AS: Thanks for the response guys! Gonna be another one after this if you want.

FLASHBACK

"We're lost,"

Sam looked over his shoulder at his brother and frowned, "What?"
"We're lost,"
Sam gaped, letting the angle of his gun drop a little so he could turn and see Dean better.

"Dean, what the hell are you talking about? You said you knew where you were going,"
Dean rolled his eyes and flapped his arms, "Well I thought I did, sorry! I mean…I mean I do know where I am it's just…it just looks a little different than it did before,"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Look," Dean stabbed a finger against a plaque into the curved wall of the underground sewer system. It was thick with grease and almost unreadable but they could make out the small name at the bottom: Bridge's Corner.

"We're at Bridge's Corner. But this is the place I found yesterday with the graffiti. And when I came here yesterday, this place with the graffiti was called Eason Bridge,"

"So, what…we're lost completely?"

Dean bit his lip and took a few moments taking in the signs, "I think so,"

The water splashed up about their shins, ankles and knees, but Sam didn't care. He trudged on, keeping his gun and torch high above the water and his eyes fixed straight ahead.

"I don't believe you Dean,"
"I'm sorry man, but this place has changed since last time I got down here-"
"So, what-" Sam snapped, turning on his heel and getting very close to Dean's face, "These tens of year old abandoned underground systems just changed over night?"
Dean paused, a slight bemused and exasperated expression on his face, "Well…yeah,"
Sam took a moment to glare at Dean then curled a lip and started to march back off down the tunnel.

"Sam wait!"
Dean had to hurdle through the water as he jogged to keep up with Sam, "Ugh I don't even want to think what's in this water,"
"It's just muddy water," Sam said through his teeth, "These aren't the sewers we're in now, these are the old tunnels to get to the sewers. There was probably a flood,"
"Yeah but still," Dean grumbled, curling his nose as something dark and shapeless floated on the water's surface close to his shin, "It's nasty,"

"Maybe if we weren't lost we could be back in the car by now,"
"Don't start Sammy. Look I told you, I'm sorry, and this place has somehow changed since then,"

Sam stubbed his foot against something sharp and metal under the water and crashed into the water.

"Ah!"
"You alright?"

Sam looked down at himself and growled under his breath. He was soaked with water from his midriff down, and when he stood back up his slender body streamed water downwards back into the pool. Everything stuck to him like a cold, dirty new skin.

"Fine, just…keep going,"

They came up out of the water and tripped up onto relatively dry brick, "That was disgusting," Dean sighed, looking down at his pant legs that were practically soaked, "I bet I get some strange waterborne disease now,"
Sam took the moment of Dean's occupation to look down at his foot. Whatever the sharp bit of what he hit was, it had done him some damage. There were streaks of watery blood on the top of his shoes and he could feel the sting of a cut when he lifted his pant legs and the air washed over his ankle.

"Sam! Sam come look at this,"

He covered up the cut and jogged after Dean.

"What?"
Dean had a boyish grin on his face and a smug smile to his lips, "Look what I found,"

Sam leant over the edge of the drop they were stood on the lip of, down into the deep pit of darkness. Through the black candles flickered and caught the curling corners of anciently carved bowls and small statues.

This was the place they'd been looking for.

"It's its altar," Sam breathed, a mixture of amazement and pleasure on his face at the idea of this thing, "It's been using this for hundreds and hundreds of years and…and it's still intact,"
Dean let out a loud laugh, "If we hadn't killed the evil nasty thing yesterday, I'd be worried about jumping down there,"
He let a smirk roll on his face and caught Sam's eyes out of the corner of his own, "Wouldn't you?"

Sam steadied himself, knowing what was coming next.

"Maybe. But now-"
"But now…he's gone,"
The two brothers looked down into the darkness and judged the fall. Dean thought about jumping for a moment but decided taking a bit more time to tease his brother should be in order, "You know if you need a ladder or something Sam I saw one a couple of hundred metres back. If you're scared to jump or whatever-"

Sam lowered his centre of gravity and jumped forward into the dark. "Whoa," Dean yelled, taken off guard and stumbling after him.

