Since the story is already finished, I am planning on posting one chapter per day. Which means here you go with chapter 2 for today.

On another note, the first chapter of the sequel to "Whatever you do, don't let go" is up and finished. The sequel is titled "The Darkness Within", and the first chapter can be found on my userprofile on DeanDamage (dot) com. I will put it up here on fanfiction net as well, but to promote DeanDamage, a great new archive for all things Dean-whump, that might take another week or two. So just go to my profile page, click the "homepage" link and it will take you directly to my profile on DeanDamage.

But here you go with chapter 2.

The lines in italics are direct quotes taken from the episode "Shadow".

Enjoy!


Chapter 2

Fire.

He was burning.

And the pain was tearing him apart.

Desperately, he tried to open his eyes, tried to turn his head and find out why he was burning, why there was nobody there to help him, why nobody put out the fire and stopped the pain.

His mouth felt dry as a desert and his tongue like a piece of sandpaper wedged in between, chafing at cracked lips with every movement. Just thinking about speaking hurt. But he had to know.

He had to find Sam.

Had to make sure that he was all right.

And if he wasn't, Dean simply had to put out the fire himself and make sure that his brother was all right.

His throat hurt as if he had swallowed a bunch of razor blades, but he swallowed dryly and forced himself to find some semblance of voice. A hoarse croak, a whisper, a yell, it didn't matter. He just needed to know.

He needed to…

He needed…

"Sam."

So a hoarse croak it was. But it was met with nothing but silence.

No answer.

No Sam.

"Sammy."

The following 'Where are you?' remained unspoken, but he thought it will all the little strength he had left.

Where are you?

Sam had always been there. When Dean had woken up hurt or in pain, Sam had always been there. Except after Sam had left for college, but he didn't think about that time. Never. Because Sam was back again and things were back to normal.

Things will never be the same that they were before.

Except he was in pain and Sam wasn't there.

Go back to school, be a person again.

"Sam."

No. Sam had to be here. He had come back, he wouldn't leave again just like that. Not without saying anything. Not without giving him a chance to fight for Sam to stay.

Stop dragging him over god's green earth.

But Sam had already left, not too long ago. He had left him alone in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe he had gone again. Maybe Sam had left him again, even though he had come back the last time.

Maybe this time he had left for good.

Go back to school.

Please. Don't go. Don't leave me. Not now. Not after you came back. Not when I'm burning and the pain is tearing me apart and I really need to hear your voice.

Please.

Go back to school.

"Sam."

Be a person again.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"He's burning up, Caleb." Hand buried in his hair, Sam cast a glance at his brother's feverish form on the bed. "I cleaned the wounds with holy water again and again, and I've practically covered him in wet towels and ice packs, but he's still running one hell of a fever."

Sam listened to the older hunter's voice for a few seconds, his eyes never straying far from Dean's unconscious form, afraid to miss any changes that might occur.

"The fever's not rising anymore, but it's been around 103.8° for the past hour and I can't seem to get it down. I just thought, because you helped Dean identify the daevas, you might know something more about the kind of injuries they cause."

He listened for another moment as Caleb interrupted with a question.

"No, he's not conscious. He's mumbling things, but he doesn't react to anything."

Dean twitched slightly in his sleep, and Sam was at his brother's bedside in two big steps. The cold pack on Dean's forehead had slid down to the pillow, and Sam gently put it back into its place. Dean moaned in his sleep as the cold and wet cloth touched his flushed forehead, but didn't try to move away from the touch.

Caleb's voice tore Sam out of his silent observation of his brother.

"What? Yeah, I'd be grateful if you could ask around because I'm slowly running out of options here. Thanks."

Sam closed the phone and put it on the nightstand. With a sigh he leaned forward and put a hand against Dean's cheek. His hand hadn't even touched the flushed skin yet when he felt the heat against his fingers.

"God Dean, please wake up. I could really use a little help here."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Why don't you let him do what he wants to do?

But he had. He always had. What Sam wanted had always been Dean's priority. No matter how screwed their lives were, Dean had given everything until he had nothing left in him just so that Sam could have a normal life. As normal as possible.

Let him do what he wants to do.

But he had. He had let Sam leave, had let him go to Stanford, go to college and leave his entire life behind. He had let his brother do that, even though it had broken Dean's heart and left a huge hole inside of him that nothing had been able to fill.

