Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing and never will as I am totally in Kripke's debt for the loan of his boys…

A/N: This was my very first attempt at fanfiction. It is complete, so I'll post as time allows. Why, you may well ask, am I posting this here and now? (As it was posted elsewhere, then)… This is in answer to Mad Server's query as to where I got a certain nickname… I leave it up to all of you to determine what I am Queen of by the time we get to the end of this little "bridge."

Spoilers for Asylum and Scarecrow acts as a bridge between Asylum and Faith…

Warning: I've been told this is a particularly gruesome chapter. I wouldn't recommend reading this while eating…

The Actual Lancing Never Feels Good

Sam took a deep breath. This was really not how he had pictured spending the evening – slicing and dicing his brother's back. But the damn abscesses had to be lanced, drained and disinfected.

Sam wasn't sure where to begin. He could begin with the lancing or with the open sores that obviously contained some part of the old wooden door. While trying to make his decision, he moved the scalpel from the boiling water where it was being sterilized to the shallow container filled with alcohol to complete the sterilization process.

He decided that he had better deal with the pus-filled abscesses first. It wouldn't do for pus to drain into the other wounds if he'd already dealt with them.

"Uh – Dude?"

"What, Dean?"

"You planning on doing this anytime soon? Cuz, seriously dude, if you're gonna take much longer, I'd rather be taking a nap about now." Dean was barely staying upright as he straddled the chair. His head was more or less hanging down; his breathing was as shallow as he could make it to spare his ribs. He'd pretty much decided that he'd underestimated how damaged they were. Yeah, at least one was either broken or just really badly cracked. How the hell were cracked and broken different anyway?

"Just coming up with a plan of attack, Dean. Think you could stay a little more, ah, stationary for me?"

Dean was swaying slightly on the chair. His eyes were half closed and his eyelashes brushed his cheeks more frequently and for longer periods of time. He really was on the verge of falling asleep – or passing out was more like it, Sam thought. Sam also noticed that Dean wasn't sweating quite so much, though he was also still wracked by chills periodically. Crap! Sam thought – it was better for a fever to sweat.

"Ok. I think I better take care of the abscesses and the pus first," Sam explained.

"Way too much information, Sam." Dean gagged slightly but managed to avoid throwing up. So not going there, Dean thought. Ribs, back, and chest chorus were totally against revisiting hurley-town. "Just get it done." Dean's knuckles grew white as he gripped the chair back in anticipation.

Sam carefully drew the scalpel through the skin covering one of the abscesses. It burst with a soft pop and pus flowed down Dean's back. Both Sam and Dean gagged.

Ok. Dean thought. Stings a bit – understatement! - but pretty manageable –shit, shit, shit!! Sam was "gently" squeezing the pus and fluids from the wound. More than stings –

"Sonuvabitch, Sam!!" Dean swayed sideways somewhat precariously. Ok. If that's as bad as it gets, I got it, Dean thought, but when Sam inserted the tweezers into the hole to begin extracting the wood in the wound, Dean managed one strangled cry and slumped forward into the back of the chair. Unfortunately, that meant his chest wounds connected forcefully with the chair.

"OOOWWW!" Dean flung himself backwards into Sam, the wounds on his back connecting forcefully with Sam. Another strangled cry and Dean went limp in Sam's arms. Under different circumstances, this whole ping-pong thing would have been funny.

"Well," Sam sighed, "That went well." God, Dean's sarcasm was totally catching….

"Dean? Dean. Dean!" Sam gently insisted that Dean make his way back to the land of the living – no doubt Dean would make a crack about the living dead.

Dean groaned and his eyes slowly blinked open – well, mostly open.

"Dean? Think you can sit up by yourself for a minute? I've got an idea."

"Dude. I've been sitting up on my own for over two decades. I got it." Dean was still swaying precariously. Sam left one hand on his brother's shoulder to help steady him. Damn. Sam cursed softly. The fever was going nowhere, except maybe up. Sam snagged a pillow off the bed and jammed it between his brother and the back of the chair. Damn it. Why hadn't he thought of this in the first place.

"Ok, Dean. Just lean into the pillow…" Dean slumped forward. His lips were parted slightly and his eyes were drooping shut. Just pass out already, Sam thought, silently willing his brother some relief from the pain. But, no. Dean could never do anything the easy way, right? More like he just never caught a break.

Sam pursed his lips and frowned slightly. He sighed and went back to work extracting the wood from his brother's back. Dean hissed and growled as Sam worked, but by pressing himself into the pillow, he managed to stay upright and reasonably still.

