A/N: almost five years to update? I'm sure I don't know what you mean (or how that happened.)

Little brothers are always little…

Dean had seen Sam dead, he'd seen him drunk and hungover, concussed, unconscious, heartbroken, depressed, upset, and desperately ill. He could mix all those together, tinge it pasty gray with a hint of green around the edges and top it off with black and reddened eyes, and it might come close to how bad Sammy looked right now.

He was asleep at least, or close enough to call, what with the good painkillers and broad-spectrum antibiotics the nurse had mixed into his IV, so Dean grabbed a chair from the far wall and sat next to him to wait and maybe make sense of what was going on. Why Sam had gotten himself blitzed and bilious in the first place.

Cas? Benny? That wouldn't be enough to send Sam into drunken oblivion. It couldn't be. He couldn't be jealous. Of what? That was stupid. That was – just stupid.

The door opened and the doctor – judging from his white lab coat, clipboard and stethoscope – came in. "Mr. Winchester? I'm Dr. Rumi." He offered his hand to Dean. He was an older man with gray hair and a Pakistani accent. "Mr. Fitzgerald tells me that your brother has been taken quite ill?"

"Yeah, he was throwing up last night. I guess that burned his throat up, and he got a fever. This morning he was hallucinating clowns."

"Throwing up? Food poisoning, perhaps?" Dr. Rumi asked, looking over the paperwork on his clipboard.

"If you can get food poisoning from tequila, sure."

"Ah, I see. Does he often get that kind of 'food poisoning'?"

"Sammy? Once every four or five years. Maybe. Yesterday, he was – I don't know. Just a bad day, I guess."

"Hunters have too many of those," the doctor said. He set the clipboard aside, washed his hands and pulled on latex gloves. "Would you wake him for me? I'd like to examine his throat."

"Yeah." Dean turned to Sam and put a hand on his shoulder. "Sam? Wakey wakey. Sammy?"

"Hmmm…?" Sam blinked awake and turned his head toward Dean.

"Doctor's here. Wants a look at your throat."

"I –" Sam started to say but it cut off sharply like his voice just stopped working and he nodded.

"All yours, Doc," Dean said. He stood back but stayed close enough to keep a hand on Sam's shoulder as the doctor leaned over and looked into his mouth with a pencil-thin light.

"Oh, yes. Very bad," the doctor announced. "I'll take a swab and we'll see what we're dealing with."

He unwrapped a swab and rubbed it over the back of Sam's throat. Sam gagged and sat up, choking and gagging and breathing heavily.

"Sorry, sorry. M'sorry," he said breathlessly.

Dean moved in immediately. "It's okay. Y'okay? You need some water? Doc?"

"I'll take this to our lab and find out what we're dealing with," the doctor said. "I'll be back."

He left the room and Dean moved away from Sam only far enough and long enough to pour him a plastic cup of water from the sink at the wall.

"Here you go. Can you manage this?"

"Hunh? Water? Yeah. Thanks." Sam took a sip and held it in his mouth a moment or two before swallowing it, squeezing his eyes shut in pain.

"Throat still bad?"

"Not as bad as it was. Did the nurse give me something?"

"Painkillers and antibiotics."

"Hmm…" Sam took another cautious sip of water. "Was I asleep long? How long have we been waiting here?"

"Not long. I'm sure they prefer hunters get in and out as fast as possible."

"Yeah."

"You want to lie back down?"

"No. No. I just want to sit here for a minute."

"Okay. So, you want to tell me yet what sent you on this bender in the first place?"

Sam dropped his head fast and drank the rest of the water fast and held the cup out to Dean. "Would you get me some more?" he asked, his throat rough with the effort.

Dean took the cup and refilled it. "You can drink all the water you want, Sammy, but sooner or later, one way or another, we're having this conversation."

Sam gave Dean a glance and drank the water then stared down at the glass in his hands. He shook his head. "It's nothing. I was – it's nothing."

"Cas and Benny?" Dean prompted. "You seem kinda pissed about them."

Sam huffed a long breath but didn't look up. He shrugged and shook his head and looked at something past Dean.

"Doesn't matter, does it?"

"I think the past two days suggest otherwise."

"No, you know?" Sam said and shook his head. "I was just – you were – I was just overreacting."

"Overreacting to what?"

"Nothing," Sam said. He drank the water and closed his eyes with a sigh and Dean didn't have the heart to keep pressing him on it.

"As soon as we're done here, we'll get a new motel and a new room. One that doesn't have clown germs in it, hunh?"

Sam nodded but didn't open his eyes. "Thanks."

"Yeah." Dean half sat on the gurney, not to rest so much as to give Sam something to lean against if he needed it. "We'll have to stock up on popsicles, cough drops and chicken soup, too."

"I just want to sleep."

"We'll get a close motel, you'll be in dreamland before you know it."

The door opened and Dr. Rumi came back in. "Oh, yes. Strep throat. A very bad case," he said. He offered Dean a tall, wide medicine bottle and a sheet of paper. "Here, ten days of amoxicillin, and a list of instructions. He'll begin to feel better in a day or two, but he should finish the entire ten days course."

Dean was going to say that they knew the drill, but Sam lifted his head and answered, "I will."

"And in the meantime, rest, rest, and more rest," Dr. Rumi told him. "Ibuprofen as you need it. Lots of fluids, warm or cold, whichever feels better. Gargle with saltwater, and avoid irritants."

Dean expected – Dean wanted – Sam to answer, 'How can I avoid him when he's gotta drive me home?' but all he did was nod and 'hmm' his agreement. "Thanks for seeing me."

"Thank you for what you do," Dr. Rumi answered. "Come back if you aren't feeling better in two days' time or if you –" he indicated Dean "—are taken ill. Now, excuse me as I must get back to my other patients. You may rest here a while if you'd like." He left the room again and as the door hissed shut, Sam leaned heavily against Dean's arm.

Dean tucked the pill bottle and sheet of instructions into his inside jacket pocket. "Not quite ready to blow this pop stand?" he asked.

"No, I'm ready."

"Yeah, I can tell."

Sam didn't move and Dean gave him a few more minutes, listening to him breathe, feeling the heat of his fever against his arm. "C'mon, Sammy. Let's find you that bed. Leave this gurney for someone who's really sick."

"Okay," Sam agreed tiredly and after several more seconds pushed himself to his feet. After that, it was a long, slow walk across the room and out the door, down the hallway, through the waiting room, and outside.

By the time they got to the car, Sam looked ready to fall asleep standing up. The sooner he was tucked safe and sound in a clean bed, the happier Dean would be.

"All right, Sam. C'mon, back seat. Get some rest. I'll wake you up when we're there."

Sam started to get in but stopped, "Thanks, Dean," he said, looking and sounding like he was apologizing for something, for getting drunk, for getting sick, for whatever it was he refused to tell Dean about.

Dean reached up and patted the side of his face. "You bet, Sammy."

Up Next (sometime this century hopefully) Sammy is (finally) recovering.