Previously appeared in Road Trip with my Brother 8 (2008), from Agent With Style
Burned Alive
K Hanna Korossy
Dean Winchester piled a heap of onions onto his burger, considered it a moment, then added a few more rings. Wasn't like he had plans to kiss anyone in the next few hours, unfortunately, and if Sam minded it in the close quarters of the car, too bad. It would get him back for that hummus stuff he'd accidentally left under the seat to grow a fuzzy grey skin. They'd had to ride with the windows down for the next two days after that fiasco.
A squirt of ketchup and mustard and, satisfied, Dean squished the top bun down and headed back to the booth where only Sam's shoulders were visible, head bent low over the newspapers they were scouring. Two days after their last hunt ended in a messy but satisfying kill, and still no strong possibility for their next job. Add to that being laid up a lot recently due to injury and illness, and Dean was starting to get antsy.
"Anything?" he asked as he sat on the bench seat across from Sam, trying to read the small-print obits upside-down.
Sam sighed, pulling newspapers away from in front of Dean without a glance up. "Death by cats?" he said without much hope.
The burger stopped halfway to Dean's mouth. "Cats?"
Sam's newly shorter hair—he'd taken advantage of the lull by seeking out a barber—shook. "Never mind. It's just a lady with about twenty cats who was found dead in her house, but there were no signs of foul play and she was 87."
"Probably smothered by all the cat hair," Dean snorted, and took a big bite of the burger.
Sam finally looked up at him, and his mouth twitched at Dean's expression. "Good?"
Dean gave him a serious look. "The Godfather's good, Sam. Lynyrd Skynyrd's good. This," he nodded at the burger, "is a masterpiece."
The fledgling smile grew. "A Monet, huh?"
"Hmm?"
"Never mind. So, can I have a bite of your masterpiece?"
Dean momentarily waffled. Sam had gotten skinnier since Dean had first shown up at Stanford, enough to concern him, and he alternately bullied and coddled his brother's tastes and limited appetite whenever possible. But there was also such a thing as moderation, especially when it came to his food. Dean shrugged away Sam's half-hearted reach. "Get your own, bro."
Sam actually laughed at that. "Last week you almost let a momo take a bite out of you to keep it from getting to me, and today you won't share your five-dollar burger? I don't think I like this trend, Dean."
Dean shrugged pleasantly. "If a momo attacks and you need the burger as a distraction, I'll think about it."
"That's really…touching." Sam nodded. "I'll remember that next time you're trying to steal my fries." He bent over the newspapers again, folding away the obituaries with a sigh and scanning the rest of the news. "You know, that house in Durrance that was flooded in the middle of the desert is starting to look better and better. I know nobody died there, but…"
Dean frowned as he chewed, not so much at the unfinished sentence as at the way Sam's face had altered, something dark and unhappy sweeping away the humor of a moment before. Dean swallowed his bite. "What?"
Sam's jaw shifted, and he looked off to the side as he turned the newspaper to face Dean.
It didn't take much to see what had grabbed his attention. " 'Fire Kills Family of Four,' " read the headline in the middle of the page, and Dean put his half-eaten burger down as he kept reading. " 'A fire swept through a small split-level home yesterday, killing George and Tamara Saunders and their two sons, ages 5 years and 6 months, as they slept. Investigators believe the fire started in the wiring of the nursery ceiling—' " He jarred to a stop and looked up at Sam, who was watching him now. "Nursery ceiling."
"Family of four, two boys," Sam said quietly.
Dean took a breath, wiped his mouth. "Could be. Or it could be another of the thousands of accidental electrical fires that happen every year."
"Dean—"
"I'm not saying we shouldn't check it out, Sam, I'm just saying…don't get your hopes up. This might not be what we're looking for."
His brother's smile came back, twisted and mirthless this time. "I wouldn't exactly call that hope."
"Yeah." Dean took a breath, looking regretfully at the no longer nearly as appetizing burger. "Yoknapatawpha County—that's not far from here. We can make it by nightfall."
Sam nodded and gathered the newspapers.
Dean took another bite of his burger, looking his brother up and down as he chewed. This was what they were really looking for in between jobs where they hoped to run into their father: the thing that had killed their mother and Jess. A lead this promising was a good thing.
