Don't Touch My Brother

Summary: While Dean's away, someone makes the mistake of grabbing Sam. Angry & upset, Dean forgets the danger in order to find him but is then confronted with not only the threat of the enemy but also the elements when he finds himself with very few options in getting Sam help in time. Will it be too late? Even after returning Sam's soul, will Dean still lose his brother? / Hurt/limp/emotional!Sam & Limp/angsty/furious/big brother!Dean. Based in S6, between 06x15: The French Mistake and 06x16: And Then There Were None.

Warnings: I'll give a basic language warning for the whole story. There will be violence and when there is more in a chapter I'll do a separate warning.

Spoilers: None since this is set in Season 6. If you haven't seen season 6 as a new reader then there may be some.

Tags: None.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything in relation to the boys or the show. Those rights belong to Kripke and the CW. I'm merely writing for the enjoyment of it and for the enjoyment of other fans.

Author Note: I won't even say how many chapters this one might be. It's been awhile since I've done a Season 6 piece so bear with me. I'll do warnings per chapter if one contains serious violence or anything but even then I try not to be too graphic. Please read and enjoy. Thanks.

Chapter One

Minnesota, somewhere inside the Chippewa National Forest:

"You hang on! You hear me? You just hang on and stay with me! Sammy, c'mon, just a little longer. Just stay with me a little longer."

Dean Winchester's emotions in the past three days had been on a roller coaster and right now he felt as if he was in a freefall that just wouldn't end.

"…s'cold, De'n," the whisper quiet voice was slurred, barely audible and only heard because Dean was so close. "…hurts."

"I know it is, little brother, I know," Dean quickly pulled his green military style jacket off to give to Sam since he hadn't been able to salvage his brother's shirt and he knew the shock his brother was in was almost as big an issue as all the numerous injuries his brother had sustained. "Stay still, little brother. Just stay with me and I'll get you outta here."

Physically exhausted and emotionally drained, Dean struggled to keep his already strained voice from breaking as he looked around at their surroundings.

They were still too far away from where he'd left the Impala and too far into the forest for cell service even if Dean could've explained what the hell was happening without getting himself arrested.

Glancing down, he took another much closer look at Sam and once again felt his blood boil at what he saw and even more at what he couldn't.

Being careful, he gently nudged the younger Winchester until he heard a groan and a slurred 'leave me alone' and just wished he could.

"You have a head wound, Sam. I need you to stay awake until I get you help then you can sleep," Dean replied, ripping a piece off his shirt to use it to wipe away new blood that had pooled on Sam's pale, swelled, and battered face. "Can you talk to me, little brother?"

"…hurts…to talk," Sam mumbled, just wanting to either curl up someplace dark or sleep. "Sleep."

Gripping the wrist closest to him, Dean heard the cry of pain and muttered an apology but frowned at the skipping pulse before noticing that Sam's breathing was becoming more shallow.

"Sammy, c'mon, we need to move," he doubted if this was even possible even before Sam's head shook weakly in protest.

Under normal circumstances and once upon a time in a situation like this, Dean would've just tried to carry his brother back to the Impala or to get the help he clearly needed.

However that was before his brother shot to four inches taller than Dean and put on muscle that in Dean's current shape made physically moving his seriously injured brother anywhere impossible.

"Sonuvabitch," he cursed under his breath, feeling Sam try to grip his hand weakly and knew his brother was scared. "It's okay, Sammy. I'm here and you're gonna be fine," he promised, hoping that wasn't a lie.

Dean knew the basic scope of Sam's injuries and knew surviving long without any medical help was nearly impossible while his own couple wounds would make keeping Sam alive if they stayed still more difficult.

Used to dealing with the casual wounds either one of them would get on a basic hunt was something that Dean knew he could've done. Hell, he'd been nursing Sam back to health in one form or another since the first time the kid had gone an actual hunt and came back with three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder and a lump on the side of his head.

They'd both been hurt seriously at one time or another in their lives but these wounds…these were different and Dean knew it.

His pain in the ass little brother that he'd just barely gotten back after having Death return the soul that Sam had been without for so long hadn't gotten hurt on a hunt for anything supernatural.

No, Sam had been hurt by the type of enemy that they Dad hadn't taught them could often be worse than demons, spirits, or goblins. Though as Dean knew well regular people were often more complicated and deranged than demons.

Shifting the jacket a little to look showed Dean that many of the deep cuts and welts on Sam's chest and arms were still bleeding which told him the ones on his back would be the same way.

The little burns were red and swollen but it was the more intense ones, the deeper ones in the form of damn inverted pentagrams that worried him since these were bloody and were already oozing infection.

