfortable.

He was sure Dean would have a word for it. A bad word. What would Dean say?

Fuck?

Was that a word?

Jack wasn't entirely sure, but he was sure he'd heard Dean murmur it a few times: when he accidently splashed water on himself while cleaning the dishes, or when he stubbed his toe, or when his gun jammed.

So…

"F-f-fuck," Jack got out, teeth chattering, lips coming together even when he didn't want them to.

It was as if his body had other ideas for what he should be doing. It wanted him to be suffering.

He had been curled up on his side in his bed, but he rolled onto his back and let out a pitiful moan, his chest and throat aching fiercely, but also filled with a sharp pain, almost as if someone had taken a rock and scraped it through him.

Jack lost sense of time, sense of himself, just lay there, having no say in the small shivers, and movements of his body as the fever took him, and soon Sam was with him, hand to his forehead, face creased with worry.

"Hey, hey, Jack, we gotta get your fever down, okay?"

He nodded, not sure he was fully aware of what was going on. But Sam stayed by his side through the night, tending to him with ice and medicine and water and wet cloths, and finally, by dawn his fever broke, his body relaxed. Sam kissed him on the forehead, and Jack snuggled down into his blankets, ready to get some sleep.

"Just rest now, Jack," Sam told him softly. "Food'll be ready for you when you're up."

"Mm-hmm. Thhnn-ks."

"No need to thank me, kiddo. Love you."

Jack wanted to say it back, but he already found himself falling asleep.