So why did he—and apparently Sam, too—have such a bad feeling about this?
Dean didn't even taste the last few bites, eating out of habit because you never knew when you'd need the quick energy. Then he slid out of the booth, tossing his trash, and followed his brother's impatient tread and sloped shoulders out the door and back to the car.
00000
Sam watched the miles pass dispassionately. Sometimes he didn't care which one of them drove, sometimes he preferred to be in the driver's seat, but this time he was glad to be shotgun. Nightmares continued to dog his sleep, leaving him chronically tired, and his mind was even more distracted than usual now.
Nursery ceiling fire. Two kids and their parents dead. It could so easily have been them.
Their dad had rarely talked about it, either about that night or the fact that he hadn't been in time to save his wife. It had taken one inebriated evening's ramblings for Sam to realize John Winchester blamed himself for even more, though. If his wife hadn't screamed as her last living act, the fire would have consumed his sons, possibly even John, while he slept. He'd not only been unable to save her, she had actually saved him and their children. It was a hard thing for a man, a soldier, to swallow.
But for whatever reason, the Saunders' hadn't had even that chance. There would be no vowed vengeance, no kids being raised as soldiers or a father undone by grief. The whole family had been wiped out, and the Winchesters were left again to bear witness and find justice.
Sam sighed, dipped his head moodily against the window. Dean kept encouraging him to move on after Jess, but every time he tried to edge past the worst of the grief, something would bring it all back again.
Dean reached over to turn down whatever was screaming out of the speakers this time; Sam hadn't been hearing it as anything but noise. "You okay?" he asked with a sidelong glance at Sam.
"No," he said candidly, and left it at that. He knew where they were going was eating at his brother, too.
Dean considered the response. "It could just be a natural fire, Sammy."
After he'd stopped nursing his bruised feelings—and ego—those first few days following Dean's return, Sammy had quickly gone from irritating to endearing. It was one of the few things Dean said without any sarcasm whatsoever. That, and his dozen different versions, spoken and unspoken, of You okay? and I'm here and I care about you. Sam almost smiled, sighed, and shifted in his seat. "Yeah, I know."
They were passing through another small town, and Sam idly found himself counting street signs like he had as a kid. Dean's quiet, "Just a minute," barely stirred the memories.
The Impala pulled to the side of the road, against a shop-lined sidewalk. Sam sat up and watched with amusement as Dean approached a table set up in front of a small market, manned by a pair of serious, pig-tailed girls in uniforms. There was a moment of negotiation, payment, then Dean walked back with two boxes in hand. He climbed again into the car, tossing one colorful box into Sam's lap and already tearing into the other.
"Girl Scout cookies?" Sam asked, eyebrow rising.
"You still like them, don't you?" Dean asked. He crunched a Thin Mint with enthusiasm.
"Yeah, but…" But Dean had remembered his favorite, and Sam's stomach rumbled with interest at the sight of the chocolate-striped Samoas. "I just didn't picture you as the Girl Scout cookie-buying type."
"What? Seriously? Why not? I like cookies." Another glance at Sam in between pulling back out onto the road, followed by a very Dean grin. "And I like Girl Scouts."
Sam shut his eyes and shook his head. "Never mind." He checked out the box again, and found the place to open it. The cookies were slightly soft from being out in the sun, but still broke with a sweet snap between his teeth. It was actually the best thing he'd tasted in a while. "Thanks," Sam said sincerely, if belatedly.
Dean just nodded. Anything more would have broken the moment. Besides, his mouth was full of cookie.
Sam smiled and ate another. He still felt tired, still hated where they were going. But sometimes the world didn't seem quite as dark.
00000
They didn't have an address on the house, and it seemed a waste to pull out one of their aliases for a simple fact like a street name and number. The town was another drive-through one, only a few square miles, and so they just idled up and down streets, comparing backgrounds in the newspaper picture, sidewalks, trees. The burned and boarded-up shell in the middle of Oak Grove Street was the clincher, and Dean slowed the Impala while they studied the scene.
It had once been a residential two-story much like the house in Kansas, good neighborhood, quiet street. A young boy's bike lay on its side in the strip of grass between the driveway and the fence. Dean would have bet money there was a swing set in the back, maybe a sandbox. He'd had a fort, too, but then, John had always been good with his hands.