And he had let Sam leave a second time, to go to California and search for their Dad. Had let him leave in anger.

Letting Sam leave had hurt even more the second time around.

But Sam had come back to him. Both times.

Had saved him.

Sam wouldn't leave.

When this is over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way.

But that wasn't true. Sam had always planned on leaving.

He might have come back, but he hadn't come back to stay.

Sooner or later he was going to leave him again, because this life, the only life Dean knew how to live, was not the life Sam wanted to live.

Dean was living on borrowed time, the countdown ticking in the background and marking down the hours and days until Sam would take off again.

Maybe he hadn't tried hard enough. Maybe he hadn't given enough, hadn't shown his brother how much he needed him around. How much he needed his family around. Because everybody left him.

First Dad. Even though Dean had always done everything the man had wanted, no matter the price on his soul, Dad had left him.

Then Sam.

But Dean couldn't be alone. He needed to have his family, his purpose, his anchor in his life if he wanted to keep risking it for complete strangers who mostly didn't even know how much pain Dean spared them.

Maybe that was what was hurting so much right now. Maybe he was finally feeling all that pain that he had tried to shield others from over the past years.

Dean needed his father, he needed his brother, to deal with all that pain and loss and heartache, but both of them didn't want to stay with him.

Only the pain stayed with him.

Somehow, that had to be his fault.

You, me and Dad. I want us to be together again. I want us to be a family again.

It was the only thing he needed. The only thing he had ever wished for.

Things will never be the same that they were before.

The only wish that couldn't be granted.

They could be.

And hope was only going to crush him in the end.

I don't want them to be.

Sam didn't want to stay. This had never been about returning to his brother's side, about returning to the hunt. Not for Sam. For Sam it had always been a short term arrangement. Sam had never returned for Dean. He had returned for revenge, for finding their father, for getting answers to the question what had killed their mother and his girlfriend.

Never for Dean.

When this is over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way.

And Sam's own way didn't cross Dean's path.

Sam didn't want to stay with his brother.

Dean didn't know what, but there must have been something he had done wrong, something that had pushed Sam away.

Go back to school. Be a person again.

Sam didn't want to be the person he was now. Not the person life on the road with his brother made him. He had always wanted to be someone else.

Be a person again.

Sam couldn't be what he wanted to be with his brother. With his brother's lifestyle. Maybe Sam had changed so much – or maybe he had always been like that and Dean had just never seen how much he hated that life.

Maybe Sam needed the settled life, the apartment, the girlfriend, the white picket fence. Needed them more than his brother.

No matter what it was, there was one thing that was for sure. Sam was going to leave.

Maybe he had already left, because if he was still there Dean wouldn't be in such pain right now. Sam would not let Dean suffer this pain if he was there.

He only left Dean to suffer in pain when he left, but that was a different kind of pain. That was the kind of pain for which there was no medication. The pain of a large piece of your soul being ripped away, without a warning, without a chance to stop it.

Sam had left, was going to leave, would always, always leave him because he wasn't worth staying with. He was only worth being left alone, being left on fire, with pain so white and hot that it was tearing him apart. And it was a pain he had to bear, because somehow he hadn't been a good enough brother to make Sam stay.

He should have given more.

Now he didn't have anything left to give but pain.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Hey Dad, it's Sam."

Sam had been pacing beside the bed as the phone had rung, but once his father's voicemail picked up, all the strength seemed to leave his legs and he sank down at the food end of the bed.

"Listen, I know you said that it's dangerous to get into contact, but it's Dean. He…those daevas hurt him worse than he let on, and I didn't notice. You know how he…anyway, I treated the wounds, but he's running a high fever. I…I just called to tell you, to make sure you treat your own wounds in time…" Sam laughed and shook his head. "I probably don't need to tell you that. I just wanted to let you know. I'll take care of Dean, you know that, but if there's any way you know how to help him, just…just give me a call. He's not conscious, and I'm a bit worried that he's…just call me if you know anything, okay? Thanks."

Sam closed the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

I'll take care of Dean.

Yeah, right.

If taking care meant swaddling him in wet towels and helplessly sitting by as his fever kept on climbing, then yeah. He was taking care of Dean.

Doing a bang up job of it, too.

If it was Sam who was sick, Dean would know what to do. And if he didn't know, he'd figure it out. No matter who or what he might have to hurt, threaten or beg to find out the cure, Dean wouldn't hesitate for one second. He wouldn't just sit by and hope and pray for the fever to sink again.

