Title: The Flame Still Burns

Author: Disasteriffic Kaz

Info: With barely time to rest after the events with the shtriga, Dad sends the boys new coordinates and sets them on a seemingly simple haunting that may be more than they can handle. Tag to 1x18 "Something Wicked" hurt/comfort/awesome!Sam/Dean

Author's Note: Last chapter! Phew! And just in time as I'll be leaving Tuesday for Seattle and the SPN Convention! EEP! Can't. Flipping. Wait!

Special note for Janice. I was a little stuck in the restaurant and she made a, uh, magma-rrific suggestion and got me rolling again. She is awesome. LOL

Beta'd by the always awesome JaniceC678 :D– Friend and Muse's co-conspirator.

**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!
~Reviews are Love~

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"All you gotta do is sit in the pentagram and say the ritual. You do that?"

Sam considered for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah. Just... get me over there. Was almost done."

Dean took him at his word and slowly and carefully lifted his brother to his feet. He steadied him when Sam swayed and helped him across the floor. "Ok, here we go. Easy. Sit down." He lowered Sam back to the floor.

"I got it. Go." Sam picked up the grease marker that he had dropped, grateful it hadn't rolled somewhere out of sight. He leaned carefully over and quickly finished drawing the last two lines of the pentagram.

"Right." Dean hefted Sam's shotgun, putting his pistol away and went to the chair he'd dragged over earlier. He climbed up shakily onto the seat and took a lighter out of his pocket. Dean spun the flame to life and held it up to the fire suppression sensor. It took almost thirty seconds and then there was a loud, electronic chirp of warning and suddenly water began to stream and spray from the ceiling to cover the dining room, the pillars and them. Dean climbed back down off the chair and raised the shotgun while holy water cascaded into his eyes and three of the spirits of Pompeii flickered back into life between him and Sam.

"Showtime."

Chapter 6

Dean sidestepped the three burned spirits between him and his brother so that he could see Sam again. He spotted the shotgun he'd dropped when Molly had thrown him and took a few more steps to reach it. "Sam. Start chanting already."

Sam turned just enough to see and his eyes widened at the spirits so close to him. "Dean?"

"I got it. Do the ritual." Dean was nowhere near as confident about his ability to keep the ghosts away from them as he sounded, but Sam needed him to be sure, or at least sound like he was. If he sounded sure, Sam would believe him. He had always believed Dean could do anything he said he would, and that apparently hadn't changed despite their time apart. Dean knelt and picked up the second shotgun, tucking it under his arm. He tugged at his collar and wiped water out of his eyes. "Think it's getting hotter in here."

Sam nodded and braced himself with his left arm to stay sitting up. Three more spirits appeared in front of him, and he watched as the water falling from the sprinklers began to steam as it struck their bodies. "Regna terrae, cantata Deo, psallite Cernunnos." Sam cleared his throat and closed his eyes while he worked to keep the words of the ritual clear in his spinning head. "Regna terrae, cantata Dea psallite Aradia. Caelie Deus, Deus terrae humiliter majestati gloriae tuae supplicamus ut ab omni infernalium spirituum potestate."

Dean shook his head in admiration as the Latin rolled off his little brother's tongue. The kid was always a wonder with the Latin, and the fact that Sam could keep the complicated ritual straight even though his brains had been rattled made Dean proud. "Crap." Dean aimed and fired at one of the spirits as it bent toward Sam. He fired another round of rock salt and danced away from the two reaching for him while Sam's voice continued to flow with the Latin.

The temperature inside the restaurant continued to climb and Dean wished he could take his jacket off. The holy water from the sprinkler system began to steam in the air, turning the already overheated room into a virtual sauna. He blinked furiously to clear his vision of a combination of steamy mist and sweat that was running into his eyes. "Come on, Sammy."

"In these names that are above all others..." Sam gasped to catch his breath and tried not to watch the burned men closing in on him. He jumped as Dean's shotgun sounded again and another of the spirits vanished. "... I cast a spell on them with power and purity, whether constrained by chains..." Sam's voice broke off on a scream of pain as a hand wrapped suddenly around his right shoulder and heat burned into him.