"Witnesses first?" he asked after a minute, when it didn't seem Sam would say anything.
Sam nodded.
They parked at the end of the block; no sense in people connecting them to the car should anyone ask later. Besides, their clothes were obstacle enough in people believing they were from the local branch of the FBI. Everyone watched TV, and expected suits and ties.
But aside from the local police—and in a small town like this, most residents already knew all the local police personally—it was the only branch he could sell as investigating a suspicious house fire. Sam didn't argue, just stood behind his brother looking earnest and letting Dean do the talking as usual.
Most people liked to talk.
They visited five houses: the two that flanked the burned home, and the three across the street from them. It was getting close to evening and four of them had someone home, all four of whom were willing to talk. No, they hadn't seen or heard anything unusual until the fire was at full steam. No, nothing unusual about the family, either. They'd seemed nice, boys were cute, even if the older didn't always stay out of people's gardens on that bike of his. The father had been proud of the new baby, bringing him around after he was born to show him off. The firemen said the guy had been found in the kids' nursery, probably trying to save his sons.
Dean glanced over at Sam, saw his brother's face reflect Dean's internal wince.
They left the last house drained, and stood for a minute again in front of the remains of a once-happy family. The only thing that was keeping Dean from real depression was feeling his brother's, and he finally glanced over at Sam's sober profile. "We'll come back tomorrow." Rest, and morning's light, wouldn't help much, but it would make it a little easier.
Sam just nodded, and they returned in silence to the Impala.
There, however, a mutual sudden reluctance about climbing into the car seemed to hit them both. Sam laced his hands together on the hood, while Dean just hovered at his own door, watching him. Sam's eyes tracked back to the burned house, and Dean's followed.
"They never even had a chance, Dean."
He nodded slowly. "I know."
Sam chewed his lip. "You think we should call Dad?"
Dean carefully shunted aside the traitorous Like he'd answer that his mind instantly spat out, and instead shook his head. "Not 'til we know something for sure."
Sam sighed, hands bouncing a few times before he pulled them apart and circled back to Dean's side of the Impala. Dean gave up on the thought of leaving and leaned against the door, Sam joining him, their shoulders brushing. "The dad was in the nursery."
"Nobody knows where mom was," Dean noted.
"Maybe this thing just throws whatever gets in its way up onto the ceiling," Sam conjectured.
"Maybe," Dean allowed. "Or maybe this isn't one of ours."
Sam looked off into the distance. "I don't even know if I want it to be or not," he finally said after a minute.
Dean shrugged. "It is what it is, Sam. We'll check it out, make sure before we go."
Sam's eyes met his for a long moment, and Dean had the increasingly less unnerving feeling that his brother saw all the way into him. It had been a long time since anyone had. Over three years, to be exact. John and Cassie, for all Dean had loved them, hadn't even tried. "At least they were together," Sam finally said.
Dean huffed a mirthless laugh. "Not the blaze of glory I pictured, Sammy." A beat, then Dean nudged his brother gently with one shoulder. "Let's go find something to eat. I'm starving."
"You had half a box of cookies," Sam said dryly.
"What's with the non sequiturs?" Dean asked as he opened his door.
Sam was already getting in on the other side. "What's with the acting dumb when you use words like 'non sequitur'?"
"Keeps you on your toes, Sammy."
Sam's rejoinder left Dean grinning and thinking maybe there was hope for them yet.
00000
Dinner was chicken-fried steak, sweet tea, and peach pie at the one diner in town, then they checked out the library before it closed. Sam worked on hacking into the fire marshal and police reports on the fire, thanking God yet again for a dormmate the first year who had verged on the illegal in his computer skills and had been more than happy to teach Sam what he knew. Sam had preferred not to think that he was in some way preparing for a return to life on the road.
Dean, meanwhile, had wandered off to seek out any local news about the fire. Sam had a suspicion that meant going to flirt with the thirty-something timid librarian they'd seen on the way in, but they both had their techniques. Dean surprised him by returning with something first, not only the local gossip, but also two regional newspaper clippings.
