Dean nearly knocks, but doesn't.

His hand pauses above the door for a moment. Sam probably won't even want to see him, right? Hell, if it had been Sam whose eyes had gone black, Dean would have taken off, probably driven himself over the edge of the world.

Sometimes, Dean has no idea how he got here.

Too many apocalypses can do that to a guy.

But he still has Sam, though only barely. Sam, who'd had bent his soul back into place, except he hadn't fixed him, because he still has the sense-memory of that hammer smashing into the wall just above his brother's head. And the shock, oh sweet fucking Jesus, the shock in Sam's eyes. The fucking intoxication of it.

Dean says a silent thanks (to who, God?) when the door swings open silently beneath his hand. Sam's room is dimly lit by the lamp beside the bed, and Sam's stretched out on his side, fully dressed, one hand beneath his pillow. His legs hang off the edge of the bed, and Dean's chest tightens briefly. He's asleep, flat out unconscious, and Dean feels a twinge at that- now he thinks about it, he looked like hammered crap earlier. Dean moves forward anyway. He figures that if he doesn't get the awkward shit over with they'll be dancing round each other for weeks.

He reaches out to touch Sam on the shoulder, but suddenly Sam's twisting round to scramble back on the bed with a gun in his good hand.

'Whoa,' says Dean, stepping back, hands up. 'Only me.'

The suspicion doesn't entirely leave Sam's eyes, which, yeah, that hurts, but he lowers the gun and winces suddenly. Dean figures the movement jarred Sam's broken arm, or wrist, or whatever it is.

God. Dean's taking up too much space in the room.

Sam sits up against the headboard. He still looks wary, like he's worried that he only dreamt Dean was cured. Suddenly Dean's regretting coming in here. Sam looks exhausted. Not to mention bruised.

'Dean?' he says, like he's testing out the word. 'Do you need something?'
Dean frowns. 'No, I'm good,' he says.

'Gr-r-reat,' says Sam, slumping back, and it's only the slight drawing-out of the word that tells Dean that little brother is, most likely, smashed. 'Then what, Dean?'

In the silence that follows, Sam sticks out a hand for the bottle on his nightstand, and knocks it back. He winces as he replaces it, the motion too deliberate to be in any way sober.

Dean catches onto the wince. 'Are you hurt?'

'I'm fine,' Sam said tightly.

'Sam, man, come on.'

Sam doesn't respond, just closes his eyes, like he's too exhausted to even keep them open.

Dean goes over there, putting a hand under Sam's shoulders, sitting him up properly, and Sam's flinch doesn't escape him, but he accepts it and just gets Sam upright on the bed, and he wonders why he can feel all the bones of Sam's shoulder, and it's only then that the worry really kicks in.

'Shirt off, Sam,' he says, and because Sam's too tired to argue, too tired and hurting and wasted, Sam does what he says, taking off the sling, then two shirts, then a t-shirt. Then he leans back and waits.

They both sit there in silence for a minute. Then Dean says, 'Shit, Sammy, I'm sorry,' and Sam looks wearily back at him.

Sam's a mess. Dean knows that he was captured by some psycho a few days ago. But tortured? It wasn't as if it hadn't crossed his mind, but couldn't they ever dodge a bullet?

Looking at Sam like this is shock after shock after shock, because then there's how thin he got, skin and bone almost, the shadows beneath his ribs visible. That's not the worst of it. His brother's torso is shades of black and blue and violet with bruises- Dean bets he has at least one cracked rib- and the skin around his collarbones is raw and marred with what look like small burns. His jeans sag round his hipbones. He's got a few new cuts and slices, too, some stitched, some clotted and smeared with dried blood.

Dean can see it then- some guy with Sam tied to a chair, socking him into the middle of next week until Sam can't even hold his head up anymore, and he wonders how long it took before Sam stopped fighting back and just went limp and took the beating.

He chokes down fury.

'Seriously, Dean,' Sam says. He sounds almost amused. 'Don't look so freaked, man. It's not like I haven't had-'

Dean only has to look at him before Sam shuts up.

'Stay right there,' said Dean. He gets up. 'I'm getting the ice.'

Leaving, Dean hears the creak of springs as Sam lies back.

He waits til he's in the bunker kitchen, where they keep the medical supplies, to break down. To brace his arms against the counter and put his head down and rage silently, with his eyes wet and his chest heaving. This is on him, this one. If he'd come to get Sam when that guy called him up, maybe-
But of course there's no getting away from the feel of that hammer in his hand as he swung it towards Sam's head.

Dean straightens up. He goes into the medical cupboard and pulls out all the stops; bandages and icepacks and burn gel and thread for some of those nastier-looking cuts, and he'll be damned if Sam leaves the bunker inside a fortnight, or if he ever lets anyone near him again-

But let's not forget the reason this all happened to Sam in the first place, right?