"Sam!" Dean lunged past one of the spirits and fired his last round into the burned man holding on to Sam's shoulder. "Son of a bitch! Get off him!"

Sam coughed and slumped forward. He turned his head and saw the burnt ruin of the shoulder of his jacket. The holy water only seemed to make the pain worse as it flooded through the smoking holes the spirit's hand had left in the fabric. He ducked his head against the pain and opened his mouth to continue the ritual and looked down in surprise when the marble floor beneath him began to tremble. He frowned and put a hand down. "What..." The marble was becoming hotter and hotter and the pentagram he had drawn with the grease pencil began to run.

"... the hell?" Dean finished for his brother and staggered as the floor under them shifted. "Sammy?" He reached down for his brother's good shoulder and shouted in surprise when the floor erupted beneath them. He was thrown from his feet and the air was forced from his lungs when he struck the floor and slid back. He came to a rest against the back wall of the dining room and blinked gritty eyes open. "Crap," he groaned. Dean rolled his head up and found Sam lying over his legs and blinking dazedly up at the ceiling. "Sammy?"

"S'goin' on?" Sam slurred and lifted his head. He looked out into the dining room through the falling water from the sprinklers and his eyes went wide in shock. "Uh... Dean? Is that..."

"No way." Dean pushed himself up, relieved that he was still holding one of the shotguns and stared.

"Volcano." Sam shook his head slowly and let it drop back to his brother's legs. "S'volcano... in a restaurant… in Tennessee." He started chuckling even though it made his burned shoulder ache and couldn't stop himself. "Oh... oh, man. Only us."

"That's not right." Dean sat up and saw several of the spirits of Pompeii flicker back and forth through the steam that was quickly filling the air around them. He shrugged out of his leather jacket and flannel. The heat was becoming suffocating. In the center of the circle Sam had first drawn, a small cone of rock and earth had broken through the marble floor. It was unmistakably a volcano. Fire spurted from the top of the cone. Smoke and ash began to belch forth with rumbles that vibrated the floor beneath them and Dean blinked in shock when he saw the first, small river of what could only be lava begin to inch its way down that cone and toward the ruined floor. "Son of a bitch."

"Up, Sam. Come on." Dean got his brother sitting as gently as he could and leaned him against the wall. He shoved a hand into Sam's jacket pocket and came out with the grease pencil. He handed him the shotgun. "You keep 'em off me while I draw you a new circle, ok?" He was tempted to just drag Sam up and out of the place, job unfinished, at that point. But he knew Sam would never go for it. More people would be hurt if they didn't neutralize those damn pillars. Dean clapped a hand to his brother's good shoulder and looked at him. "Ok?"

Sam nodded and worked to catch his breath through the fresh waves of pain. "Yeah. Yeah. Go." He leveled the shotgun and braced it on one upturned knee as Dean moved clear and bent to the floor with the grease pencil. "Make it fast." Sam was exhausted. He'd been all but finished with the ritual and now he'd have to start all over again. And the heated air, now filling with smoke and ash was making it difficult to breathe and his head was spinning. "Hate ghosts," he groaned and fired the shotgun when one of the burned men got too close to Dean. He racked a fresh round into the chamber and nodded at his brother.

Dean drew the fresh pentagram and circle as quickly as he could. He could tell by the look on his brother's face that Sam didn't have much left in him. "One more minute, Sam." He finished the protective circle in a rush, tossed the grease pencil aside and went to his brother. "Ok, gotta get you in there. You ready to move?"

"No." Sam shook his head but handed the shotgun to Dean and held up his good arm. "Gotta hurry." He coughed at the smoke filling the air and his stomach was rolling between the heat and the pain. The steam was thick enough to mist over his eyes and the world was a rainy, wet blur for Sam as he settled on his knees in the fresh circle.

"You can do this," Dean assured his fading brother and moved so he was behind Sam, supporting him against his legs.