"Dad was a high school teacher, mom was a stay-at-home. Money was tight but they seemed happy. Nothing unusual about them." Dean shrugged. "But it's not like we've got a lot to compare them to."
True. Sam had wondered sometimes if they were the only family to be targeted by this…whatever it was, but nothing in their mom's or Jess's deaths had suggested any kind of history or tendency for a supernatural attack besides both being affiliated with Winchesters. For all they knew, the thing went for blondes. He snorted mirthlessly. "Did you find a picture?"
Dean held out one of the articles. Nope, mom was a brunette. Sam exhaled slowly. "I'm almost into the records—just give me a few more minutes."
"I'll give you all the time you want, but the library closes in ten."
Sam nodded distractedly. Almost…there. He brought up the page, read it in silence, shifting slightly to one side as he felt Dean lean against his shoulder.
There was no official fire ruling yet—it was way too early—but the notes were pretty unequivocal. Accidental…wiring…typical burn pattern…death from smoke inhalation and heat damage. Sam briefly closed his eyes. "Heat damage" was a nice way of saying the kids had died from fire, not smoke. The bodies were too burned for the autopsies to reveal much, but no evidence of foul play or other injury had been found.
"Well, that's a great big fat inconclusive," Dean summed it up behind him.
Sam nodded unhappy agreement. A turn of the virtual page, and they both grimaced at a scale sketch of where the bodies had been found. The kids had never left their beds, and dad was on the floor between them. Mom was on the bedroom floor, probably also trying to go for help or her children. Sam silently pointed her out.
"Yeah, but dad could've been up on the ceiling. Where he is, he might've fallen with the roof."
"Or," Sam drawled, "this isn't one of ours."
"Devil's advocate, Sammy?" Dean asked whimsically. "Make up your mind."
"I don't know, Dean. I don't want it to be the thing that killed Mom and Jess, but it doesn't just feel like a random house fire, does it? I mean, talk about meaningless deaths."
Dean snorted softly. "Yeah, that's a first in our line of work."
Sam's eyes stung. He was not having this conversation, not now. "I didn't ask to be in this line of work, remember?" he said bitterly and clambered to his feet, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. He dropped the laptop on the library table, ignoring Dean's squawk of displeasure, and stalked out.
The winter air was mild, but it dried the incipient tears and cooled his flushed face. This wasn't Dean's fault. The thing after their family had been the one to declare war on them and to drag Sam back into the fray. Dean had just been trying to cushion his way since, and hide how glad he was to have Sam back. In less angry moments, Sam felt for him, even understood him. But there hadn't been a lot of those.
God, he missed Jess.
Dean's presence at his back was more a dawning awareness than a sudden appearance. The older Winchester didn't say anything, didn't touch, just waited. Always waiting on Sam, and Sam suddenly gave a wet laugh. He'd gone from the burden of being responsible for Jess, to the equal one of someone always feeling responsible for him. But that wasn't Dean's fault, either, and truth be told, it felt really good to be loved unconditionally like that. He hadn't had that even with Jess, and he'd missed it, missed Dean, more than he'd realized. Sometimes Sam was sure his brother was all that kept him sane. He took a deep breath, looked to one side so that Dean was in the edge of his vision. "I'm sorry," he said mutedly.
Dean's forgiveness was always freely and silently given. This time it was just a shove of the laptop satchel at Sam and a deceptively light, "You wanna go waste a few defenseless bottles and cans?"
Sam didn't usually work out his aggressions by shooting something, but pulling a trigger and seeing stuff shatter actually sounded pretty good just then. "Yeah," he said.
A clap on the shoulder—Dean had already moved on from forgiveness to approval—and they went back to the car to go fix broken spirits and hearts the Winchester way.
00000
Dean woke in surprise to sunlight.
One of the dubious joys of getting the bed by the door was that he was usually the one nearest the window and got a faceful of early morning sun. But recently he'd been waking far more often to dead-of-night darkness and the sound of Sam's nocturnal grief.
Dean frowned sleepily at the window, and turned his head.
Sam was sitting up against the headboard, still clad only in his sleepwear of t-shirt and shorts, reading. Dean yawned, rubbed some of the sleep from his eyes into the pillow, and asked thickly, "How long've you been up?"