Sam landed a little more gracefully than Dean did, but they both made it into the pit. Dean's torchlight caught Sam's face, "That wasn't funny,"
"Oh yeah," Sam smirked, "It was,"

Dean harrumphed and stalked over to the altar to sulk. He ran a hand over some of the ornaments decorating the black stone altar.

"This stuff is hundreds of years old," he said, with a shake of his head. He touched the corner of a square cup, "This looks like Zoroastrian or something. Pretty creepy stuff. Come on Sam, lets smash this thing up,"

He took a step back and waited for a response.

"Sam?...Sam,"

Dean swung his torchlight around the pit, "Sam? Sammy!"

END FLASHBACK

Dean jerked awake at eleven that same morning. He blinked, staring down at what he'd been resting his head on. The white sheets of Sam's bed looked blankly back up at him.

"What?"

He peered up through the gloom the curtains over the windows created at where his arm rested on Sam's shoulder, the cloth he'd been using earlier slumped against the pillow. It had sent a halo of cold water into the material and Dean winced guilty. Dean stood up creakily and shook the kinks and creases out of himself. Sam was fast asleep still, and Dean let out a sigh of relief when he felt Sam's temperature had gone down.

"Why's my pillow all wet?"

Maybe Sam wasn't as asleep as Dean had thought. Sam eked open his slightly less injured eye and the slit of dark looking up at Dean might as well have been someone else's pair of big brown eyes considering it's intensity.

"I dropped the cloth on it,"
"Let me guess. You fell asleep,"
Dean tried to look hurt, "Sammy. Would I fall asleep on my watch? No. And anyway, why the hell didn't you wake up, it's your birthday,"

Sam coughed dryly and nodded, although didn't make any attempt to get up, "Yeah. I know. Where's my presents?"

"Right here,"

Dean lifted up the one Sam had been halfway through opening and handed it over.

"Thanks,"

Sam lifted himself up, bracing himself against the light and the cold of the room. He picked up where he had left unwrapping, and eventually managed to dig around inside the box. He gripped the thing inside and lifted it up and out.

"Wow. Cool. Thanks Dean,"
Dean let his grin come out when Sam wasn't watching, and snaffled a doughnut from the box he'd brought earlier that morning to keep it down. He chomped on a mouthful as Sam carefully inspected his first birthday present. It was a dark, thickly-bound notebook, generously big and with clean lined paper inside. There were plastic wallets stuck onto the inside of both the front and back pages, the kind you got in journals and notebooks quite a lot, that made sliding things in and out easy.

"You're always moaning we never keep all of the stuff we gather. I know you tried starting something up on the laptop but it looked crap. So I thought you could do your own Dad-journal…uh…thing," Dean said, through his mouthful. He swallowed heavily and went to hunt out his coffee.

"Wow, Dean…this is great. Thanks," Sam said with a smile in his face and one plastered on his face, although he kept his head down and his eyes on the notebook because of it. He secretly loved presents of any kind, but he'd been planning to get himself a journal a bit like his Dad's for a while now, and Dean was right; he'd been ticked off the pair of them hadn't kept the info they accumulated anywhere safe. He leafed all the way through to the back page and realised that the back wallet had something inside it. Sam slid it out and caught it in the light to get a better look at it.

"Dean…where'd you get this from?"

Dean grinned proudly and took his position back up on Sam's bed, "You know when we went back home that time, and got that big box of photos back? Well we didn't realise this for a while but a couple fell out of the box in the car and got caught under the seats, so we never got to see them. I hadn't seen that one in years. I doubt you ever have. Thought you might want it,"

Sam couldn't help but grin at the picture. Captured by the camera was himself as a four year old, plonked down on Dean's knees on a bare wooden floor. He recognised it as Pastor Jim's old place. The camera was tilted a little so it caught the figure stood over Dean and Sam's beaming faces; their dad, stood next to the empty fireplace with a book in his hands. There was a stocking put at a jaunty angle just along the mantelpiece from where John Winchester stood, and Sam was waving a piece of holly in the air with all of his little white teeth showing, wriggling in Dean's hold around his waist. John's face was caught with the sort of smirk/smile that Sam saw on Dean's face a lot of the day. Amused, slightly conservative, but something else shining through nonetheless.

