Supernatural Fanfic: Twenty Questions (13/20)
Title: Twenty Questions
Author: poestheblackcat
Chapter rating: PG-13
Chapter characters/pairings: Sam, Dean
Chapter warning/spoilers: Ummm, it’s really really angsty, and seems to have more Dean’s POV in it than Sam’s. Blame my inner Dean-girl. Sorry about the angst overload, but there’s a hug, and secrets!!-come on!
Chapter summary: Takes place right after the pilot, which is another of the stories that most everyone seems to do sooner or later. Mine kind of explains how Dean was able to just barge into the room in time to rescue Sam, because the episode didn’t elaborate and I didn’t really like the deleted scenes’ explanation. Okay, theirs works, but it’s not canon if it wasn’t in the actual episode, right? So I’m off the hook for making something up?
Disclaimer: Not mine. Unfortunately. Darn you, Kripke. So, like I was saying, it’s almost my birthday…Okay, wishful thinking?
Chapter 13: Hair like the Sun Burning in My Dreams
After he’d slammed the lid of the trunk down and climbed stiffly into the passenger seat of the Impala, Sam had been oddly quiet. It was understandable, of course, since he’d just witnessed the love of his life burning up to a crisp right above him. Dean still glanced at him every few seconds, worried about the state of shock his brother seemed to be in.
The ride to the motel wasn’t a long one, but it was still quite a way from the school. There were high-end hotels near Stanford to accommodate the rich parents of the mostly privileged students who attended the university when they came by for visits, but they weren’t the Winchesters’ sort of places. The Winchesters bunked down in shady motels which were often rat-infested, never cleaned, and were nothing like Sam and Jess’ cozy little apartment.
Their apartment was where Sam had discovered that homemade chocolate-chip cookies were a million times better than the store-bought kind. It was where he had danced like a drunken fool with a nimble-footed Jess, who to him looked like the very personification of sunshine and summer. The apartment was where he had learned to love another so much that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. It was that very same apartment which was slowly getting smaller in the Impala’s rearview mirror, trailing thick black smoke up to the heavens, taking the spark of his Jessica’s life with it.
Sam and Dean drove in silence, the older brother respecting the younger’s need to not talk, and Sam lost in his thoughts and memories, until he suddenly broke the stillness. “Dean?” he whispered through cracked lips. His voice was hoarse, rough with the effects of smoke inhalation and from yelling and screaming in vain for his lost love. It shook, and he was afraid he’d never get it steady again. “Was it real? Was she really on the ceiling? Like Mom?”
Dean looked sideways at his soot-covered baby brother, pleading to him with wet eyes to tell him that it was all just a bad dream and to go back to sleep. He felt the look wrench something loose in his heart. He just hoped it wasn’t something he needed. “Sammy.” ‘God, I’m so sorry, Sammy.’
“Dean,” Sam begged, nostrils flaring with his inner pain. “Please. Just tell me that I’m not crazy.” Tears fell and cut jagged lines down the traces of the fire on his blackened cheeks. “Tell me I that what I saw…” He trailed off, his choking throat rendering him unable to finish.
Dean took a deep breath through his still-smoke-congested nose and cleared his throat. “Yeah.” He licked his dry lips before continuing, “Jess was really on the ceiling. Like…like Mom.” He swallowed the taste of ash down and grimaced.
It seemed like fire followed him around everywhere he went. First Mom, then the graveyard burnings that came with the job, then this. Jessica, the beautiful, lively blonde he had met just a couple of days before. He’d burst into the room in time to see her burning high up on the ceiling, her horrified face more like Mom’s that night than Dean cared to remember. Four years old and the image had been seared into his young brain. Now at twenty-six, the ghastly picture was all but indelible.
“She had a cut across her stomach.” Sam’s voice resumed, dead, flat.
“Yeah,” Dean agreed gruffly, wanting to close his eyes, but knowing that the burning figure would follow him into the dark. So he kept his eyes open and steady on the road.
Cut open and set on fire, just like Mom.
