Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. Sadly, I do not own any of these guys.

A/N: This was written as a fill for a prompt on LJ. The prompt was as follows:

"Sam takes a bad fall or something during a hunt and injures both shoulders, so now he pretty much can't raise his arms any higher than his elbows will bend. Dean washes, dries, and brushes his hair for him."

Dean was really starting to get tired of seeing his little brother getting strung up like a fish on a hook during almost every hunt they went on. He wished he was exaggerating with that comparison, but no – it seemed like every single freaking monster they had been hunting down lately had been in communication with all the others, because every time Sam had ended up knocked out, choked, tied up, or bruised until he looked as spotty as a rotten banana. On one occasion, he had even been nearly buried alive before Dean managed to pry him out of the coffin a vengeful ghost was trying to toss into a six-foot hole with him still inside.

This time, though, the ghouls they were tracking had gotten a little creative. Several nerve-wracking hours after he realized Sam had suddenly disappeared from his side and three dead corpse-eaters later, Dean had finally found his little brother tethered to the concrete ceiling of the basement, arms pulled behind his back and upwards by the chains that trailed from a hook in the ceiling to the thick metal cuffs around his wrists. He was covered in grime from head to toe, likely from being dragged through the mud and dust and who-knew-what else, but at least he didn't look bloody.

"Sammy!" Dean shouted as soon as he caught sight of his brother, and Sam raised his head and gave Dean a panicked look, wincing when he leaned forward and pulled harder on his already strained shoulders.

"Dean," he said in a shaky voice, obviously trying to keep calm despite being in some kind of distress. "I can't… can't feel my arms…"

Dean grimaced as Sam leaned even further forward, pulling his arms further back and higher up in the process. He might not be able to feel any pain now, but Sam was a gigantic man and he weighed a lot; putting all that stress on the fragile joints of his shoulders, at an odd angle to boot, was going to leave him in agony once the nerves woke up again.

But Dean didn't want to freak him out any more until he was free of the restraints, so he just smiled self-assuredly, striding toward Sam and picking the locks on the cuffs in no time flat.

"It's okay, Sammy," he said once Sam had taken a few deep breaths and regained his usual calm composure. "They're just numb from being at that angle for so long." He started vigorously rubbing up and down Sam's limp arms, trying to stimulate a little blood flow to the limbs. "Once they get a little blood moving through 'em again, they'll be hurtin' like a bitch."

Sam scowled. "Your bedside manner sucks, you know that?"

"Yeah, well, something always told me I wasn't gonna be a doctor, so I don't really care." He saw Sam wince, his arms beginning to tremble as some of the feeling returned to them, and decided it was time to get back to the motel ASAP before the pain set in for real. "All right. You ready to get the hell out of here?"

Sam nodded, wrinkling his nose at the dungeon-like basement of the old house. "Definitely."

By the time they got back to the motel, Sam was in visible pain, which Dean knew meant it had to be bordering on unbearable. He hadn't attempted to use his shaking arms at all, and Dean didn't blame him. He just opened the car door and helped Sam out, holding open the motel door for him and hurriedly getting some strong anti-inflammatories and painkillers out of their first aid kit once they were both inside. Sam winced when he lifted the pills to his mouth but swallowed them down quickly, giving Dean a thankful smile before heading toward the bathroom, where his duffel was still sitting on the floor from his shower that morning.

"Hey Dean? You mind if I take the first shower?"

"Nah," Dean said, barely paying attention as he flopped down onto his bed and started surfing through the few fuzzy channels on the TV. "Go ahead. You reek."

Sam snorted and was just about to step into the bathroom when he stopped, seeming to realize something that Dean didn't. "Uh, Dean? Could you… ah…"

"What?" Dean asked, not understanding the hesitancy in Sam's voice.

"No, umm, it's nothing. Never mind."

"Oookaaay…" Dean said with a raised eyebrow, completely confused when Sam just ducked his head and disappeared into the bathroom. Even after thirty years of living with the guy, sometimes Sam was still just too weird to understand. He heard the shower come on, and forgot all about Sam's abrupt bout of shyness in favor of watching some sort of funny videos show involving a lot of people falling off a lot of different things. Before he knew it, the shower turned off again and Sam soon stepped out of the bathroom. When he saw the state his little brother was still in, Dean wrinkled his nose and stood up from the bed.

"Dude, your entire head is still covered in grime! Did you even bother to get under the spray?"

Sam ducked his head again, a blush creeping up into his face beneath the dirty strands of his hair, and suddenly the pieces began clicking together in Dean's head. "Wait, that's what you were going to ask me for earlier, wasn't it? You can't reach high enough to wash your hair yourself, can you?" That made perfect sense. Sam could probably bend forward enough to get most of his body and even his face without too much pain, but stretching his arms above his head after all his muscles had been through today would be pure agony.

