[ ooc ; drabble ]
Since before I can really remember, every single day, every breath I took and every step I made, everything always counted on Dean. I needed him like oxygen, like the sun, like I couldn't exist without him. There were more than a few times Dad had to let him stay home from school because I wouldn't let let him take Dean away.
I needed him.
He raised me in more ways than one. I wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for him. And for the longest of times, I couldn't get by without him. But I never needed Dad the way I needed Dean. It was always the opposite. I needed to get away from him. And even though I always have and still do love Dean with everything I am, everyone has to grow up sometime.
I stopped needing him. And I moved away.
I left and as much as I hate to admit it, it was really the best thing I ever did. I was free. Free from Dad's training, free from hunting monsters, free from my attachment to my older brother. I didn't need him. Even after Jessica died and I started hunting again, it was great having Dean around but it was never going to be my life. I didn't feel the same gravitational pull that I did as a kid. Dean was the same as ever, taking care of me like I didn't even know how to tie my own shoelaces. Still the same jerk that he always was. And it was a damn good time.
But I didn't need him.
Then one day, I found us a job down in South Creek, Indiana. It was a pretty straight forward case: seven identical fires with seven identical victims. Each one had their left arm broken in two places and their third and fourth ribs shattered on the right side, as well as several bruises in various places. At least, that as far as they could tell from the bodies that were recovered before being burnt to a crisp.
Police didn't notice the connection but we're trained for this kind of thing. All it took was a few searches in the local library to find what we were looking for. The first fire and our likely murderer: Ricardo Thompson. He was 23 years old, lived alone in his house, and when it burned down seven years prior to the job, they never found his body. And every year since then, there's been a fire in a single man's house, and none of the victims survived even though all of the bodies were recovered. Which meant Ricardo had a mean streak and we had stop him.
It wasn't easy, and the messy state of his house didn't help at all. Neither did Dean's attitude. "Dude, this place is a dump. How the hell are we supposed to find his body in all this junk?" Ever the useful brother, Dean is. If he had actually listened to a word I'd read from the police report I snaked, he'd already know where to look. My patience with the jerk deserves a friggin' award. "Well, in all of the more recent fires, the victims were found crammed into small spaces. Closets, cupboards, behind bookshelves, things like that. My guess? Ricardo was hidden in some small area the cops couldn't find."
"Oh, fun. Hide and go seek with Casper the homicidal ghost. Maybe while we're at it, we can play Extreme Makeover and Ricky'll be so grateful he just leaves on his own." Okay, maybe my patience doesn't deserve an award. There's only so much of Dean's snark a guy can handle, okay? I sighed, "Just look, Dean. We gotta find him eventually." "Well, we better find him quick. This place gives me the creeps." That caught me off guard.
Dean was afraid. I could tell. I mean, I know the guy from the inside out; it wasn't hard to see. I just couldn't figure out why. "Dude, what's going on with you? We've been in places a thousand times creepier than this. It's just another ghost case." "Yeah, well, I don't like it. Let's just hurry up and burn the bones." That was when I realized. He was frowning, very subtly, and he wouldn't look at me, just kept flashing his light around the burnt furniture.
The fire. He was afraid of the fire. And God, how that gave me a wrenching feeling in my gut. We don't talk about Mom's death, not unless we're looking for a fight. But that night and the night Jess died, Dean pulled me out without hesitation, without looking back, even though he must've been just as terrified as I was. That sort of thing doesn't go away without leaving some sort of wound. I wanted to reach out to him, to ask him about it and try to figure out what he was thinking, but I never got the chance. Before I could even open my mouth to speak, the room went cold and Dean went flying.
We weren't alone anymore.
"Dean!" I knew I had to get to him, had to run over and get us the hell out of there as fast as possible. We had to go. But Ricardo wasn't about to let me. He materialized right between me and Dean and before I could reach for my iron knife, the entire house was on fire.
I panicked. We were separated. We weren't together, and Ricardo didn't exactly have a record of being a friendly host. Right as the thought crossed my mind, I heard Dean scream in pain. It hurt. It hurt so bad to be less than a few feet away but absolutely powerless to stop it. I needed to be over there, needed to stop Ricardo from tearing my big brother to pieces.
But Dean knew what I was thinking, and knew that the only thing I could do was finish the job, even if it was the last thing I really cared about. "Just find the bones, Sammy!" "But--" You need help. You need me. I need to get you out of here before he kills you. "Go, dammit!"
I ran. I ran so goddamn fast, even though I didn't know where to run to. I could barely even see; there was smoke everywhere and I was coughing even though I was holding a sleeve over my mouth. We were both going to burn alive, and it was my fault. It was always my fault. If I had acted faster, if I had just grabbed him like I wanted to, if I hadn't even found the damn case in the first place...
The hallway I was in was burning to pieces but I was just so fucking mad at myself that I couldn't keep moving. I wanted to be with Dean. I wanted to be protecting him from the ghost, to beating and breaking the one good thing left in my life. And the one thing I could do to help him, I didn't know how to do. I was just so mad.
I punched the wall in a fit of rage, not even thinking about how bad of an idea it is to hit a wall that's on fire, but I wasn't really thinking at all. Until I realized that my hand didn't just go into the plaster, it went through it, clear to the other side. And stuffed inside was one Ricardo Thompson. I didn't stop to think why or how; Dean's life was on the line. I tossed the entire can of gasoline inside and spread the salt as best I could, letting Ricardo's own fire light up his bones.
I didn't wait to watch it, just turned to head back to the bedroom, calling out his name. But I wasn't even sure he could hear me, my lungs were so full of smoke. It burned to breath and my eyes were watering, but it only drove me further, made me need to get to him faster. "Over here," I heard him call, but I couldn't see anything. Too much smoke, too much fire, and God was it hot. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I heard something like an explosion and recognized it as part of the bedroom collapsing.
After that, I blanked.
The room collapsed. Dean was in that room. All I could think was "This is it. Dean's gone. He saved me from those fires, saved me from the memories, the nightmares, the loneliness. But I can't save him from this. I can't.
I can't let it end like this. I need him."
Thinking about it now, it was the most illogical act of a desperate man, but I wasn't leaving that building without Dean. So I broke down what was left of the bedroom wall, sending ashes and splinters and sparks everywhere and opening a path to a room full of fire. I could just barely see Dean, crumpled on the floor not too far away, but his eyes were close. My heart froze. Time stopped. Everything just melted away.
I needed him.
He couldn't be gone, I didn't know how to accept that. I wouldn't. So I ran over to him and called out his name. When he opened his eyes and looked up at me, I could help it. I smiled. I was just so relieved, so glad that I wasn't too late. I'd already come so close to losing him, already felt the world stop spinning, but as soon as I could see he was still alive, the sun came back to my universe. It took everything I had not to cry. 'sides, he would've made fun of me if I had.
"You always grinning like that when I get my ass beat to all Hell?" I slung his arm over my shoulder, doing my best to carry his weight and keep his lungs from collapsing. I'd already felt the fear of loss once, I wasn't gonna let it become reality. "Shut up, you friggin' jerk. We need to get you to a hospital." Because I couldn't stand to lose him, not here. Not while I was still there to support him, to fight by him. We both had to make it out of there, because if didn't, then I wouldn't.
I couldn't go on without him. And as much as I wanted to believe I was an independent person since Stanford, I knew that I wasn't. That I'm not. I need him. And he needs me. We're brothers. We can't escape each other. I felt guilty for ever trying, just like I felt guilty for his being here, in this fire, broken in a million different ways. And in the same way I could tell he was scared earlier, he could tell I was beating myself up. So he said the one thing that could tell me he was okay, that he was going to make it. That we were going to get out of this together. The one thing I needed to hear most.
"Bitch."
( Part One)
I needed him.
He raised me in more ways than one. I wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for him. And for the longest of times, I couldn't get by without him. But I never needed Dad the way I needed Dean. It was always the opposite. I needed to get away from him. And even though I always have and still do love Dean with everything I am, everyone has to grow up sometime.
I stopped needing him. And I moved away.
I left and as much as I hate to admit it, it was really the best thing I ever did. I was free. Free from Dad's training, free from hunting monsters, free from my attachment to my older brother. I didn't need him. Even after Jessica died and I started hunting again, it was great having Dean around but it was never going to be my life. I didn't feel the same gravitational pull that I did as a kid. Dean was the same as ever, taking care of me like I didn't even know how to tie my own shoelaces. Still the same jerk that he always was. And it was a damn good time.
But I didn't need him.
Then one day, I found us a job down in South Creek, Indiana. It was a pretty straight forward case: seven identical fires with seven identical victims. Each one had their left arm broken in two places and their third and fourth ribs shattered on the right side, as well as several bruises in various places. At least, that as far as they could tell from the bodies that were recovered before being burnt to a crisp.
Police didn't notice the connection but we're trained for this kind of thing. All it took was a few searches in the local library to find what we were looking for. The first fire and our likely murderer: Ricardo Thompson. He was 23 years old, lived alone in his house, and when it burned down seven years prior to the job, they never found his body. And every year since then, there's been a fire in a single man's house, and none of the victims survived even though all of the bodies were recovered. Which meant Ricardo had a mean streak and we had stop him.
It wasn't easy, and the messy state of his house didn't help at all. Neither did Dean's attitude. "Dude, this place is a dump. How the hell are we supposed to find his body in all this junk?" Ever the useful brother, Dean is. If he had actually listened to a word I'd read from the police report I snaked, he'd already know where to look. My patience with the jerk deserves a friggin' award. "Well, in all of the more recent fires, the victims were found crammed into small spaces. Closets, cupboards, behind bookshelves, things like that. My guess? Ricardo was hidden in some small area the cops couldn't find."
"Oh, fun. Hide and go seek with Casper the homicidal ghost. Maybe while we're at it, we can play Extreme Makeover and Ricky'll be so grateful he just leaves on his own." Okay, maybe my patience doesn't deserve an award. There's only so much of Dean's snark a guy can handle, okay? I sighed, "Just look, Dean. We gotta find him eventually." "Well, we better find him quick. This place gives me the creeps." That caught me off guard.
Dean was afraid. I could tell. I mean, I know the guy from the inside out; it wasn't hard to see. I just couldn't figure out why. "Dude, what's going on with you? We've been in places a thousand times creepier than this. It's just another ghost case." "Yeah, well, I don't like it. Let's just hurry up and burn the bones." That was when I realized. He was frowning, very subtly, and he wouldn't look at me, just kept flashing his light around the burnt furniture.
The fire. He was afraid of the fire. And God, how that gave me a wrenching feeling in my gut. We don't talk about Mom's death, not unless we're looking for a fight. But that night and the night Jess died, Dean pulled me out without hesitation, without looking back, even though he must've been just as terrified as I was. That sort of thing doesn't go away without leaving some sort of wound. I wanted to reach out to him, to ask him about it and try to figure out what he was thinking, but I never got the chance. Before I could even open my mouth to speak, the room went cold and Dean went flying.
We weren't alone anymore.
"Dean!" I knew I had to get to him, had to run over and get us the hell out of there as fast as possible. We had to go. But Ricardo wasn't about to let me. He materialized right between me and Dean and before I could reach for my iron knife, the entire house was on fire.
I panicked. We were separated. We weren't together, and Ricardo didn't exactly have a record of being a friendly host. Right as the thought crossed my mind, I heard Dean scream in pain. It hurt. It hurt so bad to be less than a few feet away but absolutely powerless to stop it. I needed to be over there, needed to stop Ricardo from tearing my big brother to pieces.
But Dean knew what I was thinking, and knew that the only thing I could do was finish the job, even if it was the last thing I really cared about. "Just find the bones, Sammy!" "But--" You need help. You need me. I need to get you out of here before he kills you. "Go, dammit!"
I ran. I ran so goddamn fast, even though I didn't know where to run to. I could barely even see; there was smoke everywhere and I was coughing even though I was holding a sleeve over my mouth. We were both going to burn alive, and it was my fault. It was always my fault. If I had acted faster, if I had just grabbed him like I wanted to, if I hadn't even found the damn case in the first place...
The hallway I was in was burning to pieces but I was just so fucking mad at myself that I couldn't keep moving. I wanted to be with Dean. I wanted to be protecting him from the ghost, to beating and breaking the one good thing left in my life. And the one thing I could do to help him, I didn't know how to do. I was just so mad.
I punched the wall in a fit of rage, not even thinking about how bad of an idea it is to hit a wall that's on fire, but I wasn't really thinking at all. Until I realized that my hand didn't just go into the plaster, it went through it, clear to the other side. And stuffed inside was one Ricardo Thompson. I didn't stop to think why or how; Dean's life was on the line. I tossed the entire can of gasoline inside and spread the salt as best I could, letting Ricardo's own fire light up his bones.
I didn't wait to watch it, just turned to head back to the bedroom, calling out his name. But I wasn't even sure he could hear me, my lungs were so full of smoke. It burned to breath and my eyes were watering, but it only drove me further, made me need to get to him faster. "Over here," I heard him call, but I couldn't see anything. Too much smoke, too much fire, and God was it hot. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, I heard something like an explosion and recognized it as part of the bedroom collapsing.
After that, I blanked.
The room collapsed. Dean was in that room. All I could think was "This is it. Dean's gone. He saved me from those fires, saved me from the memories, the nightmares, the loneliness. But I can't save him from this. I can't.
I can't let it end like this. I need him."
Thinking about it now, it was the most illogical act of a desperate man, but I wasn't leaving that building without Dean. So I broke down what was left of the bedroom wall, sending ashes and splinters and sparks everywhere and opening a path to a room full of fire. I could just barely see Dean, crumpled on the floor not too far away, but his eyes were close. My heart froze. Time stopped. Everything just melted away.
I needed him.
He couldn't be gone, I didn't know how to accept that. I wouldn't. So I ran over to him and called out his name. When he opened his eyes and looked up at me, I could help it. I smiled. I was just so relieved, so glad that I wasn't too late. I'd already come so close to losing him, already felt the world stop spinning, but as soon as I could see he was still alive, the sun came back to my universe. It took everything I had not to cry. 'sides, he would've made fun of me if I had.
"You always grinning like that when I get my ass beat to all Hell?" I slung his arm over my shoulder, doing my best to carry his weight and keep his lungs from collapsing. I'd already felt the fear of loss once, I wasn't gonna let it become reality. "Shut up, you friggin' jerk. We need to get you to a hospital." Because I couldn't stand to lose him, not here. Not while I was still there to support him, to fight by him. We both had to make it out of there, because if didn't, then I wouldn't.
I couldn't go on without him. And as much as I wanted to believe I was an independent person since Stanford, I knew that I wasn't. That I'm not. I need him. And he needs me. We're brothers. We can't escape each other. I felt guilty for ever trying, just like I felt guilty for his being here, in this fire, broken in a million different ways. And in the same way I could tell he was scared earlier, he could tell I was beating myself up. So he said the one thing that could tell me he was okay, that he was going to make it. That we were going to get out of this together. The one thing I needed to hear most.
"Bitch."
( Part One)