Sam forced his pain-addled mind to focus and started the ritual over from the beginning. "Regne terrae, cantata Deo..."

Dean grinned into the smoky, misty room as Sam's voice once more chanted out the Latin. The burned men began to close on them while the volcano rumbled. It spit ash and smoke up to the vaulted ceiling high above and more lava glowed as it poured down the sides and ate into the marble of the floor. "Back off," he snarled and fired a round into the nearest spirit, dispersing it into the thickening cloud around them. Dean heard Sam's voice crack and break while his brother fought not to cough through the ritual. "Almost there, Sammy."

Sam choked out the Latin and stopped, trying to take a deep breath. He doubled over in a cough for a moment and then leaned back. He cleared his throat and started in on the end of the ritual."Constrained by chains or returned to darkness. May they never disturb the servants of the gods. Laqeuo... " he panted for breath around the agony in his shoulder and trusted Dean to keep him alive when he felt his brother's legs as a sold weight against his back. "... deceptione nequitata. Omnis fallaciae libera nos, dominates. Audi nos."

Sam's voice rose and he shouted the last two words hoarsely. His voice suddenly echoed as the rumbling and hissing stopped. For a moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing and the white noise of the holy water raining from the sprinklers. Even the burned spirits stopped their advance mere inches outside the circle as if frozen.

Dean kept the shotgun aimed at the spirits and his finger on the trigger. He staggered as a roar went up from the small volcano and went to his knees in a daze when bright, yellow light glowed out from each of the seven pillars. He could see it even through the smoke and steam as it lit the whole room in a dizzying display. "Sammy?"

Sam shook his head and leaned harder into his brother. "Dunno. Think that's good?"

"Friggin' better be." Dean's voice choked off into a coughing fit as he got a lungful of smoke. He watched the steady glow from the volcano in the center of the room and his eyes went wide when he realized it was sinking back down into the floor. "Holy... holy crap. Uh..." Dean slid a hand under Sam's arm and started pulling. "Not good. Not good. Come on, move!"

"Shit." Sam gasped and shoved with his legs while Dean dragged him back. Though the volcano was quickly sinking away, lava was still pouring from its mouth over the floor. Flames licked up the walls of the dining room and the glow emanating from the pillars finally began to fade. Sam watched as the ghosts of Pompeii flickered once and then were gone. He brought his eyes back down to the floor when he felt heat searing into the bottom of his boots. "Dean?"

"Yeah, I know." Dean struggled back to his feet and jerked his brother up with him with a grimace of sympathy for Sam's pained yell. "Sorry." He pulled Sam's legs away from the path of the advancing lava flow and they stumbled away and toward the front of the restaurant and safety. They were both coughing and wheezing for breath by the time they burst through the front doors and out into the cool night air.

Sam shivered as a chill breeze blew over his wet hair and clothes and went to his knees coughing with Dean beside him. He slumped into his brother and panted. "Only... only us... volcano."

Dean laughed and then gagged, coughing out more of the smoke and ash he'd inhaled. He sat back on his heels and wiped water out of his eyes, clearing his vision now that they were finally out from under the sprinklers. "This time it's not my fault the place burned down." He grinned when Sam flashed him a disgusted look. The grin quickly faded as he took in the state of his brother and he blew out a breath. "Gotta get you outta here."

Sam nodded wearily. He took a deep breath to brace himself to move, but it sent him into another coughing fit. Dean had him on his feet by the time he managed to catch his breath again, and he curled over against the pain from his burned arm and shoulder. "Ow."

"Yeah." Dean steered his brother out to the car. He pulled open the passenger door and helped Sam ease down into the seat, then tossed the shotgun into the back on the floor. He closed the door and looked back at the restaurant. Smoke was pouring from the roof of the building by then and he could see the glow of flames as they began to eat through the walls and roof. "All that 'cause one guy couldn't keep it in his pants." He shook his head and dashed around to the driver's side when the first, faint sound of a siren cut through the night air. "Time to go."