Sam shrugged. "Couple of chapters?"
That didn't sound too bad. He didn't look as worn-out as the night before, at least. Dean rolled over on his back with a grunt, still feeling odd twinges from the previous few jobs. "Nightmare?" he asked reluctantly. He usually woke to them, tuned to Sam since he was four like mothers supposedly were to new babies. But sometimes Sam woke in silence and stayed that way, not wanting to bother him. Didn't quite get the whole big-brother concept that little brothers with problems weren't a bother, but Dean was working on that.
"Nope," and Sam actually smiled at him a little, "Agatha Christie. You should try her."
"Clever." Dean's tone was desert-dry. "Answer the question, Seinfeld."
Sam's jaw hardened. "No. You?"
He took that to mean no nightmares, not a refusal to answer. "Slept like a baby," Dean said, and rose fluidly, reaching for his discarded t-shirt. A baby with dark, vague dreams that weren't quite nightmares but weren't happy, either. This case had stirred up more than Dean had expected. He pulled the shirt over his head, and tossed Sam a look between folds of clothing. "If we're going through the house this morning, we're getting pancakes first."
Sam didn't argue, just rose and followed his lead.
Fortified with a big breakfast, a good part of which Sam even ate, and two cups of coffee, they went back out to Oak Grove. Dean parked the Impala around the corner this time—again with the not drawing attention—and they walked back to the burnt shell of the house, then around back.
"Don't forget," Dean warned Sam as together they pried loose a half-collapsed door. "Floors in these places are thinner than wet cardboard. Make sure anyplace you step is reinforced."
Sam's voice dripped with rebellious condescension. "I know, Dean."
"Just checking. Don't wanna be hauling you out of the basement with a broken leg."
"Hey, didn't you once—"
Dean cut in quickly, "Are we going in or are you gonna stand here yapping all day?"
He heard the smile this time. "I'm ready."
For a fire that had taken four lives, it had spared a lot of the house. The kitchen they stepped into seemed to have sustained more water damage than fire, although soot streaked the walls and burnt timbers had fallen through the ceiling. Sam and Dean crept around them with care, then into the living room.
Same thing. The front door was boarded up, probably broken down by the firemen, and the heat had melted light fixtures and vinyl furniture into slag. Books on upper shelves were charred, and the ceiling and upper walls were black. But parts of the room had escaped almost entirely intact, including a now-still grandfather clock by the front door and a mantel full of pictures. Dean deliberately didn't look at them, but felt Sam's pause as he studied faces. That was his Sam, always ready to bear witness and remember, even if it hurt. He spoke softly, not unkindly. "Dude, quit sightseeing."
His brother snorted but didn't take it wrong. Dean hurried on through the room, and Sam soon caught up with him.
They inched carefully up blackened and broken steps, staying near the wall. The damage was much worse upstairs, barely any of the yellow-and-white wallpaper in the hallway still visible. Pictures crunched underfoot in shattered frames.
Dean had memorized the fire marshal's sketch and turned unerringly toward the nursery, Sam trailing silently in his wake.
They saw all kinds of graves and monuments in their job, but some of them still sobered.
Little remained of the room to show what it had once been. A few bits of burned and sludgy toys, the melted remains of some sort of big truck. The skeleton of a crib was still recognizable, and Dean steeled himself to creep along the wall until he could see into it. Just toasted bedding.
His gaze immediately turned upward, and he realized Sam had already beat him to gazing at the ceiling. For a moment, Dean pictured their mom up there, bleeding and trapped, and swallowed the sudden chunk in his throat, his eyes burning. But besides being black and broken, streaks of heavy burn radiating outward to show where the fire had started, there was nothing to say how it had started or if a body had been up there or not. Dean's eyes fell to the floor, to the space cleared of twisted wreckage, but any blood was long gone. The fire had devoured the evidence of its history just as it had the family.
"Dean." Sam's quiet voice was a shock in the muffled air. "You know more about this stuff than I do, but I don't see anything here."
He exhaled slowly and deliberately, glancing around one last time for any final clues. "Yeah, me neither," Dean finally admitted. He stepped back, retracing his path, waiting until Sam also backed out into the hallway before following him out. Only then was Dean in a position to look his brother in the eye again. "This could've been anything, Sam—it's too far gone to tell."
