Prompt: Sam gets cursed and cannot sleep, then to make matters worse he catches the flu while still not sleeping. Dean worries and takes care of him.

A/N: I feel like I took advantage of the second person, sleep-deprived POV. I also feel like I don't care. It's a nice feeling. Roughed up Dean a bit, too. Because it's more fun that way.

You Can Sleep

You're not sure exactly how it happens. One second you're stabbing a stake into a witch's heart, the next she's chanting some gibberish that you can't identify as any language you've ever heard before. She points up at you, laughs sadistically, then takes her last breath. Black eyes, wide and dead.

Dean calls her a crazy bitch. With a flick of a match, she shrivels into a ball of flame and ash. Dean walks away unaffected. Oblivious. But you, you know something is different. Something inside you has changed. There's a weight in your chest, an uneasiness lurking in the back of your head, but you don't know for sure. Can't say what it is.

Three nights later you're losing your mind, thoroughly exhausted. You've tried drugs, booze, you even convinced Dean to knock you unconscious with a strategically placed thumb to your carotid, but you never sleep. Never sleep. Always awake. Jittery, nauseous, dizzy, sick with exhaustion. You see the way he looks at you, concern and fear barely veiled behind thin jokes and humorless teasing. You can't see the humor in anything right now. You're too far gone.

"Close your eyes," Dean encourages. You try, but it's useless. You see her. Sickly smile against a blood red background. She laughs and chants, and you gasp, eyes snap open again. Your blurry vision stares up at the ceiling until you can get up the nerve to try again. Over and over. She's there. Always there.

"It'll wear off soon," Dean predicts optimistically.

Bobby had said a week, worst case: two. But she was dying and the chant was short, so chances are you only have four more days of this. Ninety-six hours. Five thousand, seven hundred and sixty minutes. Three hundred forty-five thousand, six hundred seconds. You want to throw up.

***

There's a herb that Dean crushes and steeps in boiling water. He makes you drink the broth. It tastes like dirty socks but you gobble it down with hope. You both sit back and wait. Wait. Your watches tick alternately every half-second. You ask—tell—Dean not to stare.

"Close your eyes," he says again. And you shake your head immediately. "You won't fall asleep if your eyes are open, Sam."

But it doesn't work. No different than everything else they've tried. She's there. Always there.

"Close your eyes," he says again, softer, almost whispering.

"Can't." You're vaguely aware of the tears forming, watering down your brother's image. "She's always there."

When you blink the tears out, Dean's concerned expression sharpens. And that's it. You lose control. It's not you and yet it's all of you. Exposed. Raw. It's humiliating and frightening. You choke on a sob, your face finds your hands. Part of your subconscious is laughing, because it's just that stupid, the rest of you is crying. It's the rest of you that Dean sees.

You stare at the carpet, because no, you will not close your eyes. No. You won't. She's there. Always there. No.

"Okay." The strong physical presence crosses the gap between the beds and settles beside you. There's a hand on your back. "It's okay. You're close now. Just a few more days."

You sob again, because you can't do the math to figure out exactly how many more agonizing seconds of this you have to endure.

You're too tired.

It's too depressing.

****

There's a pig's foot boiling in a pot of water on a hotplate in the corner of the room. You don't ask. Dean tells you anyway.

"I'm boiling the meat off the bone, then we're going to add some oil..."

He finishes the explanation but you can only process a few words at a time and then they're gone. Your short term memory is shot. You know you're asking the same questions over and over again, but you can't remember your question when Dean provides the answer, so you have to start over.

Dean sighs a lot. You find his lack of irritation irritating. You want him to yell at you. Make some noise. But he has stopped teasing. Stopped laughing at you and calling you weak. He has stopped. Time has stopped.

It's the fifth night when you first notice you're sick. Dean must have noticed earlier because he says that your temperature has gone up. You don't remember having your temperature taken before.

"Only you would get sick when you're already cursed," he chides. Then adds a quiet, "Fuck," when he looks at the display on the thermometer again.

***

You catch yourself talking in circles. You make perfect sense...to you.

"How much longer? Is it a long one...time? Now?"

You know it's not right. But you make sense. You're sure of it.

Dean sighs again. "Just try closing your eyes, okay? Try?"

"What?"

