Chapter 4.

The rain is pouring down, making the murky darkness even more obscure. Lightening flashes, lighting up the cave walls periodically, thunder rumbles, echoing through it. Outside the trees wave around wildly in the wind which whistles and calls as it dances around. It's the power of nature and there's something terrifying and glorious about it.

Sam watches safely under the protection of the cave. His eyes, tired and aching from his concussion are overwhelmed by everything going on before him, but he doesn't look away, seems to be looking into nothing. The wind blows his hair around his face, lends coolness to the still wet patches on his clothes, sends chills skittering down his spine.

His brother's upper body and head lying in his lap, his arms still wrapped tightly around him for protection. Sam's not letting him go, even as Dean shakes with the cold and fever and sometimes he fights Sam, his forehead scrunched up in response to his fever dreams but the younger Winchester just keeps him close.

He's wrapped Dean's foot and shoulder as best he can, both wounds hot to the touch and even in the darkness Sam can see the filth lining the raw walls of flesh. He'd covered the terrifying wounds with clean gauze that looked totally out of place in the nasty cave. He wrapped Dean up in his coat on top of his own and holding him close, just prays that waiting out the storm is the right choice.

Sam is listening so so hard to Dean's rushed shallow breaths, and the sound of his lips slipping together wetly with his shivers and the thunder getting farther and farther away. His bottom lip caught in his teeth watching the rain slowly dissipating, his mind racing trying to think of the best way to get he and Dean back to civilization and help.

Sam checks his phone to find it five-thirty in morning and he takes the gamble that the rain is done and gone. He shifts Dean gently getting ready to rise, knows the fireman's carry he's about to use on Dean will hurt badly. Looking into Dean's face he smooths a hand over the side of his face and pushes the damp hair up off his heated forehead.

"'m sorry Dean," he apologizes in advance. "But you can't wait any longer."

Sam grunts as he struggles to pull Dean over his shoulder and onto his back. He gets it more or less, it would be a lot easier if everything wasn't spinning a little, and if his stomach was cramping and rolling. But the important thing is to get Dean to help and if this was how it had to happen so be it. Once he's certain Dean isn't falling off he grabs their bags, turns on a flashlight and heads out into the darkness.

"Please hold on Dean," he whispers into the black, dripping woods.

...

Emery had responded to a lot of outdoor emergencies in his years working as an EMT in the Colorado mountains, but he'll never forget the pair he found collapsed next to their classic American job. The two men had succumbed to their injuries tangled up with each other. Their blood combined in the dirt and mud coating their skin and clothes.

And when the EMT had gone to help the taller one had been leaning against the side of the car floating between consciousness and unconsciousness, but the shorter, though older one was white, shivering and barely breathing carefully laid out over the larger man's lap, his face turned upwards a large slice in his cheek on display. But the EMT knew he had been situated that way on purpose to kept the wound from being aggravated.

At first Emery had taken them for lovers. But then he and his coworker had tried to lift the unconscious man from his companion's legs and the reaction had primal, like a mother bear. The dirt and grime coating the man's face with his long hair hanging down over his shining eyes lent him an insane look and when he bared his teeth at them, growling under his breath and hugging the other man closer to him Emery jerked back in surprise and fear.

That was also when he knew...they were brothers.

He places a tentative hand on the large man's shoulder and looks him steadily in the eye, "We're here to help," he impresses. "You called 911 remember? Can you tell me your name?"

The shaggy headed man nods shakily and swallows looking down at the figure in his arms. "Sam," he's says roughly, and Emery can hear the cold there, the rawness of his throat. "My name's Sam."

"Who's your friend?" Emery asks softly, slowly reaching out his head to smooth his gloved hand over the fallen man's forehead. Burning up.

"Dean." Sam says more clearly, his eyes taking on more life, "...my big brother." His voice catches then and the pure love and panic in Sam's eyes as he pulls Dean up against his chest even tighter hits Emery like a smack in the gut. "You have to help us..." Sam stutters out, his tear rimmed eyes finding the EMT's face and his hand latching onto his windbreaker. "Dean doesn't have long, we had to wait all night in the cave, and it was too cold and De..."

"It's okay," Emery soothes, "We're here to help you...Sam," he states clearly, "You have to let Dean go, we can't help him unless you let him go."

Sam nods swallowing thickly, and allows Emery to pull his brother off his legs and into his own arms. Sam's eyes never stray as he watches everything the EMTs do to his brother, but he doesn't move himself and Emery can see from the way he's convulsively swallowing and his eyes shrinking with the sunlight that this man hadn't had last night easy either.

He kneels down next to him. "Let's take a look at you, yeah?" He asks, as he fingers at the blood coated side of his head, Sam allows him close, but his eyes never leave Dean's figure as he's being rolled away into the ambulance.

"You, you have to let me ride with him." Sam suddenly says desperately, trying to rise, fighting against Emery's restraining hand on his chest. "He'll freak out if I'm not there, I need to make sure he's alright...he's got to be alright..." he breaks off. The exhausted tears slipping from his wild looking eyes touching Emery down to his very core.

"Okay, okay," the EMT comforts, knows he can't fight this man, can't keep him from his brother. "We can move this to the ambulance."

Sam allows himself to be more or less dragged into the ambulance and he sits as close to his brother as he possibly can. As the doors swing shut behind them and the engine starts up, taking them to the hospital Sam slumps in on himself. He's got a hand beside Dean's head, his thumb resting on the oxygen mask over his face.

Finally...finally they were safe.

Emery had seen it happen before but never this fast. The body having run so long and strong in survival once safe lets the shock kick in. Sam's body starts shivering, his hands shaking as he presses the palm of one to his aching head. He tries to catch himself but ends up just losing his balance even more. Sam slumps over his brother's still form on the gurney before Emery can catch him.