Sam turned it over and written on the back was 'For Festive Cheer – Christmas 1987' in what he was presumed was Pastor Jim's handwriting. Sam laughed, unable to stop himself.

"I don't remember this at all,"
"Well you were only four,"

Sam looked up at his brother pulling a face at his cold coffee and laughed even harder, "This is…great. Thanks Dean,"

Dean swallowed the cold coffee with a 'eck' sound and pointed to the bedside table.

"Alright open the other one now, lets get this over with,"

"No,"
"What?"
"No. I'm gonna wait. Got to space your presents out when you've only for a couple. I'll do one this afternoon,"

Dean paused, "Uh…alright then. Whatever you say,"

"But, you know…thank you Dean. It's really great,"
"Yeah well you'd better get started on it 'cos we need some administrative help,"

"I got something jammed up in my eye,"
Sam grumbled, as Dean stuffed the wrapping paper from the first present into the bin and snatched up the phone to get pizza delivered for Sam's nutricious birthday dinner.

"Well don't poke at it then," Dean sighed, as if he were talking to a child. He ordered dinner then sat down on the end of Sam's bed, next to the lump in the covers where Sam had his most badly injured ankle up on a pillow. Sam rubbed tentatively at the corner of his eye again.

"Sam, stop it,"
"It hurts,"
"No excuse. Sam…you're like looking after a toddler. Here let me see it,"

Sam shied backwards, batting Dean's hand away. Dean paused, then scoffed, "Alright, I'm not gonna touch it. Just let me see it. God you're like a child,"
Sam scowled and sullenly let Dean take a look.

"Ugh. Sam, I think you cut your eye,"
"Are you sure?"
Dean reached around before Sam could react and took the back of his hair in a grip, pulling his head forward.

"Ah! Get off!"
"I need to see what is it!"
"You're not touching my eye!"
"Girl,"

Dean leaned forward a little more and saw what it was that was bothering Sam.

"Nasty. I think you got a cut in the corner of your eye and it's gone under your eyelid. It's all swollen up on your eyeball,"

Sam twitched, "That's disgusting," Sam said, paling. Knowing what a fear Sam had of eyes and eye-related injuries (experience of when Sam once got something caught in his eye and howled like anything when him and his Dad tried to get it out) Dean didn't make a huge deal out of it.

"It's alright, just leave it and it'll go down,"

Sam gently touched his eyelid then forcibly prised himself out of Dean's hold. He fell back against the headboard and let a coughing fit rattle his chest for a moment or two.

"Go to sleep if you want Sammy,"
"Maybe,"

Dean went about tidying up, lost his own thoughts, and Sam let his eyes lower gently. He was tired, he had to admit. He ran his fingers along the edge of the notebook on his lap, and smiled a little when he thought about the picture. Sam gently opened up the first page and rubbed a corner page. He'd get it tattered up a bit and it'd look just like his Dad's. Dean began to whistle, albeit a little tunelessly, and Sam found himself into a padded, comfy state before sleep. He took a firmer grip on the top of the notebook and eased back into sleep.

Dean cast a look over his shoulder once he was sure his brother was asleep and smirked. His younger brother looked about twelve, his hair mussed up and shaggy from exhaustion and being unwashed. Unfortunately, he still could have looked like his twelve year old self even with the dried blood on his temple, the bruise on his collarbone and the rest of his injuries. The huge tear up the back of Sam's hand twitched as his skin did.

If he could keep his brother safe from injury for more than a week, he'd be a very happy guy. But, also, some kind of miracle worker.

FLASHBACK

"Sam! Sam!"

Dean splashed through the puddles and the muddy water and his adrenaline made his skin twitch. Where was his brother. Where was Sam.

"Sam! Sammy!"
"Dean,"

Dean whipped around, torchlight clenched in his fist. Whatever had just hissed his name sure as hell wasn't Sam.