"Took 'em long 'nough," Sam muttered as his head rolled back to the seat and his eyes closed.

"Sammy?" Dean put a hand to Sam's neck as he pulled away from the restaurant and gave him a small shake. "Sam." He didn't get an answer other than an incoherent moan. "Dammit."

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Sam groaned softly as consciousness returned to him. The groan became a cough, and he lurched upright, trying to grab hold of his tight chest in a panic.

"Whoa! Sammy, ease up! Take it easy!"

Dean's voice helped calm Sam down and he fought to get his eyes open. He blinked blurry eyes open and found his big brother sitting beside him, holding on to his arms to keep him steady and watching him with a concerned gaze. "Dean?"

Dean grinned. "About time you rejoined the land of the living." He watched Sam look around curiously and nodded. "Yeah, I got a good look at your shoulder in the car and decided you'd earned a trip to the nearest clinic." He cleared his throat and shrugged. "Not to mention all the crap we inhaled in that restaurant. For the record, the docs here think you got burned when our campfire overburned its pit and got your sleeping bag."

Sam's jaw dropped and he rolled his eyes. "Really, Dean? That's the best you could come up with?"

"Well, what the hell else was I gonna say?" Dean chuckled and eased his brother back to the bed. "Just be glad they bought it. The restaurant's been all over the news, but thankfully nobody's put two and two together. They're actually chalking it up to, and I quote, 'an as-yet unexplained geological event.' Scientists from all over the world are apparently on their way here. Dude, we actually registered on the Richter scale!"

Sam looked up at him with a mixture of surprise at the news and fond exasperation at Dean's enthusiasm. "You know, Dean, we could have been incinerated in there if that thing had erupted a little more forcefully."

"Yeah, but we weren't. Let me have my moment, Sammy. We made a volcano!"

"Okay… whatever. Too tired to argue." Sam's head dropped back on the pillow and he let his eyes fall closed.

"Hey, none of that! You can sleep later. I've just been waiting for you to grace me with your presence so I can bust us outta here." Dean smiled again and patted his brother's chest.

"Us?" Sam looked at his brother again and realized that Dean was not in his customary jacket but was instead wearing a scrub top, and there was a square of red skin on the back of his right hand that could only have been from surgical tape around an IV. "Are you alright?"

Dean snorted at the worry that instantly came over Sam's face. "Dude, I'm fine." He slapped Sam's hand away from his arm and sat back, nodding to his brother. "You kinda look like a mummy."

Sam looked down and only then noticed that the burned portion of his right arm was wrapped in clean, white bandages and there were more wrapped around his shoulder. "Ok, ow." Now that he was looking at them, he could feel the pain from the burns.

Dean chuckled. "Yeah, no kidding." He didn't see any point in telling Sam how close he had come to not breathing during the drive to the clinic. Dean had pulled Sam virtually into his lap as they drove just to be sure he could hear the ever-weakening wheezes coming from him. "They said your lungs are probably gonna feel weird for a week or two from all the crap you inhaled." He slapped Sam's arm and stood. "And you gotta work hard and take five deep breaths every hour so you don't get pneumonia." He scowled at Sam. "I am not gonna sit through horking up gobs of lung-snot. Deep breaths, dude. Now."

Sam laughed and settled back into the bed. "Whatever. You totally would. And what about you? You inhaled all the same crap I did."

"Shuddup." Dean tugged his scrub top and ran a hand through his hair. "Ok fine. I got the same orders but I know how to do what I'm told. Shut up," he warned Sam and rolled his eyes at his brother's laugh. "I'm gonna go find you some wheels and we'll get out of here."

"Dude, I can walk." Sam tossed the thin blanket back away from him and swung one leg over the side of the bed and then other as he sat up and groaned. "Less questions that way."

Dean scowled and watched as Sam got himself upright and then slid off the bed to stand. He jumped forward and caught him when Sam's legs wobbled and went out from under him. "Oh, yeah. You can walk just fine."

Sam sent a weak glare to his brother and forced his legs to cooperate. "I'm fine. Just... where are my clothes?"

Dean snickered at the grumpy question and leaned Sam against the bed. "Well, you've got pants still." He pulled his brother's jeans and sneakers off a shelf and handed them over. "They kinda cut your shirts and jacket off you. Gonna have to get you a new jacket."

"Man. I liked that jacket." Sam sat back down and tried to get his jeans back on while moving his right shoulder as little as possible.

Dean shook his head fondly and knelt down. He grabbed one of the sneakers and shoved onto one of Sam's feet. "Still think it'd be less risky if I wheeled you out of here."

Sam pulled up his jeans and stood, balancing one hand on his brother's shoulder for a moment. "I hate that invalid crap." He looked down at Dean and then around the room and his brows went up. "Where's your leather? It didn't burn, did it?"

Dean smiled and stood once he got his brother's other shoe on. "Nah. I snuck outta here and back to the restaurant this morning. I got lucky. It was so water-logged from the sprinklers, it didn't burn and I found it in with some of the debris they dug out of the place. It's dryin' out back at the motel."

"This morning. How long have we been here?" Sam pulled at his scrub top and wished for a shirt.

"Uh, two days." Dean smirked and patted his brother's good shoulder when he stared in surprise. "Yeah, you were kind of a mess."

"They kept you here for two days, you must have been too," Sam pointed out and raised a brow at Dean. "I'm not the only one Molly threw around."

Dean shrugged and grinned. "I've got a hard head." He rolled his eyes at Sam's disbelieving face. "Fine, and a concussion. It's good. Can we go now? That nurse is kinda scary, dude. She keeps tryin' to give us sponge baths and she's like sixty."

Sam snorted a laugh and started toward the door, unsurprised when Dean came up beside him and took his arm to steady him. "Bet you wouldn't have argued if she were twenty."

"It's like your gramma wantin' to see your family jewels, man. So wrong." Dean laughed and peeked out into the hall for a moment. "Coast is clear. Let's boogie."

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Sam looked down at his t-shirt in disgust. He'd spent the last five minutes trying to get it on himself, but his right shoulder refused to lift high enough, even after three days of healing since the events at the restaurant. The burns weren't so bad really, but they spanned his whole shoulder and moving it was like dipping the joint in hot acid; it hurt. "Dammit."

"Problem, Sammy?" Dean chuckled as he came out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam and saw his brother eyeing his shirt angrily. "Dude, I think you're gonna have to skip the mutant dog shirt and just go with flannel for a week."

"It's a greyhound." Sam sighed and tossed the shirt back into his bag. He took the flannel Dean held out to him with a bad-tempered scowl and started pulling it on over his bandages.

"You hungry?" Dean pulled his jeans on and tossed his towel aside, picking up a shirt instead. "I'm starving. Hospital food sucks."

Sam smiled and buttoned his shirt while Dean pulled on his boots. "Thought you could eat anything if it sat still long enough."

Dean snorted. "Dude, there's not enough bacon on the planet to make hospital food edible, and I don't say that lightly."

"Some day your heart's just gonna explode. You know that, right?" Sam laughed and followed his brother outside.

"I'd hit you but I don't wanna carry you." Dean resisted the urge to slap Sam's shoulder however much the big brother in him wanted to screw with the kid. They walked side by side down the street toward the diner. Dean tensed when they reached the alley where they had saved the waitress and Sam had almost died. He looked in as they walked and a glare overtook his face. "Watch it, Sammy."

"Yeah, I see 'em." Sam saw two of the men that had attacked the waitress just inside the mouth of the alley. They looked over at him and Dean, and the looks on their faces were nothing short of violent. "I think they're pissed."

"Well, what do ya' know? Me too," Dean snarled and stopped to trade glares with them. "Somethin' you assholes want?"

"On our six," Sam whispered and tapped his brother's elbow once to let him know he had it, the third man sneaking up behind them.

Dean gave an imperceptible nod and then a narrow smile as the two men in the alley came closer. "How's your buddy? The one we put in the hospital? 'Cause there's no way he walked away on that knee. Come to think of it..." Dean said as the men's faces darkened angrily, "... your nose don't look so good."

"Fucker," growled the man who's nose Dean had broken.

"Well, next time don't try to rape innocent women." He paused and then added, "And while you're at it, leave the not-so-innocent ones alone too." Dean shook his arms out and waited for them to come to him. "I was kinda hopin' you assholes would get an attack of stupid and come after us again."

"You didn't come out so well last time." The man with the broken nose grinned at Dean.

"You got lucky. Not gonna happen this time. Come on." Dean took a step away from his brother and heard Sam spin and throw a kick, followed by the pained grunt of someone behind him and a body hitting the ground. He grinned at the now surprised faces of the other two. "Next."

Sam rolled his eyes and backed away from the man sprawled on the ground and senseless. "Guess he forgot the last time I kicked him."

Dean ducked the first punch, caught the man's arm and threw him into his buddy. They slammed into the brick wall of the alley and came up yelling in anger. He circled to the side and wrapped an arm around the neck of the same man, pulling him backward off his balance. Dean kicked out his knee and, rather than let him drop, he turned and allowed the man's momentum carry him head first into the wall. He backed up two steps as the man fell unconscious and turned to face the last man - the broken nose - as the idiot reached into his coat.

"You pull that knife out again and this is gonna get all kinds of ugly," Dean warned him in a low voice and waited.

The man stared at Dean, enraged, and then felt a frisson of fear run down his spine as he looked into his eyes. There was something there that screamed violence and death. Without really thinking about it, he took his fingers off the hilt of his knife and pulled his empty hand free of his coat.

Dean nodded. "Smart move. Let's get this over with."

Sam backed up a little and kept an eye on the two downed men, making sure they weren't a danger to his brother. "Try not to kill him. The cops frown on that."

"No promises." Dean moved with the man as he closed with him and rolled out his neck. "Asshole cut your throat. That kinda thing pisses me off."

"Oh, man," Sam groaned and resigned himself to watching Dean trash the guy, though he had earned it.

Dean slapped away the first punch the man threw and rammed his fist into his face. It rocked the man's head back on a pained shout. While he was distracted, Dean reached into the man's jacket, found the knife there and pulled it out before he could think twice. He tossed it away under the dumpster and gave him a dangerous grin. "Not done already, are ya'?"

"M'gonna kill you!" The man rushed Dean headlong in a fury.

Dean landed a kick to his solar-plexus worthy of his little brother. All the air whooshed out of the man's lungs. Dean didn't give him time to recover. He pulled back and landed a punch on his jaw that spun his head sideways. While he was reeling, he swept his legs out and followed him to the ground with another solid punch to his jaw that left the man unconscious and bleeding profusely from his nose. He stood, wiped off his hands and grinned. "Never screw with m'brother, asshole."

Sam chuckled and slapped Dean's shoulder. "Roll him on his side so he doesn't choke on the blood."

Dean shrugged but bent over and pulled the asshole onto his side. "There. Can't say I don't do nice things." He straightened again and smiled cheerfully as they walked back out onto the sidewalk and headed for the diner. "Now I'm really hungry." He glanced over to see Sam cradling his shoulder. "You good?"

Sam snorted. "Could have taken that idiot in my sleep. I heard him clomping around as soon as we got on the sidewalk."

Dean laughed and stopped at the diner to pull open the door. He waved Sam inside and smiled even wider when he saw the waitress they had saved. "Afternoon, sweetheart."

"You can just ignore him, Tara," Sam told her with a laugh. "He's hopeless."

Tara blushed prettily and followed them to a table. "What are my heroes up to today?"

"Just got done takin' out the trash and worked up an appetite." Dean grinned at her.

Sam shook his head with a smile and slapped Dean in the face with a menu. "Order something already."

Dean leaned back with the menu, watching the sway of Tara's hips as she laughed and went to get them coffee. He looked over at his little brother, burned and bandaged but alive and amused, and grinned. "Sammy, this has been a damn good day."

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The End.