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With Sam, "no" means a lot of things.
And no, Dean did not just go there. None of the noes are of the sexy kind, and Dean is decently sure he doesn't want to hear about them if they are.
It's a brother thing. There's the no that means he's had just about enough, thank you, and next he'll start yelling or throwing things or even worse—looking at Dean with those eyes. There's the no that means that if Dean asks him again he'll actually say yes. There's the no he uses when he's just trying to put something off, and the one he uses when Dean is doing something really annoying like tickling his feet but Sam actually kind of likes the attention even if it makes him angry.
And then there's this one. The worst one, the raw, throat-rending scream of fear Dean's only ever heard in Hell. That no, he could have gone the rest of his life without hearing again.
Which, of course, is precisely why he hears it coming out of Sam's mouth when he returns to the hotel room, bustling in from he cold and shouldering off his jacket. A shudder ripples through him as his body adjusts to the oppressive heat inside the room, heater on full blast, all the blankets on Sam's bed. And that's when he hears the scream.
Because the universe just won't give Dean a fucking break.
“Whoa,” he says, holding his hands up in the air—fever reducer in one hand and a bag with rice and applesauce and soup in the other. “Hey, Sammy, look, I know you ain't the type to just settle down and take your medicine, but we can work with that, huh? Not that scary. Nothing worth, uh...” he takes a slow step forward as he talks, and Sam flinches away, curling into himself until he looks impossibly small, trembling and buried against the headboard. Dean settles a hand on his shoulder and is rewarded by a body-wracking shudder and a whimper that might have seemed more appropriate coming out of him when he was three.
This sound, Dean knows how to deal with.
“Sammy, it's okay. Come on. We'll get some medicine into you and you'll feel all better soon, huh? Whaddaya say?”
Sam turns around and looks at Dean with wide, wet eyes. And sure, Dean's used to Sam getting clingy and needy when he's sick, but not like this.
“Dean,” Sam says.
“Yeah, Sam, it's Dean. It's just me. Now open wide.”
“Dean,” Sam whispers again, voice pitched higher, eyes traveling, rolling in their sockets. His face is pale and too damn hot when Dean cups a hand against it, and that's when he realizes it.
Sam isn't acknowledging his presence. Sam's calling out to him, searching for him.
“Dean, please, please,” Sam's whimpering now, and the fear and hopelessness in his voice sends a flush of cold buzzing right through Dean's guts, making him feel hollow. He steps back, stops touching, walks to where Sam's eyes are. “Make it stop.”
Sam's eyes move, but they don't focus on him.
The Winchesters are fucking lucky bastards, right down to the last one. Dean curses under his breath.
He thought Sam got over this when he was eight. The kid hasn't hallucinated with fevers since he was pint-sized. But they've got all the luck, don't they? And Sam has a whole hell of a lot—oh fuck, that's actually kind of literal, isn't it?—of horrific things to choose from when it comes to things he might hallucinate.
“Sammy. Hey. Are you seeing something right now? 'Cause if you are, Sammy, it's not real.”
“Dean,” Sam whimpers again, and this time his eyes move over to Dean, settle on him for a moment before rolling in the opposite direction.
“No no no no stop, please stop,” he's rasping, low and monotonous like a prayer he's prayed so many times it's lost the feeling.
No. Enough. Dean strides up, drawing a hand back, gritting his teeth in preparation before he lands a decent slap on Sam's cheek. “Sammy!” he yells. “Hey, listen to me. Look at me. I'm right here. What are you seeing? What's wrong?”
Sam inhales, slow and ragged, and his eyes settle on Dean, repressed terror melting into a watery plea. “Dean, please make him go away.”
“Who, Sammy?”
Sam just shakes his head.
“Come on. Tell me.”
Sam looks down. “Lucifer. He's...”
And Dean's had just about enough. Sam kicked this one, damn it. All that crazy crap in his head is gone. Cas took it away a long time ago, and Sam should not be having to deal with this again
“Please, Dean, make him go away.”
At the same time that a small part of Dean swells with pride that his brother trusts him—him— to get rid of the actual devil, Satan himself, he knows it's useless. This isn't something he can kill, and it's the hollow futility of trying that overwhelms the small burst of pride.
Sam's burning up. Maybe if he can just lower the fever....
Dean scrambles to the sink and pulls one of the motel-issue plastic cups from its wrapper to fill it with water before tipping a few pills into one rough palm.
It's times like this that Dean wishes for home. If they had a home, he could ply his little brother with soft pillows and whip up a light meal Sam could keep down (because Sam's appetite is for shit when he gets sick, and for good reason). If they had a home, he could make sure the place was nice and quiet instead of hoping the flimsy curtains blocked out the wail and whoosh of passing cars outside and noisy arguments (or other noisy things) from the people in the next room.
“Drink up, Sammy. This'll help with the fever, huh? Here.”
Sam's eyes swivel to Dean, watery and wide, hopeful. “Dean,” he says.
“Here. Take the cup and knock these back.”
Sam reaches out, fingers closing around the cup, and Dean sighs, nods, as Sam pulls the cup toward him.
Of course it's not that easy.
Sam drops the cup like it bit him, and it bounces off the blankets, splashing most of its contents on the bed before the rest spills out into the carpet, and Sam is just looking at the water on his hands with wide eyes and dragging in too fast breaths, muttering, “Not real, not real, not—” on every exhale.
“Sammy...”
Soon the mutters return to the old refrain: no and please and stop. Dean goes back to get more water, and this time he sets it on the bedside table before urging Sam away from the headboard and making him sit up. Dean crawls in, filling the space, and leans back against the headboard, pulling Sam against him. Sam doesn't want to lay straight back, so he curls so that his right side is flush against Dean's chest and his forehead is pressed into the crook of Dean's neck. Dean supervises his huge little brother through the water-drinking and swallowing the pills.