Sam felt helpless, in the truest sense of the word. He had never felt this helpless before in his entire life.

Truth was, Sam was freaking out. Dean was always the one who seemed to know what to do, and who took charge even when he didn't. But Dean wasn't strong now, he wasn't even conscious, and the fact that he had no idea what exactly was wrong with his brother scared the crap out of Sam.

There was nothing he could do, nothing but go through the same motions that he had gone through for the past couple of hours. Check the cold compresses all over Dean's body. Soak the towels in cold water, wrap them around Dean's body again. Check his temperature again.

The fever was still way over 103.5°, Dean still showed not a single sign of awareness, and Sam was getting scared. He took the cold and wet cloth off his brother's forehead and pressed the back of his hand against this.

"Dean, please. I need you to wake up, okay? I need you to help me figure out what's wrong with you. I called everybody I could think of, and I don't know what else I'm supposed to do. So…I guess I need my big brother to do that. You even get a free shot to call me a girl for getting scared by something as simple as a fever. That's a once in a lifetime opportunity. But only if you wake up. Think you can do that for me?"

Dean didn't react, and the skin on his forehead was so hot that Sam withdrew his hand and put the cold compress back on.

He had called Caleb, Pastor Jim, Bobby and Joshua. Neither of them knew how to treat a wound caused by a daeva. They were all keeping their ears open, but Sam didn't expect an answer from either of them anytime soon. No, it was him and Dean against the rest of the world. As usual.

And as usual the rest of the world seemed hell-bent on decimating the number of living Winchesters.

But that would happen only over his dead body. Sam wasn't going to let his brother die. Not on his watch.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Fire and pain had turned into ice and pain.

He didn't know when, or why. Didn't care. Because the pain was still there, the pain was all encompassing. Fire or ice, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, because he was alone.

Sam wasn't there.

Sam had left him again, he had done something to push his little brother away, again, and the darkness he felt creeping towards him right now was the price he had to pay for that. And it was a price he was willing to pay because without Sam, it didn't much matter whether he struggled to keep in the light or allowed himself to fall into the darkness.

The way you treat your brother like luggage.

He never had. Sam wasn't luggage. Sam was the reason he kept going.

God, he was so cold.

Ice was creeping over his body, was pressing against his skin, creeping into every pore, chasing away the last remnants of warmth.

Was this what dying felt like?

Dean had no idea, but the ice was creeping up his chest now, tightening around him like an iron band.

He couldn't breathe.

He was all alone, there was ice running through his veins, and he couldn't breathe.

He had always envisioned his death in a blaze of gunfire, or jumping in front of his brother in order to save him.

Not like this.

I want us to be a family again.

He didn't want that. He needed that. Needed it like air to breathe. But he couldn't breathe, and that was probably the clearest sign that he was all alone.

Things will never be the same that they were before.

The darkness was encompassing him now, and with the certain knowledge that he was alone Dean Winchester for the first time in his life gave up the fight and embraced it.

When this is over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way.

It's over now Sammy. I hope your other life is going to make you happier.

I sure as hell tried, but it wasn't enough.

I'm sorry.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Lifting Dean's heavy limp weight on the bed earlier had been difficult.

Dragging his still unconscious, still heavy and still entirely limp brother into the bathroom was a task that strained Sam's exhausted body to the limits. But he didn't know what else to do. The calf packings and cold compresses seemed to evaporate without helping anything, and Dean's fever still hadn't gone down. On the contrary, it had started rising again, and the moment it had gone beyond that dreaded mark of 104°, the bubble of panic which Sam had suppressed for the past hours had burst.

This wasn't the time for gentle movements, or for taking care. Now it was time for drastic measures. Sam took care not to pull on the freshly stitched wound in Dean's side, but that was about all the finesse Sam could muster up as he lugged Dean's unconscious form into the bathroom.

During his earlier, careless trip to the bathroom for a refreshing shower, Sam hadn't paid any mind to it, but as he pushed open the door now he started to develop a deep seated dislike for the motel they had booked into. The king sized bed was one thing, an acceptable inconvenience. But that half-tub, the strange hybrid between a shower stall and a bathtub that had been stunted in growth, was exactly the opposite of what Sam needed now. He needed room to manoeuvre his brother around, and room was the one thing this bathroom was severely lacking.