When Dean's vision clears, his fist is through the nearest wall.

Sam's out cold when he gets back, probably drunk senseless. Of course that doesn't stop him from twitching awake at Dean's footsteps and going for his gun- again. At least this time he puts it down when he sees who it is.

He eyes Dean's armful of bandages and gels. 'You're gonna use all the band-aids.'

Dean dumps the stuff on the bed and passes Sam an icepack. 'Hold this to your ribs.'

Sam obeys, and closes his eyes in relief.

He holds up the needle and thread. 'You want to do your own stitches?'

'Yeah,' says Sam, eyes still shut, but then Dean figures that Sam's got a broken rib plus wrist and probably won't be doing anything involving sewing for a while, so he ignores this and threads the needle. Sam barely even tenses when Dean- trying to be gentle- slides the needle under his skin at the edge of a long gash. It's an indication of how far gone he is. Sam usually hates stitches.

He can't help but notice, also, the unnatural heat that seems to be coming off Sam's skin. Maybe he's just noticing it more because you don't really take that sort of stuff in when you're a demon, but he's worried anyway. 'Dude, tell me you're not running a fever.'

'I'm not running a fever,' Sam says dazedly.

The scary thing is that he's gone so utterly limp he barely jerks when Dean draws tight the thread on the last stitch. But wounds first. If Sam's ill, he'll deal with that too. One problem at a time.

SPN SPN SPN

When Dean leaves Sam he's already out like a light, long limbs splayed out over the bed. He's fully stitched up by then, gel coating the burns on his collarbones, an ice pack on his chest.

Dean goes to his room and sits down on the bed. It's strange how carefully preserved it is in here- a thin layer of dust seems to have settled while Dean was gone. The only things that look like they've been touched are the photographs by Dean's bed, and suddenly Dean's picturing Sam coming in here to sit down on the bed and look through them, reminding himself of who Dean was and why he wanted him back, and then he remembers Sam at the bar, and the trust still in his eyes.

'Because you're my brother.'

Dean buries his face in his hands.

'And I'm here to take you home.'

That's the worst part. When Sam had touched the darkness all those years ago, Dean had written him off. Shoved him away, right when Sam needed him most, and all along the kid had only been trying to save the fucking planet.

And then Dean gets turned into the next Abaddon and Sam still can't (won't) give up on him. No matter what he's done. Even after Sam not looking for him while he was in Purgatory. Even after the whole I-wouldn't-have-done-the-same-for-you deal.

God, if it was true about Lester, Sam had nearly lost himself, nearly killed himself trying to get Dean back, and Dean had gone so dark he would've let him. No, that was bullshit. He would have killed him himself. The other crap Dean could disregard- the guilt about Lester was a faint niggling, and yeah, he'd said some crap to people, but that wasn't exactly on the same wavelength as trying to smash their heads in (and oh fuck, how vividly, how sensually he'd imagined Sam's skull caving under the hammer-head, the heady reek of blood and the glint of his little brother's bone like eggshell, fuck-).

Azazel, Ruby, Lucifer. They had no idea. 'I'm not clean,' Sam had said, and now Dean finally understands, knows what it's like to feel like your every vein is an itching, poisonous wire.

He's tainted. He gets it now.

Maybe it was him all along.

'Dean?'

Dean's head snaps up. Sam's supporting himself against the doorframe. He's wearing his sling, but not his shirt, the bruising all too visible. Dean's at his side in seconds. 'Yeah, Sam?'

Sam looks like he's having trouble keeping his vision in focus; he squints at Dean, eyes red-rimmed and shadowed. 'Are you, uh, okay?'

Dean's hands are already going to Sam's arms, ready to maneuvre him into bed, but he stops at that, drawing back. 'What the fuck? Am I okay?'

'It was a reasonable question,' says Sam quietly, leaning his forehead against the doorframe. His hair falls forward over his face, and that's it, Dean's had it.

He grabs Sam's biceps, and oh Christ Sam flinches, but Dean ignores it, propelling Sam into his room to settle him on Dean's bed.

'Dean...'

'Shut up, Sam.'

'But-' Sam struggles weakly. Dean silences him with a look, spreading the comforter over him. 'Ssh. You need to sleep.'

'I'm fine-'

'Dude, you look like someone ground you into their shoe.'

'No, you don't-' Sam tries to sit up, but Dean's hand in the centre of his chest stops him. 'Don't understand- I can't- you don't know what I'll dream about.'

Sam's eyes are pleading. Dean looks away. He has a pretty good idea.

'Let me bottom-line this for you, Sam. Either you sleep, or I knock you out.'

Sam grimaces, but he relaxes a little. 'Are you... are you gonna...'

'I'm staying right here.'