...

The hospital is small so it isn't too hard to convince the staff to allow the two men in one room together. Sam is left simply lying on his bed clothed in a gown and under warm covers, clean he looks like a different person but even in his drug induced sleep he's turned, rolled over on his side towards his brother, his lips parted and gentle restful breaths escaping with a quiet whoosh.

Dean is a different story. His IV leaves another bluish bruise on his skin where its slipped in, antibiotics for the infection and drugs for the pain filling his blood stream. There's an oxygen cannula in his nose to help with the scratchiness of his lungs and the shallowness of his breaths wheezing out.

There's a large white bandage over his right arm and shoulder, and if Emery could have seen under the electric blanket fighting against the chills running through the young man's body he'd have seen the white gauze wrapping the bottom half of his calf and his entire foot. The ugly wound on the rather handsome man's face had been stitched up but still looked bad, purple bruising straying from it and over that entire side of his face.

Emery sets down their wallets and phones he'd come to return as an excuse to look in on them, tries to decipher whose is whose but gives up in favor of flipping through their wallets and looking for names. He doesn't find what he expected. He'd be surprised if they themselves could keep track of who they were.

There wasn't a single identity that matched except...in the back of their wallets they each had an old beat up, out of date driver's license. One Dean Winchester and one Sam Winchester. The boyish features on the cards and the hard lines in their faces now let Emery know many years and many tragedies had passed since then...and he wondered why these seemingly efficient con men would take the risk of keeping one official identification.

He turned them over and found the reason. On the back of each card scribbled in the same hand writing were the same exact words; don't make me regret this. That was a father's warning right there. Emery smiles at the thought of these two tough looking guys being cowed by their father and threatened with having their license taken away. Smiles thinking of them saving those driver's licenses even after all this time probably in memory of their dad.

His eyes fall from one brother's face to the other. Even as Dean fought for strength to live on his head was turned towards his little brother. They had obviously fought so incredibly hard to survive, fought for each other to survive. Emery finds himself doubting in his heart of hearts that theses men were inherently bad. He slips everything back into their wallets as if they had never been disturbed.

Dean stirs a little in his rest, and Emery is able to catch the hummed word, "S'mmm..."

He smiles softly as Sam stirs in answer, smacking his lips and groaning a little under his breath in his sleep, seems to detect that nothing is actually amiss and slips back into oblivion.

He leaves the room, stopping to look back at them in the door way. "Don't make me regret this..." he mumbles under his breath as he walks away and swears he'll keep their secret. And somehow deep down he knows they won't and he won't regret it.

...

The first thing Sam knows is that it's heavenly warm wherever he is. He rubs his face deeper into the soft pillow under his head and allows himself to cuddle into the warm covers. Then he remembers. Remembers calling 911 and remembers Dean unconscious and bleeding out on his very lap.

His eyes flash open. And the first thing they land on is Dean lying in the bed a couple of feet away from him. Everything in him relaxes as he finds his brother close by and safe. But when he sees all the equipment attached to Dean and hears his heavy breathing he swallows convulsively his apprehension rising again.

Sam throws the covers off his legs and rises, a hand griping the railing on the bed tightly as his head swims a little. He takes the few steps to Dean's bed and uses the rails to keep himself up, finds himself leaning a little to look into his brother's bruised face.

"Dean," he whispers in relieved disbelief. He lets his fingers brush feather soft across the ugly stitches on Dean's cheek. "Can't believe we made it." He says gently. Because honestly there at the end he'd thought for a brief second that this might be how they go down.

Thankful tears fill his eyes thinking about it. He thinks back to everything Dean had done to get them there, thinks of the wounds he bore because he had been taking care of Sam and he gently presses his hand to the uninjured side of Dean's face.

"Thank you," he whispers with a gentle smile. "Thank you so much."

He watches in awe as Dean stirs, his little brother's voice calling to him. Dean turns his face into Sam's warm calloused palm and smacks his lips slowly coming back to the land of living. And Sam can see the exact moment the pain registers with his brother again.

Dean frowns and grimaces, showing his teeth as he shifts under the warmth of the blankets on top of him. Sam watches, his heart filling the bursting point, as Dean's eyes lazily blink open and those vibrant, emerald green eyes come into view.

"Hey Dean." He says softly, "You back with me?"

Dean grunts noncommittally under his breath and Sam grabs a plastic cup and fills it with some water from the sink. He holds it as Dean's strains to sit himself up a little to drink. His brother is panting with exhaustion by the time he's done and Sam gently lowers him back down to the mattress.

"You 'kay?" Dean asks in a hoarse whisper as his eyes are already closing again.

"Don't worry," Sam says, "You don't have to do anything but rest, god knows, you've done enough..."

And he remembers their playful conversation from before...that Sam was just getting into trouble to make opportunity for Dean to show off his BAMF...but right now Sam really wishes he, humanity, the world and the universe would just stop. Because Dean has done more than enough.

He's stood up for the innocent, stood up to the bad guys even if they were bigger, taller and stronger than him. Protected Sam without restraint, always put Sam first, loved him and cherished him without any consideration to his own well being...and that's exactly what makes Dean the bigger and stronger hero of every story isn't it? Or as he prefers; the badass.

THE END

There we go all done! last chapter so...REVIEW!?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KRISTEN! :):):) may you have many more years of happy fangirling;);)

This story i really wanted to knock on the fourth wall there, since I've never really done that before. :) And I usually draw my stories out but like a lot of you commented I wanted this to feel like an episode, fast paced with some bro feels and with some hurt BAMF Dean! Lemme know how I did? So cheers and see you soon!