Sam's face was bloody with one side more swelled than the other and Dean didn't need a medical degree to know by the gash at Sam's hairline that his brother had some form of concussion so letting him sleep was a danger but without any real type of pain meds to combat the other wounds, he hoped even a small amount of sleep would help him ignore the pain.

The alarm bells began going off again with the first cough and Sam began choking. Quickly rolling him onto the side that didn't have a clearly dislocated shoulder and broken arm, Dean felt his stomach twist at the first sign of blood coming from Sam's mouth which said the brutal beatings Sam had gone through for the past 24 hours had left him with internal bleeding.

"Shit, shit, shit!" this time the curse was loud and vocal as he struggled to sit Sam up without causing him more pain but knew this was also a near impossibility. "Sam! Wake up!" he needed the kid awake, if for no other reason than to keep him from choking on his own blood. "Sammy! I am so grounding your ass if you do this to me!"

Perhaps it was the near panic in Dean's voice that brought Sam Winchester around a little more, he wasn't sure. Sam's only had two real solid thoughts right then.

He was in pure agony and wanted to just curl up to forget the past few days and the second thing was his normally rock steady, nothing ever scared big brother's voice was shaking in a tone that Sam rarely heard.

It was this last thing that made him struggle to open the eye that wasn't swelled shut to try to focus on Dean but found his vision swimming and spitting blood. The last explained Dean's tone.

"De'n?" gasping as pain reminded Sam that he didn't want to be sitting up because of the internal wounds and probably a full set of broken ribs, he didn't have the strength to stay sitting and let himself lean against the strong shoulder that he knew would always be there to support him. "Bad?"

The dropped letter in his name and the single word responses warned Dean that Sam was getting worse but a look at his own bleeding shoulder said that he wouldn't be able to move Sam more than a few feet if that.

Also, the older Winchester knew trying to move his brother would more than likely do more harm than good since Sam couldn't stand up on his right leg which Dean prayed hadn't been broken too seriously but knew the knee was shattered.

He also tried to avoid thinking what other injuries his brother had that he couldn't see past the ripped, torn, blood stained jeans.

"No, you're not that bad," Dean bit his tongue on that lie but knew it was time to fallback on his age old response to a badly hurt and frightened kid brother.

He'd lie through his teeth and fight to pretend he was calm in order to keep Sam calm even while inside Dean was breaking with the knowledge that his brother was dying and he was helpless to stop it. "Just…close your eyes for a little while longer then we'll…get going."

A small piece of Sam suspected his brother was covering how badly he was hurt but he was so cold and in too much pain to argue, barely feeling the material of the jacket as it was carefully arranged around him and wishing for the more comforting feel of the old battered leather jacket of their Dad's that Dean had always worn.

It hadn't occurred to Sam that he hadn't seen that jacket and wondered if he had in any of the time that was still blank to him. He tried to remind himself to ask Dean about it once they were safe and he could talk without his whole face wanting to explode in pain.

"…cold," he mumbled again, hating to be cold since it often reminded him too much of being a kid in either a ratty motel or the back of the 1967 Chevy Impala that was still home to him. "Turn…the heater…on, De'n,"

The soft voice, slurred with pain and shock, warned Dean even before the words registered that Sam's mind was going back to another time, another place and considering how fragile that damn wall in his head was that added another level to Dean's worry.

Struggling to keep his own voice level, he eased his injured shoulder up so he could move his arm around Sam for both support and to hopefully allow his brother to get some warmth. "Yeah, I will in a minute, Sammy," he replied, trying to clear his own suddenly blurry vision of the tears that wanted to come but he fought against.

Noticing that Sam's fingers were absently switching from either reaching for the small golden amulet that Dean had once worn and foolishly tossed away to trying to play with the black rubber bracelet that Sam had taken to wearing again after getting his soul back but had been stripped from him by the assholes who'd started this mess.

Silently but bitterly berating himself for reacting in his usual fashion of get pissed off and jump into the lit frying pan without any thought of how to get back out, Dean knew Bobby had been right and he should've waited for him and Rufus but the rage, hate, and fear for Sam had been the overruling emotions.

Now as he sat in a national forest in Minnesota with a bullet hole in his shoulder, a cracked rib and a badly injured little brother he watched the sun begin get lower and knew Sam would never survive a night out here and suddenly felt so tired.

"Damn it," he muttered, feeling Sam shift in pain and move to get closer much like he would when they'd been kids in the back of the Impala. "I'll get you outta here, Sammy," he promised, carding shaking fingers back through Sam's hair and felt sticky blood from another gash in Sam's head. "I'll make this right."

