Rating: PG-15
Word Count: 1,800
Inspiration: "Forest Fire" - Brighton
Warning: Sam's mind is a rabbit-hole.
Spoilers: S1 is tossed around, but no real spoilers unless you are completely clueless about SPN prologue.

Disclaimer: I own neither SPN or Forest Fire. It has been a few years for me and this is unbeta'd so please pardon the mess.

Sam remembers Dean screaming as a child.

He couldn't hear it, his older brother was always kept the noise from escaping but he could feel it. Laying in bed next to him as they were growing up, the vibrations rippled with the sheets, over his skin causing the hair to rise before settling with an ache deep in his bones. It didn't happen often, rarely in fact, but those were the nights when Sam felt the weight has his father has placed on the tiny, underdeveloped shoulders of Dean. All he could do was reach over and grasp his brother's hands, one of Dean's with both of his and hope it was enough to keep them both together.

Occasionally, hidden in the dark and away from the eyes of their dad, Sam would ask what frighten Dean. Enough to wake them both, which anything that scared his other brother was enough to terrified him, and after a moment or two of silence he would look over at Sam with those green eyes, beautiful forest green, that looked as though they should belong to a body centuries older than they should and only whisper a few words.

"Flames everywhere Sammy."

In those eyes, he knew as well as his own when they reflected in a mirror, he would see the past even though he was too young to remember it for himself.

God knows his father talked enough about it, a mantra to his vendetta against the monsters and evil of the world.

Sam wondered as he grew older if it was just against the whole world instead.

At the time, fire for him was something to respected. They burned bodies to purify them and rid the world of the evils that they inflicted on the world. With all weapons it was to be respected, but as Sam watched after hunt after hunt as it would consume, he couldn't help but wonder what is was his brother feared. What he could catch flickering glimpses of in Dean's eyes pyre after pyre.

As he aged into his teens and more rebellious, waging a silent war against his father and subconsciously and regretfully Dean, Sam was less forgiving and understanding of the ghosts of their childhood that haunted his older brother. As he begin to withdraw away from both of them, the nightmares that were rare seemingly vanished from his memories.

It was only later that he discovered, late one night years later only after Dean got him, forcefully guilt-tripped him, to look for their dad that Dean discovered the power of blackout drinking, more often than not the younger man used a bottle of Jack to replace the touch of Sam late in the night when the demons in his mind overpowered the steadfast determination asked for, demanded by their dad.

Hindsight is 50/50 and now looking back, Sam realized that it really shouldn't have taken an Intro to Psych course and lecture on dependence to recognize just how much Dean lost that night when Yellow-Eyes came in a set fire to everything he knew.

His mother's life, far too young to have to remember his mom pinned to the ceiling like a tragic butterfly in a collector's case.

His dad's affection, after that night their dad wasn't raising children but training soldiers for his war.

And it would seem eventually his brother's presence, the one person he loved and needed without reservation would eventually cast him off like an outgrown child's toy.

Sam may be the one that demon was hunting, but Dean was the one that was cursed.

Cursed to live without a mother, father and eventually a brother. With home dressed as an Impala, a bottle of Jack and one night-stands for comfort, and just enough to hope to try and make the world a better place on case at a time. Yes, hope.

Sam used to think it was rage, revenge and anger that drove his brother across the country and back again. But instead it was something he couldn't comprehend until months after rejoining Dean, at first he was full of revenge for Jess and a fool's confidence but it was only after he watched Dean hand a child back to their parents and the look in someone's eyes to learned they would no longer have to pain for the sins of another did he realize what it was that drove his brother on.

Why his brother shunned and ridiculed what others viewed as normal, the wife, kids and white picket fence. God forbid, the minivan.

How Dean could wander around from coast to coast without getting lost, creating a home in every hotel room and town, city, and state. Remembering back, Sam may have never had a house growing up, but he was never without a home. And all of that was thanks to Dean.

But, this hope came at a cost.

His dad raised a survivor in Dean, no trained.