If possible, Sam blushed harder. "No," he said softly, his nearly shoulder-length locks swaying as he shook his head. "And I understand if you don't want to, you know, 'cause this is kind of girly and everything… You know what, never mind, I'll just go to sleep and worry about it later, so –"

"Hey hey hey whoa," Dean said quickly, almost putting his hands on Sam's shoulders before he remembered what a bad idea that would be. "Would you slow down a minute? Yeah, okay, it might be a little out of my comfort zone, but I'm not gonna make you lay in filth just 'cause washing your hair for you isn't part of my usual routine. Just what kind of brother do you think I am, huh?"

Sam sighed and smiled in obvious relief, and Dean couldn't help but chuckle a little at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

"Okay, so, how do we wanna do this?" Sam asked tentatively, trying to think of a place he could go where he wouldn't have to lean over or bend his neck too much, since even that put a strain on the muscles around his shoulder blades.

"Uh…" Dean muttered, rolling his eyes upward as he thought about it. The sink was definitely a no-go, and because the shower/tub combo had such high sides, the only way Sam could get in without causing himself pain was if Dean got in and showered with him. Not gonna happen. So then what was he supposed to do…?

"Oh! Got it!" he said as an idea suddenly came to him, and he wondered briefly why he hadn't thought of it from the very beginning. "Wait here a minute, Sammy."

Sam watched in confusion as Dean made his way out of the room and over to the car, opening up the trunk to fetch something that sounded heavy and hollow. When he came back, he was carrying a gallon water jug they usually used to make holy water, as well as the enormous plastic bucket he always kept in the trunk for washing the Impala when it got dirty. Grinning with pride at the brilliance of his plan, Dean set the bucket on the floor next to Sam's bed, taking the gallon jug over to the sink and turning it on so the water could start heating up.

"Okay, here," Dean said softly, coming over to where Sam was sitting on the bed and guiding him to lay down on his back, head hanging over the edge of the bed where the bucket sat without having to crane his neck at all. Then he went to fetch the shampoo from his duffel and fill the jug with water, since it had finally warmed up enough to be comfortable when he had stuck his hand into it earlier.

Sam, who now couldn't see anything but the ceiling unless he wanted to turn his neck – which he didn't – heard Dean stepping into the kitchenette and then back to his side, and then there was a stream of warm water pouring back from his bangs and over the entirety of his hair, wetting it completely as his older brother's fingers gently worked through it to make sure every bit was touched by the water. Sam sighed and closed his eyes, enjoying the heat on his scalp and the way it distracted him from his painful shoulders.

He almost jumped when he heard the raspy sound of a shampoo bottle being squeezed, and then Dean's fingers were back, gently massaging the suds through his hair while his fingernails softly scraped against Sam's scalp, working all of the dirt and oil free as it joined the muddy-colored suds that almost covered the older Winchester's hands. Sam leaned into the touch, not remembering until now how relaxing it could feel to have someone else – even his brother – doing something like this for him.

He risked a backwards flick of his eyes, and noticed that Dean was kneeling down beside the bucket, face calm and tranquil as he focused on the task of cleaning Sam's impressively long mop of hair. It was always a little surprising to see the older Winchester being so gentle, even though he'd always been so when they were children. Dean was only hard and rough on the outside, though, Sam reminded himself; inside, he was the most caring, nurturing soul anyone could ever meet.

After a few minutes that flew by far too quickly, Sam felt another shower of warm water rinsing out the suds, and then Dean was toweling off his head. He was still making sure to be easy on Sam, but vigorous enough to make sure it wasn't going to stay wet and drip down his back, for which Sam was grateful. After a few more seconds Sam heard Dean get up again and assumed he was finished, so he was surprised when he sat up and suddenly felt something combing through his damp hair. Dean was actually… brushing his hair for him?

"Dean, you don't have to –" he started, but Dean cut him off with a soft whack of the comb to the back of his head.

"Shut up and be still. If I don't get the rats out of here now we'll just be right back where we started in the morning, and by then your shoulders are gonna be too stiff to move at all. So just let me do my job, huh?"

Sam smiled and nodded, letting himself relax as the comb pulled softly again and again down the length of his hair, starting at the left side and working down in strokes until it had reached the right. Every time he hit a snarl, Dean just untangled it with his fingers, working out the knot without causing Sam any pain at all. To be honest, this was gentler than Sam had ever been on himself when he brushed his hair. He usually just gritted his teeth and yanked through the knots, impatient to get rid of them and get on with his day before Dean teased him about playing with his hair like a girl.

Sam didn't know when he had started to nod off, but before he knew it he opened his eyes to a dark room, apparently having been covered up with the comforter and turned on his side while he was still blissed out from how good the hair care had felt. The bucket and jug of water were both emptied out and inverted to let them dry, and Dean was sitting on the other bed, flipping through the channels on the TV and reading the captions while he blinked sleepily.

Sam didn't bother saying anything right then. There would be plenty of time to thank his brother later, especially because he knew the pain would be coming back in a few hours and he'd probably need more pills shortly after. But for now, he was content to let himself fall back into sleep, secure in the knowledge that his brother still cared about him even after coming back from Purgatory – and in the pleasant tingles still lingering behind on his scalp.