A huffed laugh. When Dean raises his eyes to Sam again, he's out. Christ. From grabby and mouthy to asleep in a second.

What kind of life has the kid led lately?

SPN SPN SPN

Dean eventually dozes off in the chair beside the bed, only to be woken an hour later.

Sam's twisting feverishly on the bed, curls of hair sticking to his face with sweat, hands clutching at his elbows. 'No. Oh, Christ, no. No, no, no- oh God, Dean? No, please, Dean-'

'Sammy, wake up, goddammit!'

Sam's eyes flick open, pupils huge and blown, irises a thin ring of hazel, translucent in the lamplight. He keels forward, drawing his knees up to his ribs, inhaling silently. He does not look at Dean.

Dean reaches out a hand and hesitantly touches Sam's shoulder. Sam flinches again, tensing under his hand. Dean quickly withdraws it.

Sam leans his forehead on his knees. Breathing seems to be taking all his concentration.

When Sam's shaky inhales even out- Dean hovering uncertainly- Sam lets himself fall back onto the pillow. Dean watches the rise and fall of his battered chest.

He clears his throat. 'You, uh,' he says, and then, 'you wanna talk about it?'

Sam shakes his head, squeezing his eyes closed.

'Sammy,' says Dean. 'It helps.'

Sam rolls over onto his side so that his back's facing Dean. Dean averts his eyes from the vertebrae of his brother's spine.

'Sam-'

'Go fuck yourself.'

Dean blinks.

Sam turns over and buries his face in the pillow, hair leaving the white nape of his neck bare, and Dean resists the urge to run a hand over it.

He wants a reunion. He wants his huge, brawny, tanned little brother, not this fragile wreck of slender bones and feathery hair. He wants Sam to look healthy and to put his arms around him and nearly squeeze the breath out of him and for them to just be so, so happy they've got each other back.

And he feels terrible for thinking it, because what right does he have to want anything from his brother now?

He wants their reunion of '11, when Death fished Sam out of the pit and Dean had spent the next few months in an ecstasy of Sam, feeling a pulse of delight whenever Sam frowned at him for being rude to a witness or stealing a diary.

God, he misses those days. He never thought he would.

If you wanted to kill your brother, you should have done it outright.

Yeah, Cas, I took your advice at last.

Dean's still hovering by the side of Sam's bed. He wonders if he should leave the room, but if Sam's running a fever...

Yeah, no. He doesn't want a repeat of the Trials.

Except- maybe he kind of liked being able to look after Sam. Beneath the sick worry and fear, there had been a simplicity to it. Dean remembers stroking Sam's hair while Sam retched into the toilet, remembers panicking when he found Sam passed out in that hotel with a dangerous fever. He'd picked him up without even thinking about it, carrying him straight to the bathtub.

It had been a role that Dean at least knew how to play. Now he pulls up a chair beside Sam's bed and wonders why the universe couldn't just cut them a fucking break. Like they needed reminding of their roles once again, needed reminding that Dean was a torturer, Sam the tortured, and they could defy destiny all they wanted but that still wouldn't change.

Dean turns the lights off and leans back in his chair. He falls into a doze after a while, and from there, he sleeps. The bunker hums on around them, like a mother singing a child to sleep. Hey, Jude...

And sometime in the pitch-black of the small hours Dean wakes to Sam's desperate sobbing, and this time, wrapped in comforting darkness, he sits on the bed and draws Sam in and cradles his sweating, shaking younger brother in his arms, whispering words to him that Dean Winchester would never admit to saying, stroking his hair, wiping the tears from Sam's cheekbones with a gentle thumb.

After a while they fell back to sleep like that, and the next morning Dean wakes up alone in Sam's bed. Sam himself is nowhere in sight.
Fuck.

He launches himself off the bed and half-runs down the corridor to the library- and relaxes. Sam's sitting at the table, tapping away at his laptop while poking at a bowl of dry cereal.

Dean frowns.

Looking up, Sam jumps. 'Oh. Hey, Dean.'

'Don't you hey, Dean me.' Dean strides forward. 'You can't just eat dry cereal for breakfast, asshat.'

Sam ignores him, continuing to type. Dean rolls his eyes, swipes the bowl, and tips the cereal into the nearest bin.

'Hey!'

'Not under my roof, Sammy. You're gonna eat some proper food if I have to spoon-feed you.'

Sam leans back in his seat, raising his eyebrows, and there's an ugly look on his face.

Dean groans inwardly. Boundaries, you fuckwad.

'Your roof? Do you mean our roof? The roof under which you nearly smashed my head in? That fucking roof?'

They both freeze.

Then Sam says, 'Oh, hey, Dean, I didn't-'

'Yeah, Sam,' says Dean calmly, walking off to the kitchen. 'That's the roof I meant.'