He could disassemble and reassemble any gun placed in front of him, sometimes blindfolded. Same with any car Sam had run across, though he is sure Bobby had something to due with that one.

He could plan and execute plans and strategy on par with a military general.

And when that didn't work he could con, weedle and manipulate with charisma dictators would envy.

With those green eyes, full lips and face that would give a magazine cover model self-doubt, his looks alone had gotten in out of and into more trouble than Sam could count.

And perhaps the most reinforced and important lesson was how to keep going when all hope seemed lost, to continue fighting for people when the most important ones in your life leave. To see the best in people when the ones your hold the most in esteem only seem to show your their worse.

And above all else, look after Sammy. Growing up, Sam always knew he was the center of his brother's world and he relished it. It was only as he got older did he come to resent it. His brother could sense him, didn't matter when or where he was and even when he was across the country at college he could feel his brother's presence.

Dean didn't need a compass or map, all roads lead to Sam.

That took a strength that Sam foolishly thought their father had taught them both, but it seems that Dean was the only one who took the time to learn it, or maybe it was just part of Dean all along. Subconscious, like twirling his ring when he was thinking or biting the corner of bottom lip when nervous.

And perhaps Sam was guilty of assuming that this strength he associated with Dean was untouchable, something he both equally admired and envied about his brother. Looking back, he was ashamed to didn't see it sooner and instead, like everyone else, took Dean at face value.

Getting back into the rhythm of hunting with Dean was something that Sam never thought he would feel comfortable doing. This life, the one that he had fought so hard to get away from, was something he assumed would only be temporary. But as the months past, he started to see the cracks in the perfect soldier his dad had tried so hard to condition. The drinking, womanizing and brushing off all attempted to hide those late nights curled up on the same mattress as Sam tried in his innocence to hold his brother together, hands clutched desperately together.

But those flames that haunted Dean growing up, Sam thought that he could understand after the terror and horror of seeing Jess pinned to the ceiling. But the image of those flames only set fire to one room of the structure that was was him, but Dean.

Dean was the entire structure.

It was only as he crouched over the body of his brother did he see these flames, the fires of Hell that danced around him. Licking his skin and burning, matched only by the anguish of realizing that while the pain of losing of Jess was painful, this was agony. Staring at Dean or what the hellhounds had left of him, not really Dean his brother was burning in Hell for HIM, Sam was understanding for the first time what Dean saw in those nightmares all those years and what he felt again watching Sam die right in front of him.

In his arms feeling the life leave him, grabbing at it as it slipped through his fingers as easily as ash.

This blaze consumed Sam, an inferno which raged through the foundations of his being and razed it to the ground. And as Sam sat in the smoldering ruins of everything he knew, he couldn't comprehend the strength it took in Dean to just get off the ground and continue on. He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to even get off his knees and move away from Dean, Dean's corpse.

His corpse, dead body.

Growing colder, and colder… Sam was sure his own body was dropping the match.

But those flames, burning his skin and roaring in this ears.

Sam always like to think that he rose above the life that he was raised in, he had the strength to leave and make something of himself. But as he crouched the in the dirt he was starting to see the that is wasn't strength allowed him to leave, but in some way cowardice. He didn't want the pain of the world his dad raised him in, to be where he sat now watching those he loved, love always love, leave him. To face the possibility of having the live his life knowing with certainty his family was gone.

But Dean, he knew and understood what this life meant as was able to carry on. Being a Hunter, predator to some and savior to others.

He sacrificed.

But maybe this was his way of showing he didn't have the strength to continue on when all hope, Sammy his Sammy, being lost. But now, Sam was understanding that while he maybe not have ever had a house, he was kneeling by the burned wreckage of his home.

Dean was dead, and all he was left with was the bare bones the structure. And even with Dean's spirit ripped away and cast away, it was haunted and no amount of pyres would ever take that away.

But Sam was understanding that for the first time he would rather be haunted than for nothing. Absolutely nothing. So here he would stay, crouched and silently screaming into the night. Desperately clutching at his brother's hand, praying for this nightmare of flames to end.

"Flames Sammy, everywhere flames…"