Her piercing scream had awakened the young boy and pulled him out of bed with a sense of foreboding deep in his gut. He’d run on quick little feet to baby Sammy’s room, from which he’d instinctively known the cry had come. He’d seen Dad frozen in horror, and following his gaze, Dean had seen…That was the last time he saw his mother.
But tonight’s death hadn’t been just like Mom’s.
Jess had been wearing a white night slip, soiled by the same red gash across the middle, and she was on fire, yellow hair spread out like wings, a burning angel. But Mom had screamed. There hadn’t been a sound from Jess. No whimper to alert Sam. No scream to bring Dean flying up. Just silence, then the sudden -whoomp- of the body catching fire.
“I couldn’t get to her. I should’ve-” Sam’s sudden wet sob dragged Dean from his thoughts. “Dean,” he cried brokenly. “You should have left me there.” His voice cracked and went high, reminiscent of his puberty days. “It’s my fault.” He keened and huddled against the cold plastic of the Impala’s interior, rocking himself. “It’s all my fault. I could’ve saved her.”
Dean dragged a hand over his face and was surprised to feel wetness touch his fingers. Tearing up was to be expected, though. He’d just run out of a burning building; the smoke must have irritated his eyes and sinuses.
He held the hand out towards his brother, feeling for the slender shoulder in the dark. “Sammy, it wasn’t your fault. Okay?”
‘It was mine. I shouldn’t have been so stubborn. I should have started up those stairs to beg you to come with me again to look for Dad earlier. I could have gotten there sooner. I’m always too late. Too late to get to Mom, too late to save Jess. Got what I want now, but not the way I wanted it.’
Dean shook his guilty thoughts away. They’d have to wait a while until he could get his baby brother calmed down. Then he’d let ‘em bombard him with guilt till the cows came home. “Don’t think for a second that I woulda left you there Sammy,” he said firmly. He’d carried Sammy out of the burning house during the first fire, and there was no way he would have left him to burn this time. Not an option. He’d been too late to save Mom and Jess, but he would never be too late to save Sammy. “Okay, Sam?” Ever.
Sam either didn’t hear him or didn’t care as he curled into a tight ball, hunched over in pain and sobbing. “Dean, hurts.” The big brother in Dean heard the childlike, “Make it go away, Dean.”
He glanced at the street sign. Still a couple more blocks to go. “Sammy.” Dean moved his hand from his brother’s shoulder to the back of the kid’s shaking neck, sticky and cold from the sweat of fear. “Just hold on,” he whispered, hoping to soothe. “We’re almost there.”
Sammy shook his head. His dark hair swung in his face and the movement let loose a new waft of the scent of fire into the air. “Motel’s not home,” he whimpered wetly, “Just wanna go home.” It ended in a small wail.
He just wanted to go back home; back to the apartment, to Jess, to his life away from the dark scary things that killed beautiful unsuspecting girls who loved to laugh. “Wanna go home.” ‘Home’s gone, Sam. You don’t have a home,’ a gruff voice sounded in his head, causing him to emit a strangled sob-laugh. ‘Get your shit together and act like a man.’ Good ol’ Dad.
Dean didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know how to make it all better, and it rankled his pride. He pulled over and parked in a no-parking zone, even though the motel sign was looming up in front of them at the corner of the next street.
“Hey, Sammy,” he said, gripping his mourning brother’s shoulders tight and putting his arms around to comfort in the only way he knew how, the big brother way. “I’m here. I’m here for ya. Okay dude?” He clasped the tense neck in one hand and rubbed circles in the still-narrow back with the other, just like he used to do when Sammy was still a little kid. “Shhh. It’s okay.”
Sam clutched desperately at the leather jacket that was once Dad’s. “Dean.” He sniffed and sighed, finally able to relax a little. He was folded into the strong familiar arms and suddenly felt a lot safer. He was home.
Dean was home. Anywhere his big brother was, he was at home. It just took four years, a college education, and a tragedy for him to realize that.
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AN: I realize that I used waaay too much imagery and flowery adjectives in this one. And neither of the brothers is portrayed in a super-good/cute way. My apologies. Hope it’s not too corny. :P
Chapter 14: Left Behind