I know I haven't written in absolutely ages, but I've started college now and it is quite a bit different from school. I've also been busy dog training, and have had writer's block, so I had no idea what to write about. I got this idea a few weeks ago but couldn't write it, but now I'm buckling down. Back into my stride of sick!Sam and protective!Dean, helped by the new season that has just started.

Disclaimer: Don't own Sam and Dean and never will, fortunately for them (ha!)

Season Eight fanfiction, so spoilers for that season; set i nbetween Pac-Man Fever, 8.20, and The Great Escapist, 8.21.

Summary: "When's the last time you ate?"
"I... I don't-"
"Days, Sam. Three days."

After Charlie left and Dean had hugged his brother through mixed feelings, Sam soon went to bed. Well, went to his room was more like it; sleeping wasn't really something that Sam was busy doing these days.

Dean looked in a few hours after the younger Winchester's retreat to his room, and wasn't that surprised to find Sam sitting up on bed, typing away on his laptop. 'Not surprised' didn't mean he wasn't pissed though.

He sighed loudly to announce his presence, and when Sam jumped guiltily at the sound, Dean walked into the room. He surveyed his little brother's appearance with his constant gnawing worry. He could see that Sam was getting thin and weaker from lack of taking care of himself. Which put big brother in charge.

"Thought you were going to bed, sparky?" Dean said; it wasn't really a question. More of an exasperated comment. He had known that Sam wouldn't let himself rest.

Sam licked his lips nervously. "Just checking the news," he muttered, closing down whatever he was really doing on the computer and shutting it, looking at Dean innocently.

Dean would have rolled his eyes, had they not been busy checking over his brother. Sam was looking very tired and Dean decided it was definitely time to put the toys away.

"Okay. Now it's bedtime." For good measure, Dean picked the laptop off of the side and tucked it under his arm. Predictably, Sam flinched as if to protest, but one look at Dean's glare told him it was pointless.

"Fine," he muttered instead, and pulled his covers out from underneath him, slipping down and under them. He looked back at Dean with a slight self-satisfied smirk. "Better?"

Dean glared at him, but inside he did feel better. Teasing meant Sam wasn't close to giving up yet.

Sam continued to watch him in amusement. "You gonna watch me sleep too?" He asked as Dean made no move to go.

The older Winchester used the full power of a Winchester bitchface on the younger, and turned to leave without a comment. Until he reached the door, where he glanced back. Sam was still watching him.

"Get some sleep," Dean said, rather abruptly. He quickly left the room with the computer, shutting the door behind him. He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.

He sighed again and was about to move off, back to the main rooms, when there was the sound of coughing from behind him. Dean tensed, but forced himself not to go back in the room. It would only antagonize Sam to know that he was listening.

Eventually, the choking sounds stopped and there was an audible sigh from the room, followed by the clearing of a throat, and, eventually, the movement of bedcovers and silence.

Dean relaxed a little, and listened for a second more before walking away from the door, heading towards the Batcave's bigger rooms, worrying all the way.

He settled himself down in the darkening conference room - as Sam had claimed it was (Dean didn't really care) - and opened up the laptop his brother had been working on.

It was true that Dean used to not know a lot about how to work a computer, but that was a while ago, and between Charlie and Sam, he had caught on a few things. Such as looking into the internet history.

Scanning down the recently used websites, nothing stood out majorly. He sighed. Either Sam had erased his history, or he was actually just looking on legit websites.

Brooding wasn't one of Dean's favorite subjects, but as he sat back in his chair and stared sightlessly at the blank screen, he couldn't help but think deeply into where they exactly were.

This was actually a rather hard thing to do - all he could come up with was that they were ass deep in the crapiest demon hunting thing he could think of right now. Sam was doing these trials to shut the damn gates of hell, and they were messing with him in ways Cas couldn't even heal.

