A/N: I am really sorry it took me so long to update. I wanted to make this a two chapter story, but if I do that, it would take forever to finish the update. So hopefully you like this one, short and sweet.

Chapter II: Sam

Dean ran to his brother, who was still kneeling, bowing down, with eyes and mouth clenched in pain as his injured arm cradled the glowing one. "Sam, Sammy!" He kneeled in front of him squeezing his shoulders reassuringly. "You are ok, give it a second." The glow creeping in his brother's vein would be over in a minute, like it had before. Still, after the pain was gone, the hard part would start. Dean prayed to a god he knew didn't care, to at least give him some time to try to figure out how to fix this. How to do his job, take care of his little brother.

Sam huffed and looked up at him. "I'm ok. I'm ok now."

Dean patted his shoulder and put his other hand under his armpit to help him up. "Ok, lets get you up and take you to your bed so you can be more comfortable."

Sam shook his brother off, shaking his head as he stood up. "I'm fine, I'm good. I don't need to lay down."

Dean ignored his brother and kept his hand on Sam's arm, helping him up. "That's awesome, let's count that as a blessing and get you there before you stop feeling all that fine."

Sam shrugged his arm forward getting away from his grip, annoyed at the attention. "Dean, I am ok. I don't need your help, I don't need to lay down."

Dean shook his head. Yes, the trials were back on and so was Sam 'leave me alone' attitude. Damn!

"Sam, this will hit you, hopefully not too soon, but knowing our fantastic luck, it probably will. So, when it does, I'm not going to pick up your miniscule, slim body and carry it. So, you have two choices, either we set you up comfortably right now, or you'll lie here in the cold concrete floor surrounded by broken glass and fallen pots, your choice."

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed frustrated but started walking towards his bedroom nonetheless. Well, better a pissed off little brother that did what he told him than a stubborn one that would pass out on him in the kitchen. " Ca..!"

He started but a hand covered his mouth.

"No, Dean, don't call him."

"Sam, were you in the kitchen with me five minutes ago? Do you know what that means? The third trial, you cured a demon. Remember what happens after the third trial or did you miss school that day?" What was wrong with Sam, he didn't care? That ginormous brain had missed a sign? Had he missed anything?

Sam shoulders sagged and his eyes showed defeat. "Maybe it's for the best." He shrugged.

Dean's eyes opened wide, eyebrows shoot to the moon. What was wrong with his brother? "What?"

Sam winced at the loudness of his voice. So, there was a headache already looming in that moose head of his, a fever too, judging by the way Sam was pressing his hand against the wall for support and the beads of sweat that were accumulating in his forehead. Great, just great. Not one day. His brother and him couldn't get one day without it getting fucked up by supernatural forces.

"You can't tell me you haven't thought about it since the trials, that you haven't regretted it."

Dean's fingers clenched in a fist and the mark tingled with the repressed urge to hit something. "Regret WHAT?" He knew yelling was cruel when he could see his brother's head practically imploding in front of his eyes, but he couldn't help himself. "Asking you to stop your suicide mission?"

Sam just looked down and leaned harder against the wall.

Dean walked towards him and embraced him from the back, one hand on each shoulder to help support his brothers weight. He silently cursed at the scorching heat already irradiating from Sam's body. "Let's take you to bed."

Sam eyes were still down in shame as he nodded and let himself be guided towards the bedrooms.

Did Sam really think he ever regretted his decision of stopping the trials? That he for one second hadn't been glad his brother wasn't dead? "I never, ever, e-v-e-r, regretted it, Sam. Why would you even ask that question?" With each step, Sam seem to lose strength and sag more onto his hold. Studying his brother face he knew the reason for the decline in his health was as mental as it was physical. Dean's gut twisted and he felt like throwing up. He could fight against any monster to save his brother's life. But, if his brother didn't fight beside him, it was going to be a hell of a battle to win.

Sam stopped and finally looked at him. "Well, I did. Many times, Dean. Why am I more important than all the people that closing the gates would help?"

"Because you are!" The fist clenched again and almost went against the wall.

"Why?"

"Because I say so! And I am your big brother and I know best!" Sam had the audacity to laugh and Dean did punch the wall behind him. "If all those people want to close the gates of hell they can do it! You already trapped Lucifer in the cage for them."

Sam sighed, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the wall. He looked so tired. Dean wished he could scoop him up and tuck him in like when he was little. Everything was so much simpler then, and because your big brother said so always seemed to work. "I also set him free."

"You and me and a bunch of other idiots fooled by angels and demons that knew the whole story."

Sam voice was weak, all bite had disappeared under the thousand drops of sweat that covered his face and body. "I am the one that broke the last seal."

"And I broke the first one and how many jackasses accidentally broke the others? But you are the only one that went skinny dipping with Luci to save the world. You and our half brother! So I think the world owes our family, owes you, enough already."

"Dean..." His brother begged and the evil puppy dog, I-can-get-you-to-agree-with-anything-I-say eyes threaten to appeared. Dean had to do something to stop his brother dead in his tracks before he could convince him again that self-sacrifice was the way to go. He thought about the year without Sam, the pain in Cold Oak and rooted his feelings on that to give himself ammunition to fight against anything his brother could say.

He helped his brother back up and continue pushing him towards the bedrooms. "You are tired, you had enough of this crap, I get that man, but that's not the solution. You are sick and you are not thinking straight, you need to rest and I need Cas to come help us."