But you have little to no voice. When you ask why, Dean says it's because of the screaming. You nod. You don't remember ever screaming.

"Try, okay?"

You squint up at the pale face hovering above you. "You look tired," you croak.

The face smiles, chuckles. It's a sad laugh. A pity laugh.

"Close your eyes."

You do because you sort of forget what it's like. Clearly negative reinforcement doesn't hold ground against exhaustion. The scream that rips from your throat sounds like a needle dragging across a record, and you deduce that's how you lost your voice in the first place.

Another sigh, a warm hand is placed in the middle of your chest. Your heart pounds furiously. Breath tearing in and out. In and out. Fast. Faster.

Then you just go ahead and throw up.

***

It hurts too much to stay awake. You're going to explode. There's no other explanation for the blood-roaring ache that consumes your entire body. You shake, unable to get warm. But you're hot somewhere... Your eyes. It's your eyes, you tell Dean. He nods as if he understands. But he's hovering somewhere else, you think. He's distant somehow. If you weren't so sick and tired, you feel like you would know exactly what's up with your brother. But that? Now? No. Not possible.

You suspect you long ago stopped making sense, but at least he's trying to help make you feel like a little less of a freak.

"I can't move. Dean, I can't move." You swallow, try again. "I can't."

"Yeah, you can. You're moving. You're just tired. You're too tired, okay? You're moving." You might be crying again, you're not sure. Dean stands, bridges the gap between you, pushes your hair back off your sweaty forehead. "You're moving," he assures you. You're scared. "Hey," he says to your fear, "you're moving."

You stare earnestly into his eyes. You believe him, and not just because you want to. He goes back to where he was sitting. He looks unwell. His shoulders, his eyes. Everything. Drawn. He keeps dragging a hand from his forehead down to his chin.

"You sick?"

He looks up at you, maybe surprised you're speaking? You wonder when you spoke last. Not long ago... Maybe you just said something? You forget.

"You worry about you," he answers. It's a yes. It's exhaustion. It's everything you're feeling.

***

You don't know when the curse wears off. At some point you fall asleep. It's heavy and dreamless. It swallows you whole.

When you finally wake, Dean's still hunched on the bed beside yours. He locks eyes with you. Sadness and relief.

"You okay?" he asks.

You wiggle your toes. You feel the need to prove to yourself that you're not paralyzed. "How long?" you ask. Your throat is dry and raw and sore, almost doesn't allow you to voice those two words.

"Almost 12 hours."

You're surprised and you're not. It's too much and not enough. You need more, just not now.

"You sleep, too?"

His cheek twitches, eyes look off to the corner. It's a no.

"I didn't... You were..." Dean waves a hand, offers a cheap smile to round off the incomplete thought. It doesn't last long.

You get it. You do.

"How do you feel?" he asks.

"Great," you answer first. "Horrible," you finish with a grimace.

You can still feel the grip of the fever, the tightness in your chest, the heartbeat in your temples. Your teeth hurt, your stomach aches. But you slept. You slept. You can think. Speak.

Dean nods, looks exactly how you feel. "That was hell," you say before you can stop yourself. Dean doesn't always correct you when you say that, but he always offers some form of disagreement that reiterates that you do not have the necessary experience to make that comparison. But this time he nods. Agreement.

You're glad you don't remember everything about the last seven days.

Again, a hand runs from his forehead to his chin, lingers there for a second. You can see the tremor in his fingers.

"Sleep," you say, the single word is about all you can manage right now. The throb in your head has ramped up to an almost unbearable level; it takes every ounce of willpower to keep your stomach calm. Dean just stares back, as if he doesn't really believe you're in front of him. You're not sure you want to know why.

Words are out of reach for now, so you latch onto his gaze, make sure he's looking at you, right at you, and give a short nod.

He blinks once, then twice, third time his eyes stay closed. His upper body tilts to the side, head dropping limply into a pillow. Legs make the excruciating climb up onto the mattress as well. He curls into himself. You listen to his wheezy breathing for several minutes.

You're in rough shape. You're brother's in rough shape. But it's not unbearable. Not anymore.

You're comforted—confident you can deal with almost anything right now.

Anything's manageable when you can sleep away large portions of time. Tomorrow. Or later. Another day. Whenever you wake up.

Because you can sleep now.

You can sleep now. You can sleep.

You can sleep.