"Got it!" Sam cried as he withdrew a large piece of what used to be a door. It was hard to tell who was more relieved – Sam or Dean. Sam immediately went to work on the next abscess. A small, tight smile grazed his lips as he faintly detected his brother humming Metallica. He decided he would do all the lancing and extracting, then use the alcohol and hydrogen peroxide to irrigate the wounds, then cauterize the wounds that were largest and had been most infected, and finally apply the antibiotic cream. It was going to be a long night.

When Sam got to the third abscess, he knew he was going to do more than just gag. Luckily Sam had brought the waste basket over before he started so that he could discard used pieces of gauze. Little did he realize that he'd be discarding his last meal too.

Dean groaned when he heard Sam start throwing up. Oh, Sammy, didja havta…. He felt the saliva flood into his mouth, and barely got out, "Move over!" before he joined his brother over the basket, their heads close together to avoid missing the target. Both boys were panting slightly, and spit in unison before weakly returning to upright positions.

"Dude, there are just some things that I don't want to do as a family."

"Hey, I was there first!"

"Whatever. Are you gonna be ok, Sammy?"

Trust Dean to worry about me losing my lunch when he looks like he went about twelve rounds with a psychotic wendigo with an anger management problem. Sam sighed. "Yeah Dean. I'll be fine. You ready for me to keep going?"

"Ready as I ever will be." Dean pressed his chest back into the pillow. "How many are left?"

"Um, well, four more are abscessed and then there are about six splinters." Sam mirrored Dean's grimace even though he couldn't see his brother's.

"Sam?"

"Yeah, Dean?"

"Maybe you should get the extra trash can from the bathroom. I don't think I can do the twist an lunge again…"

"Sure."

Sam retrieved the other bin and placed it so that Dean could easily reach it if he needed to. Frankly, Sam couldn't imagine that Dean had anything left to bring up. Certainly, the damn ibuprophen would now be gone. He'd give Dean some more as soon as he was done.

Sam worked as quickly as he could to remove all of the splinters. The pain was probably the only thing keeping Dean from passing out completely – That's ironic, Sam thought.

Both boys made use of their baskets again. As soon as Sam was finished extracting the splinters, he quickly grabbed the baskets and rinsed them in the washroom. He didn't want the smell setting them off again.

Sam then carefully cleansed the wounds with the alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. He concentrated on the wounds with the hydrogen peroxide and they hissed and foamed white – not unlike Dean's hiss of pain and pale face… Sam took the opportunity to wipe Dean's entire back down with the alcohol. Sam thought that would have the added bonus of helping to reduce Dean's fever as well.

"Dean?"

"Hmmm?"

"How are you doing? How's the head?"

"S'k, Sammy." Dean's words were slightly slurred, and Sam knew this was not a good sign. Dean was also shuddering periodically, but he was no longer sweating at all. Sam rummaged quickly in the first aid kit and finally found the thermometer. He stuck it in Dean's ear.

Unfortunately, Dean didn't see it coming…

"Sonuvabitch!" Dean almost fell off the chair and was definitely more alert.

"Sorry. Need your temperature." Sam waited impatiently and watched as Dean slumped closer to unconsciousness. Finally, the damn thermometer beeped.

"Shit."

"How high?"

"102.9"

"Told you I was hot shit, Sam…"

"You should have been a stand up, Dude. Oh wait, I forgot; you can't stand up at the moment."

"Could if I wanted to."

"Sure, Dean, keep thinking that. Are you ready for the next part?"

"What if I say no?" Dean's voice dropped to almost a whisper and the smile fell out of it.

"You know I gotta do this. We have to stop the infection, and we don't have any antibiotics." Sam's voice was strained. He sooo did not want to do what he knew he had to do next. If lancing the abscesses was painful, this would be excruciating.

Shit! This life was just so screwed up. Normal people could just go to the hospital. Hell. Normal people didn't end up with splinters in their backs because they'd been blown through a door by a chest full of rock salt blasted their by their brother. Rambling. Get it together Sam. Dean needs you.

"Sam? Think you could maybe step out and grab a bottle of Jack before you get started?"

"Can't do it, Dean. Head wound, remember?"

"Shit. Ok. Let's just get it done." Dean was barely keeping his eyes open and his breathing was shallow. He was barely managing to stay in the chair. He was doing his best to keep the mask in place to spare Sam, but it was getting harder and harder to hold it together.

Sam held the scalpel over the zippo, heating it up. His hands were shaking badly. He'd never had to do this; he'd seen Dean do it to their father once and he'd seen Dad do it to Dean twice. All three times they'd been caught far from help with no immediate access to antibiotics and a raging infection staring them in the face. The heated blade should seal the wound and kill the infection. Killing the infection should bring the fever down. But Sam didn't know if he could do it.

"Dean?" Sam's voice shook slightly.

"S'ok, Sammy. You gotta do it. I'll be ok. It only hurts for a minute," Dean murmured the reassurance to Sam.

Liar, he thought to himself. You know it's gonna hurt like a sonuvabitch and for a lot longer than a freakin minute. God, I hope I can keep it together – this is gonna kill the poor kid…..

Sam drew in a deep breath and drew the heated scalpel through the hole left by the first abscess. Dean screamed and slumped forward unconscious – finally and thankfully. The room was filled with the smell of burning flesh. Sam dove for his basket, surprised that there could be anything left. As quickly as he could, Sam re-disinfected the blade and held it back over the flame.

Shit! He wasn't fast enough. Dean began to regain consciousness before Sam was ready to tackle the second abscess. They repeated the process – Dean screamed and passed out. Sam managed not to hurl and had the blade reheated before Dean woke up. He drew the blade through wound number three. Dean woke up and screamed.

What the hell! Sam thought.

And so it went. Dean awake, passed out. Dean passed out, woke up. Finally, it was done. Dean was on an out cycle as Sam finished by slathering antibiotic cream over all the wounds. Dean didn't even wake up as Sam took his temperature. 103. Well, could be worse. It was up, but not by much. Dean seemed to be fairly stationary, so Sam tidied up some of the garbage and emptied the barfing basket as he'd lovingly christened it. Then he took a facecloth and dampened it with cold water and alcohol and wiped Dean's face down with it.

"Dean? Hey man, you with me?" Sam bent and leant in close to his brother's face. He had a steadying hand on his shoulder to try to guide him gently back to consciousness.

"Mmm. Wh' time is it?" Dean wasn't really quite awake yet.

"Dean? Let's try to get you to the bed. Do you think you could drink some water and take some ibuprophen now?" Sam's voice was quiet but insistent.

"Yeah." Dean felt like he was under water or buried alive. He could barely focus on Sam's voice, pulling him up out of the darkness. As he regained consciousness, he suddenly realized why he didn't want to and inhaled sharply.

Goddamit! When was he going to stop doing that? Such a bad idea! Breathing bad. Ribs hurt. Chest hurt. And now the chorus had been joined by a staccato knife wielding section in his back. So not cool. He did manage to choke down three ibuprophen – he hoped they would stick around a little longer than the last set – and a couple sips of water.

"Dean? Let's try for the bed."

Right. Trying to focus here Sammy. Dean was pretty sure he was still thinking in complete sentences, but not much was making it out of his mouth. The thing that always worried Sam the most was when his brother went quiet. Dean didn't do quiet.

Sam clasped Dean under the arms as gently as he could and Dean tried his best to help Sam by straightening his legs and willing his body to go in the direction he was indicating. Dean slumped on the bed, eyelashes brushing his cheeks, eyes barely open.

"Ok, Dean. How about you lie on your left side? That way, I can clean up your chest and wrists and you can just go to sleep for a bit if you like."

"Yeah. 'K." Dean was more or less already asleep Sam concluded and pushed his brother down on the bed. Sam quickly and efficiently cleaned the wounds on his brother's chest and wrists and then covered the wounds with the antibiotic cream. He lightly wrapped Dean's wrists, but there wasn't an easy way to cover the wounds on his chest.

It was Sam's turn for the breath to hitch painfully in his chest. It hurt every time he looked at Dean's chest. And Dean looked so young when he slept. His cheeks were unnaturally rosy as were his slightly parted full lips. He'd long since stopped humming and was breathing shallowly but evenly.

Sam gently eased the sheets and blankets up over his brother's prone form tenting them slightly so they didn't touch either his back or chest. That would serve the dual purpose of keeping his brother warm and his accusing chest covered. Sam rinsed out the towel with more cold water and soaked it with alcohol. Pretty much the last of the alcohol. He'd have to slip out for more.

Returning to the bed, Sam once again bathed Dean's face. He stirred and muttered but didn't wake up. Sam then stuck the thermometer back in Dean's ear and waited for it to beep. Dean still didn't wake. 103.1. Shit. Still a slow and steady rise. That was it. Sam knew where he could get help, and damn it, he was getting it.

Sam slipped out the motel door to use his cell. He'd probable catch hell from Dean. Sam could never figure out why Dean was so set on never asking anybody for help. And he hated it when anybody found out he wasn't invincible. Yeah, Dude, because really, everyone so seriously believed that one. Well, Sam thought, not everyone, but maybe I believe it. Or at least, I want to believe it…

Sam sighed and dialed his cell phone.

"Hi. It's Sam. Dean and I ran into a little trouble, and I was wondering if I could ask you for a favour…."

A/N: This chapter should give away the nickname… If you are trying to guess who is on the other end of the phone, remember when this is set…

Two more chapter to go….