With a grunt of effort, Sam lugged Dean over towards the tub and hoisted his brother up on the rim.

"Okay, this is probably going to hurt, but I need to get your fever down."

Hunched over the bathtub, Sam couldn't hold his brother's weight as he slid Dean's legs over the rim and tried to lower him gently into the tub. Sam strained to keep a hold on Dean, but gravity and one hundred eighty-plus pounds of unconscious brother did their work and Dean slid out of his brother's grasp. He dropped the last few inches, the side of his hip hitting the stained porcelain on the way, and only Sam's quick grab for Dean's lolling head saved him from a probably very painful collision with the tiles on the wall.

Despite the knock against his injured hip, Dean didn't so much as twitch a muscle. The fact that not even serious pain seemed to penetrate through Dean's unconsciousness, sent a burst of panic through Sam. He tore the shower head out of its fixture and turned on the cold water.

If cold compresses weren't going to work, Sam hoped and prayed that an ice cold shower was going to do the trick. Because otherwise, he had run out of options, and that was a thought he wasn't willing to accept. The only other chance he'd have left then would be to call an ambulance, and a doctor in a hospital wouldn't know the right remedy for a daeva wound either. No, if Dean was brought to a hospital, the only difference would be that Sam was going to be kept apart from his brother while the doctors tried to get his fever down.

And that was not going to happen.

Because this had to work. This was going to work.

Dean moaned as Sam directed the spray of cold water towards his head. The tub was too small, Dean was sitting in it even though his muscles weren't ready to hold his body upright, and his head was lolling away from the water. Sam quickly knelt down next to the tub and leaned towards Dean, pressing his brother's head against his shoulder with his free hand.

The cold water was soaking Sam's shirt, but he didn't even notice. His entire focus was on Dean, on getting the cold water to cool down the fever-flushed skin, to finally bring the fever down do a degree that was no longer dangerous. He didn't care that the water was soaking the fresh bandages around Dean's side, that he was getting water everywhere on the floor, that his legs were getting numb from kneeling beside the tub on the cold tile floor.

"Come on Dean. You won't let something like a fever bring you down, will you? That's not going to do your reputation any good. Brought down by a thing you can't even see? By a shadow demon? That's not the way you want to go and we both know it. I'm not going to let that happen, so you'd better wrap your stubborn head around that. You can as well wake up now."

Talking to Dean and waiting for a reaction was like hoping for a miracle. One that didn't happen – no reaction to Sam's voice was forthcoming.

Dean just hung there in the bathtub, soaking wet and shivering, his skin still flushed with fever. His head was a heavy weight on Sam's shoulder, and the only thing about this whole situation that was even remotely reassuring was the feeling of Dean's breaths brushing against Sam's neck.

Something clenched in Sam's chest as he realized that he was fighting a losing battle. The fever might have dropped a slight bit, but nowhere near enough to calm Sam any.

Choking down a sob, Sam pressed Dean's head against his shoulder and started running his hand through the short, wet hair.

"I'm not going to let you die, do you hear me?"

Over and over he ran his hand through the wet and cold hair, over the wet and cold skin of Dean's scalp.

"I'm not going to let this take you. Not here. Not now."

Sam kept Dean in the tub, kept running cold water over Dean's body until slight shivers started running through his brother's body. The fever was dangerous, it would cause severe damage if it was too high for too long. But it wouldn't do any good if Sam allowed Dean to catch pneumonia on top of everything else, either.

And if lugging Dean into the bathtub had been no small feat, lifting a wet and slippery Dean back out of the tub proved to be even more of a challenge. For one heart-stopping moment Sam lost his grip on his brother and Dean nearly dropped back into the tub, and only a hearty grip that didn't make too many concessions to Dean's injured state saved him from falling.

Sam turned off conscious thought, didn't waste any resources on anything but getting his brother back on the bed. Dean was still wet as Sam dropped him on the rumpled sheets, but the earlier marathon of cold compresses had left the sheets damp, anyway. Sam would simply move his brother over to the dry side of the bed in a few minutes.

But for now, he needed to check Dean's fever again.

And Sam could only hope and pray that it had finally gone down, because if it hadn't, he didn't know what he would do. Didn't know what was left to do.

But as Sam reached for the thermometer on the bedside table, a distressed moan made him turn immediately back towards his brother.

Just in time to see Dean starting to convulse on the bed.


Thanks a lot for reading. As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks.