Our Love Become a Funeral Pyre
The emergency personnel called it a miracle. A fire that hot should have burned down the building. Hell, maybe the whole block. But it stayed isolated to the ceiling and walls of one room-Sam and Jessica’s bedroom.
Thanks to Dean’s insistent heroism, Sam escaped the apartment without a single burn. His clothing wasn’t even singed. His lungs, however, weren’t so lucky. Despite the paramedic’s warnings, Sam refused a trip to the hospital. He felt awful enough, however, to endure an oxygen mask strapped to his face for half an hour while he lay supine on a gurney near the ambulance. Dean, all the while, paced nearby like a mother lion protecting her cub.
After Sam signed a form to be released from further care against medical advice, Dean herded him to the Impala and away from the prying eyes of spectators, and-more importantly-the police. His brother, who only moments before was gung-ho to jump in the car and go find their father and avenge Jessica’s murder, had gone nearly catatonic with shock and grief. Dean took Sam to a quiet motel on the city limits.
Later that night in their motel, Sam started to cough incessantly. He spat thick grey blood-tinged mucus into the sink. Dean was terrified, so he called in a favor. Luckily, their father had a hunter-friendly doctor acquaintance in the Bay area. Dean drove his blanket-wrapped sibling across town to Drake Dodson’s home. There, Drake ushered the brothers into his office.
“You should probably be in a hospital bed, son,” Dr. Dodson rubbed Sam’s shoulder empathetically as he listened to his lungs with a stethoscope. “But I get it… I do.”
“You got anything to help him, Doc?” Dean asked from a nearby chair.
Drake nodded. “I’m thinking codeine syrup for a couple days. It’ll keep him comfortable and quiet the cough. I want him taking a course of antibiotics, as a precaution. Smoke inhalation can leave the lungs open to all kinds of infection. I’m going to send a portable oxygen tank along with you two, just in case you feel you need it.” He took a couple of bottles out of the cabinet behind him, then turned to Sam and continued. “Take two or three long, hot showers a day and let the steam work on those lungs. It’ll help get the gunk out. You think you might need some valium? A little something to take the edge off?”
Sam spoke for the first time in the doctor’s presence. “I appreciate the offer, Drake. But right now, I need that edge.” His voice was sounded like he’d been gargling glass.
Drake nodded. “You’ve got my number if anything-and I mean anything-comes up. I want you resting in bed for a few days, Sam. No excuses.”
“I’ll see to it, Doc,” Dean assured him, shaking his hand.
~ * ~ * ~
The codeine delivered relief, as promised. Stoned Sam was a lot easier to deal with for Dean than guilty revenge-driven Sam. While Sam recuperated, Dean continued to contact their father. A local paper announces that Jessica, a Palo Alto native, was to be buried in three days time.
Sam insisted on attending Jessica’s funeral. His guilt over her death forced him to keep a more-than-respectable distance from the rest of those grieving. Besides, he was so far gone on the medication that he wasn’t even sure he could offer his condolences.
Dean easily identified Jessica’s family among the mourners-beautiful, well-dressed blonde folks, faces etched with pain. There were so many tears in Sam’s eyes that Dean doubted he could see anyone’s face.
The service was mercifully brief, but well-attended. At its conclusion, the minister extended an invitation for those in attendance to join the Moore family at their home for “food and fellowship.” Dean took that as their invitation to exit. Their packed bags were in the trunk and Dean was itching to put Palo Alto in his rear view mirror.
First, however, he wanted a little food and fellowship of his own. He took Sam to the diner they’d discovered near their hotel for what Dean affectionately called “Cheeseburger & Pie Therapy.” Sam’s therapy, however, involved very little food and a lot more codeine.
At the end of the meal, Sam raised his eyes to meet Dean’s. “I want to go back.”
“Back?” Dean responded around a forkful of peach pie.
“Back to the apartment. Our apartment. I-I just need to see it one more time before we go.”
Dean pauses to reflect a moment, swallowed, then nodded in affirmation. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes. Then I’m comin’ in after you.”
~ * ~ * ~
Sam expected the apartment to smell like smoke. But all he smells is her-vanilla, fabric softener, and Love’s Baby Soft perfume-an affectation of her high school days that never went away. There was little left of Jessica’s personal belongings in the apartment. Someone had come by and taken things. Her family, perhaps.
A kitschy coffee table they had picked out together at a nearby yard sale finally brought him to tears. He sank to the living room floor against the wall and wept. It didn’t last long, however, as he heard footsteps in the next room. Quickly, Sam wiped his eyes. Dammit, Dean, you promised me 15 minutes, he thought angrily.
He rose to his feet and turned towards the source of the sound. “I’m just about done, Dean-” a jolting pain in his temple accompanied by a loud thock knocked him backwards and he found himself slowing sinking back to his original position against the wall. His ears were ringing and his sight blurry, but he quickly surmised one thing...
There was a strange man in his apartment! No, not strange. Sam recognized him from photographs. It was Jason, Jessica’s older brother. And he was holding a baseball bat.
“J-Jason?” he raised both hands in an I-come-in-peace gesture. “Stop! It’s me. It’s Sam!”
“I know who you are, Sam Winchester,” Jason’s voice was devoid of any emotion but malice. “You’re the boyfriend. The boyfriend who left my sister to burn to death while you got off scot-free!” He swung the bat again, this time connecting with Sam’s left forearm.
Sam gasped in pain and pulled the injured limb tightly against his chest. “That’s not what happened,” he tried to defend himself. “I did everything I could! I-I loved her, Jason. I wanted a life with her!” He shakily got to his feet, balancing himself dizzily against the door frame with his good hand.
Jessica had been tall. 5’11”, to be precise, and her big brother’s height rivaled Sam’s. An avid jock in college, Jason was no slouch. Sam was in no condition to take him on. Still, when the enraged blonde swung the bat again with a force strong enough to splinter the wood on the door frame, Sam managed to take a quick step out of the line of fire.
“I don’t want to fight you, Jason,” Sam tried to placate him. “I can’t imagine the pain you’re feeling right now. Jess was my life. I was going to ask her to-oof!“ Sam never got to finish, as Jason chose that moment to toss the bat aside and tackle him. Sam’s head hit the thinly-carpeted floor of the bedroom with a dull thud and his vision greyed out momentarily.
Sam teetered on the edge of awareness and was dimly aware of the weight of Jason being lifted up and away from him. Once he was able to draw in a full breath, he felt his consciousness returning. His joy was short-lived as that deep breath set off a fit of chest-rattling coughs.
Dean, meanwhile, true to his word, had come upstairs to the apartment at the 15-minute mark to find Sam being pummeled verbally and physically. He didn’t hesitate to wrestle Jason away from Sam and catch him in a headlock. “Take a good long look at him,” Dean hissed in Jason’s ear. “And listen to that cough. He’s been sleeping with an oxygen mask on every night for a week. He’s got blisters on the insides of his lungs. If I hadn’t dragged him out of this room, he would have stayed here and died trying to save your sister!”
Jason, beginning to succumb to the pressure Dean was putting on his carotid, began tapping weakly at Dean’s forearm. Dean released him in disgust. “You don’t know as much as you think you know,” Dean informed Sam’s red-faced assailant. “I’m letting you off easy because I feel bad about your sister. She was a sweet girl, and she meant the world to Sammy. You understand what I’m saying?”
Jason meekly nodded, getting to his feet. The blonde paused, then extended a hand to help Sam to a standing position. Once he was sure Sam was steady on his feet, Jason nodded once, then left without another word.
“You’re right, you know,” Sam said softly, breaking the silence.
“How’s that?” Dean raised his eyebrow.
“I probably would have. Died, I mean. You always seem to show up just in time to save me,” Sam extended a hand and clasped Dean’s upper arm warmly. He winced at a sudden wave of pain in his .
“You’re just gonna have to accept that about me, Sammy,” Dean patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll always be there to save you, little brother.”
Suppressing the urge to cry, or-God forbid-hug Dean, Sam looked away, suddenly fascinated with the pattern of the bedspread.
“I found us a hunt, Sammy,” Dean told him, ending the awkward Hallmark moment. “Blackwater Ridge, Colorado. You game?”
“Yeah,” Sam told him without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m game. We’ve got work to do.”
The End
Original Prompt (by rainyrocket): Sam and Dean stayed a week in Stanford after Jessica died, or so Dean said in "Wendigo," I would like to see (yes show, see!) Jessica's parents (or other family members of hers) meeting up with Sam, maybe accidentally in the burn-out apartment, asking him about what happened, why wasn't he hurt etc. ... maybe the situation gets a bit out of hand, and Dean tells them to let Sammy alone, yes, Dean should be in it ;) ... I never read something like that and really would like to see it.