"Dean," he tried again but Dean was not letting him say anything and was definitely not looking at those eyes. His stare trained on his bedroom goal, he had a lifetime of experience dealing with Sam and he wasn't going to let him win this one.

"Cas, get your skinny ass here, NOW, or I swear to god we are never talking to you again!" Nothing happened for couple of minutes as he hoisted Sam into his bedroom. "Cas!" He yelled with all the anger the mark added to his normally sunny disposition.

His cell phone rang, and he took it from his pocket with one hand while he leaned Sam against the doorframe of his bedroom from support. "Cas?"

"Dean, I heard your urgent call, but my grace...I am driving back. I'll be there in ten minutes, unless you need me to pull from my limited resources to get there faster."

"No, come straight to Sam's room. We are going to need as much angel juice as you can spare, so use as little as possible to get here."

"What is going on Dean? Is everything ok with Sam?"

"No," he could feel his voice breaking, but he didn't care. It might even help his case with Sam and Cas. "He's dying Cas."

Sam- Dean- Cas- Sam- Dean- Cas- Sam- Dean- Cas-

"The gates are closed, no more demons to deal with, Dean. You can go have a life." Sam said weakly trying to sit up in his bed after his brother had explained Cas what happened.

Dean pushed him back down and opened the bottle of Tylenol in his hand. "You are the one that always wanted to have a life outside from hunting, not me, Sam. I just wanted my brother beside me, remember?"

Sam sighed, but let himself be pushed down to a laying position. "Dean…"

He offered four tablets to his brother who dry swallowed them as he spoke. "You said we had to show those son of a bitches that we are no one's puppets and now you are letting a nosy angel fuck you into completing the third trial?"

Sam just used his default bitch face, apparently too tired to come up with a witty response.

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. How could his brother be taking all this so zen? Then, something occurred to him and he looked at Cas. "But how is it possible? I said those words after the first trial and nothing happened, Sam had to say them for it to work."

Cas had sat down after hearing the news and was staring at Sam with pity eyes that Dean wanted to smitten. Sam needed no pity. Sam needed action and the freaking angel to save him! But Cas was not at full force and he knew it was unfair to take it on him. "Most likely because the words have to be said by the person undergoing the trials or a guardian angel."

Dean raised his eyebrows and walked towards the sink in the room. Water wasn't going to heal Sam in any way, but at least he would feel he was helping somehow. " A guardian angel did this, seriously?"

Cas shrugged. "Based on your recount, it's what would make more sense."

Dean shook his head in disbelief as he filled the glass beside the sink with water. "A guardian angel? Seriously?"

From his lying position in bed, Sam closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, his face scrunched into an ugly grimace. "We've met Archangels, Serafines, Horsemen, Reapers, Cupids and you are surprised there are guardian angels with the amount of lore about them?"

He walked back towards the bed as he spoke. "Well, if you have a guardian angel, where the hell has he been all this time?" Sam took the glass he offered and drank it as if he hadn't had a drink in a month. "How did he let you go through all that fucking crap that happen to you?"

He gave the glass back to Dean who went back for more water. "Where has yours been?"

"Good point, he deserves to be punched too." He supplied Sam with more water and then turned to Cas "So Sam's guardian angel...How come we never met him? Or mine? Why are they such douches and never helped us? A hand would have been nice once or... a hundred times."

Cas shook his head and walked towards the bed, sitting at the foot of it. "Not Sam's guardian angel, just a guardian angel." Dean wondered if the angel was searching for proximity to Sam and hated one more time the sad look on his friend's face. Sad meant defeat and he would take none of that. "It's not a one to one ratio, more like a ten million to one and there is no exclusivity all guardian angels monitor practically all human beings and can represent any one of them."

"Represent? Like a lawyer? That's what happened? One of the guardian angels was representing me?" Sam opened his eyes and tried to raise his head to have a better view of the angel.

Cas nodded and moved an inch closer to the ailing man. "Guardian angels monitor humans. They are sort of an equivalent of what a legal guardian would be on earth. They can intercede for people in front to the lord. So, a guardian angel, any guardian angel as long as he had been monitoring Sam, could speak on his behalf on any celestial matter. And that's more likely what happened. "

"So let me get this straight" Dean paced, because, what else was there to do? He wanted to go punch angels, but he needed more information. "Any guardian angel can go and sell any bullshit about anyone and God will just take it at face value? No questions asked, whatever they say goes?"

"Guardian angels are incapable of lying."

Dean huffed without stopping his pacing. "Well, that didn't stop them from screwing us over, did it? So there is no way we can know who did this."

Cas placed a hand on Sam's leg, and his brother who had had his eyes closed opened them, startled.
"I would say knowing who to blame is not as important right now as trying to reverse the spell or find a way to keep Sam alive."

"I'm ok," Sam said, but his voice sounded weak and just wrong. Dean couldn't exactly say why, but he knew he wasn't buying what his brother was selling.

"No, you are not, Sam," The angel confirmed Dean's suspicions, "You are deteriorating fast and in ways I wouldn't be able to heal even if I had my grace intact." He looked at Dean with the same sadness he had learnt to hate in the past half hour. "At this rate, I don't think he'll survive another day."

A/N: Reviews are appreciated