Knowing that Sam probably didn't here him left Dean alone with his own dark thoughts and as his own body began to feel the effects of injuries and exhaustion he thought back to how this nightmare started…

Flashback, Seventy Two Hours Earlier:

"Remind me again why the hell I got shipped out to help you?" Dean shot the older black man who was riding shotgun in the Impala a sour look. "Better yet, remind me why the hell I didn't let you take that vamp nest on by yourself since you didn't listen to me in the first place?"

Rufus Turner, a longtime hunter and semi-acquaintance of Dean and his younger brother, Sam, was casually flipping through a box of old cassette tapes he'd found on the floor, pretended to concentrate on the tapes rather than the annoyed hunter beside him.

"I think you're solo because you refused to let your brother come with you. Bobby said you flat out said Sam was not allowed to hunt vampires right now," he finally replied, knowing the boy was annoyed and frustrated but also knew Dean's emotions weren't all due to the vamp nest they'd just wiped out. "As for the rest? I think Bobby used two words on you…Gordon Walker."

Fingers tightening on the steering wheel at the mere mention of the former hunter who had become obsessed with killing Dean's little brother and that was even before he got turned into a damn vampire.

"Gordon was scary enough as a vamp…you'd be three times more annoying," Dean muttered sourly, glancing down at the dashboard to see that he was pushing the Impala a closer to seventy than he thought was safe even though it was a little past three in the morning on the deserted highway heading back to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

"That boy was way too intense for his own good," Rufus decided, wondering if Bobby had any good liquor that he was hoarding since he'd already decided he was sticking around until Bobby spilled what it was that was making Dean so adamant about Sam not hunting vampires.

"You have no idea," Dean sighed, feeling like crap and just wanting a chance to get back to Bobby's, check on Sam, take a shower, find food then sleep like the dead for at least sixteen hours…unless Sam needed him.

Leaving Sam with Bobby hadn't been Dean's first choice since he was well aware that Bobby was still a little leery around Sam, which was also something Dean understood since while without a soul his usually friendly, over-emotional baby brother had tried to kill a man who was like a father to them.

Sam, ever since Castiel opened his big mouth about Sam's time without a soul, was also wary with Bobby. So that left Dean in the middle of a very touchy situation.

There was also the subject of the wall that Death put up in Sam mind to shield his sanity. Sam had already had one collapse from a crack in that thing so when the call about a vampire nest two states over had come; Dean had refused to allow Sam to come.

The one thing that Dean had firmly not wanted Sam to ever learn about was the night that Sam had allowed a vampire to turn Dean into one. That memory had been among those that Cas had blabbed about so Sam was guilt tripping big time.

Sam hadn't liked the idea of staying behind but Dean had pulled the big brother card and vetoed all of Sam's objections. Sure, he'd gotten the mother-of-all bitch faces in return but in Dean's mind, there was no way in Hell that he was letting Sam near a nest of vampires until he was certain how strong that wall really was.

"So, you wanna come clean to what you and Sam're up to that's got Bobby acting so squirrelly?" Rufus slid a look over and wasn't surprised by the guarded expression that came down over Dean's rugged features.

"Nope," Dean replied in the tone he used when a subject was closed.

He trusted Rufus as much as he trusted anyone but since this was about Sam, he wasn't willing to go that far with anyone but Bobby and then there were things that he didn't always like telling Bobby.

Rufus was about to make another comment to just get under the kid's skin when Dean's cell phone began ringing. "Damn, that old junk man always check up on you this much?" he rolled his eyes, knowing it was Bobby since his long time friend had called six times since Dean had joined up with him.

"Only when he's babysitting Sammy," Dean smirked, keying the phone to speaker since he figured it was just Bobby demanding an update or maybe Sam since he hadn't gotten around to replacing his brother's phone after he'd accidentally on purpose broke it. "Yeah, it's me and we'll be there around seven so have food or…"

"Dean…" the tone in Bobby's voice was what stopped Dean's words since it was odd for the older hunter to sound out of breath, much less in pain.

Then there was the sounds of an outraged Sheriff Jodi Mills in the background demanding that Bobby hold still so she could finish checking his head.

Seeing that Rufus had also become more serious, Dean had begun to frown and ask what the hell was going on when Bobby's next three words threw his world into a tailspin.

"They've got Sam."

TBC

Author Note: Yes. I am an evil author who loves cliffhanging things it seems. I don't normally do flashbacks like this but for this story it seems like it'll be bouncing between the present and just how the boys ended up stuck in the forest with Sam in the state he's in.