“What about that scar, Sammy? Does it...?”
That old scar is long-healed, though.
Sam shakes his head. “Make him go away. Please.”
Dean bites his lip instead of speaking, because he can't. Any promises he made right now would be lies. “I'm sorry,” he says at last.
Sam goes quiet for a long while, calming down, inhaling and exhaling slow breaths that warm Dean's collarbones. After a long time, he finally says, “Am I bleeding?”
Fuck. “Where, Sammy?”
“Everywhere. Can't you see it?”
“No,” Dean rasps, throat scratchy and eyes burning. “No blood. Just water, Sammy. You spilled some water, remember? There's no blood.”
Sam looks up, hazel eyes red-rimmed and wet, and tries out a wry smile. It's pathetic, but Dean appreciates the effort. “I figured not,” he whispers. “I just—” He suddenly goes still, pulling his knees up and then crushing his hands against his ears, pushing into Dean like he can crawl inside him.
Dean can't figure out what he can do other than hold his brother, so he wraps his arms around his brother's shoulders, trying not to wince as Sam keeps trying to get closer and closer.
“What's wrong?” Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head, long hair tumbling over his hands and over his eyes to obscure them, and Dean can feel his brother's body shake. He watches as Sam's hands press harder against his ears, trying to block out whatever he's hearing, and he feels the rapidly cooling dampness of tears against his skin as his little brother keeps shaking his head back and forth, gasping in between sobs.
“Didn't mean to,” he whispers. “I know, know I fucked up. 'mma monster, filthy, just.... I'm sorry. I tried. I try not to...”
Dean feels the bottom of his stomach fall out as he hears Sam's wrecked voice, barely a whisper.
The hands that hold his brother move up until one of them cradles Sam's neck, fingers twining into the silky strands of brown hair. “Sammy,” he says. He knows about Hell. He knows that sometimes the knives and the hooks have nothing on the words. A real torturer knows how to wound more deeply with words than a knife can ever reach, starting with a free-for-all until he finds his victim's weak spots and then mercilessly tears them open, peeling back the walls and the layers of flesh and sinew and muscle that guard the most fragile, broken pieces of a person. It's been done to Dean. Dean's done it to others, too many others. He knows about words, knows that there's no truth or lie he can tell to ease the pain, but he tries. Goddammit, he tries, because that's his job. It's his fucking job to face insurmountable odds and beat them.
“Don't listen to him, Sammy,” he says. “He's not real. He's lying, just wants to hurt you...”
But his brother is too far gone.
It feels like it's been hours since he gave Sam the pills, but the red glow of the cheap alarm clock between the beds tells him that it's been a little over three minutes, and Sam's forehead still fairly seethes with fever. It feels like it's gotten higher.
Dean's spent enough time with Sam that he knows Sam's fevers, and this one is well above 103 and just seems to keep climbing.
Sam's mutterings are mostly apologies now. “I'm sorry, Dean,” Sam says over and over. “I'm sorry. Sorry. I tried, didn't mean to mess things up. Sorry I'm such a mess. I'm sorry.”
Whatever his hallucinations tell him next seems to hit him hard, because Dean feels the whole body flinch, feels his brother still against him as he stops shaking his head, releasing a ragged breath. “I know I don't.”
Dean rubs against Sam's back, tilting his brother's head so he can look into the fever-glazed eyes. “Don't what?”
Sam doesn't answer, can't seem to focus on Dean's face.
“You don't what, Sammy?”
“Deserve forgiveness,” Sam says. “I know you still hate me... still angry. I'm sorry I'm not... not good enough. I'm...”
Fuck this. “Sammy, help me get you up. We're gonna lower your fever the messy way.”
Sam's knees knock together when he stands, but he doesn't fall, thank goodness. Dean doesn't know how much weight he can actually support. He's strong, but not strong enough to outright carry his hulking brother, even if he's lost some weight. (Too much.) On the way by, Dean grabs the second and final plastic cup from the sink. He and Sam stumble into the bathroom, and Dean has him sit on the toilet in his undershirt and boxer shorts while Dean runs lukewarm water into the tub. He doesn't trust Sam not to kill himself in shallow water, considering how altered and clumsy he is with the fever, so when he guides Sam into the bath, he settles in behind him. Sam shivers in the lukewarm water, temperature high enough that the water must seem frigid, but Dean shushes him and tips his brother's head back against his shoulder, using the plastic cup to lathe water over Sam's hair and forehead.
Slowly but surely, Sam's temperature lowers, and the tepid water washes away the tear tracks on his cheeks. Gradually, Sam relaxes, until he's pliant and sleepy in the water. Dean lets him stay like that for a little while, just dozing, until Dean's fingers are ridiculously pruny and Sam's must be, too. He gets his brother out and throws a new set of clothes at him, waiting on the other side of the door to make sure he doesn't trip and kill himself while changing. After a long time, Sam peeks out of the door. By that time, Dean's changed his clothes, hung up the wet ones, taken all but one of the blankets from Sam's bed, and turned the heater down to low.
Dean smiles and makes sure Sam makes it into bed, checking his temperature; it's still high but not anything like what it was before. He sets the alarm to make sure Sam will get his next dose right on time, and he curls up on the other side of Sam's bed, because it's harder to hear Sam breathing from his own bed, so close to the heater. This way is better.
When Sam wakes, Dean's going to have a lot to talk to him about, but for now, Dean relaxes into slumber beside his little brother, and everything seems blessedly, refreshingly, more or less all right.