Dean sighed again. He was sighing a lot today. He put his head in his hands for a moment, kneading his eye sockets with the heels of his hands, wishing there was some way out of this. Of course there wasn't. (He had been looking).

Eventually standing up, he powered down and closed the lid of the laptop, before heading to bed himself. Like Sam, though, he wasn't really going to sleep. The early hours of the morning continued to find Dean Winchester sitting on his untouched bed, reading up on all the books he could find (not many) about the crap hole they were in. And as every night, he found nothing.

Day One

After a couple of hours fitful sleep, Dean got up, took a shower, changed his clothes, and headed into the kitchen to find something for breakfast. He decided that if Sam was awake the kid was eating, no two ways about it, so he made a simple scrambled eggs on toast.

Predictably, a walk into the map room discovered Sam sitting at the table, leafing through papers spread out in front of him. Dean approached him, noticing the tired lines on his face. Sam had gotten no more sleep his brother.

"Hey. Made some breakfast, you want to try some?" He hadn't planned to ask it as a question - more of an order or statement would have been better - but Sam's hollow look made Dean's already scaling worry shoot up so he became more gentle. Damn kid looked worse every day.

Sam glanced wearily up at Dean, not really focusing on him. "No thanks; I'm fine," he murmured, looking back at his papers without further ado.

Dean sighed. He should make Sam eat it, he really should, but he didn't have it in his heart right now. Instead he gave his brother a visual triage, assessing the need for medication and fluids that he would buy later.

Then he wondered back to the kitchen, and ate some of the food himself, but he didn't really want to. After a few failed mouthfuls, Dean gave up and threw it away. Maybe he'd get Sam to eat later.

They spent most of the morning looking up places where Kevin could be. Aside from the CCTV that Dean had set up, they did their best to look into the prophet's history and see if he could be anywhere else. Both avoided the point that if he wasn't any of these places, then perhaps he hadn't moved himself at all.

Dean tried to force it away. They didn't need that crap too.

Around noon Sam turned in. He was getting more and more tired and lethargic, plus definitely beginning to run a fever that had been barely noticeable before. Now Dean could feel the heat when he even walked past Sam, and mentally noted to buy a thermometer, unsure if they even had one at the moment.

The afternoon was more quiet, as Sam's frequent coughing fits were confined to his bedroom, where he stubbornly refused to sleep; preferring to sit at his desk and read through useless books until his head drooped in tiredness.

Bored of this, Dean marched back to Sam's room for the about fifth time, but was surprised and worried to not find his little brother there. A quick search of the surrounding area, however, showed him that Sam wasn't very far away.

Dean knocked softly on the locked bathroom door. "Sammy, it's me," he called. Rather unnecessary, but Sam was in a strange state of mind right now.

After a minute where Dean considered how pissed his brother would still get - despite being sick - if he tried to kick down the door, the lock slowly scraped and the door opened as a gesture of entrance.

The next about hour was spent in practical verbal silence broken only by Sam's attempts to throw up nothing, seeing as he had failed to eat anything for the past 24 hours at least. Dean rubbed his back in sympathy and did his best to hide his rapidly growing concern.

After drugging his brother with the limited painkillers they had and putting him straight to bed, Dean consulted his mental shopping list and headed out of the Bunker to complete it.

At the store he grabbed everything he needed as quick as he could, including a new thermometer and lots of probably unhelpful meds, and hurried back to check on Sam.

Thankfully, the kid was still knocked out, though sounded congested and was still quite hot. Dean hesitated about the thermometer and in the end decided to wait for a bit. If the fever got worse then he'd push it, but Sam kind of had to be conscious to use the device, though it wasn't really a necessity.

He instead put a glass of water and a packet of strong painkillers on the side for Sam, and headed to his own room to read up on useless subjects that wouldn't actually help. Well, it made him feel better.

Before giving up to sleep and slipping under the covers, Dean thought about how bad Sam was going to get. Hopefully not too much more worse. How wrong he was.