"The fire started on the nursery ceiling, Dean, the baby was the same age I was…"
"Yeah, and there are, what, hundreds of fires in the US every day? It could be a coincidence. And it's nowhere near November." Dean tilted his head, trying to persuade them both. It didn't feel solely like a house fire to him, either, but then, what did? Every fire was déjà vu to standing on a front lawn in Kansas, holding his baby brother close and watching the flames consume his life. He'd tried to convince them both it would be okay then, too.
Sam chewed on his lip. "We haven't talked to the family yet."
Dean frowned. "What family? They're all—"
"George Saunders has a brother and sister-in-law in town. One of the reports mentioned it."
Dean stared hard at him, not sure whether he liked Research Sam. Not that he hadn't always been the family academic, but there was such a thing as too much sometimes, of getting too into a job. Sam had never shared that trait so much with their dad until Jess had died.
In a fire. Of which Sam was the sole survivor. Sam, who now wanted to go talk to surviving members of a family destroyed by fire. Yeah, it was something they would do on a normal hunt, but this wasn't a normal hunt. Was Dean the only one who saw this connection and didn't like it?
Not to mention that he wasn't enjoying this all that much, either.
"Sammy," he waffled, "I don't know…"
"Dean, we have to treat this like any other job. You know that." Sam was starting to get into his excitable puppy mode, all energy to Dean's stillness, hands moving animatedly, passion in his eyes. Dean had gotten his wish: his brother had thrown himself into the family business. And Dean wasn't crazy about what he saw.
"Yeah, but this isn't like any other job, you know that. We wouldn't even be here if the article hadn't mentioned where the fire had started."
"Sometimes it only takes one lead."
And, yeah, those were John Winchester's words being thrown back at him. Score one for Sam. Dean looked at him unhappily. "I'm gonna have to tie you down to keep you from going, aren't I."
Sam blinked. "No, I…No. If you don't want to go, I'll drop it." But he wouldn't like it. It would gnaw at him, Dean could already tell, and that meant Sam would gnaw at him, either in words or with those freakishly expressive eyes. There was just no big-brother win this time.
Dean sighed. "Yeah, okay. But if we don't get anything from them, we file this one under weird coincidences and move on—I think I found something last night in Toledo. All right?"
"Yeah." Sam nodded without hesitation.
"And we're going out for beer after," Dean tacked on while he still had the upper hand. They'd probably be in need of the alcohol by then.
Sam rolled his eyes but his mouth quirked. "All right."
"You're buying first round."
"Man, would you just go!"
Dean grinned and led the way back downstairs and out, but inside he was wincing. He knew this was a bad idea and wasn't going to go well; no one in the Winchester extended family would have been any help with their fire, either. But sometimes you just didn't have a choice.
Story of his life.
00000
It hadn't gone well.
Sam's leg bounced idly against the car floorboard as Dean drove them back in silence to the motel. His brother had spared Sam the I told you so, but he could still feel it in the air. Talking to family was always hard, but talking to people who'd lost loved ones—a brother—in a fire…Sam hadn't been ready for that.
His fingers tapped on his knee, then twisted in the denim. It was a little hard to breathe in the car, and Sam cracked the window.
They'd been handling the sister-in-law all right, learning a little about the normal family that had met such a sudden, abnormal death. Dean had let him take the lead because while the elder Winchester was better with the covers and stories, Sam dealt with the victims best. He'd held her hand and let her talk, glancing at Dean sometimes to confirm a point, borrow strength, and encourage in turn.
And then the husband had come home.
They were used to victims getting mad at them, grief manifesting in anger. They'd certainly seen it enough in John Winchester. What neither of them had been prepared for was the grown man, a former Navy pilot, breaking down into sobs as he talked about his dead brother. Dean's hand curling around Sam's shoulder had been the only thing that had kept him from losing his composure right along with the guy.
The worst was, they'd stirred all that up for nothing. There had been no warning signs, no suspicious behavior, no dabbling in the occult. A perfectly ordinary middle-America family had died one night for no reason at all.
Sam wasn't sure if he pitied or envied them.
Dean pulled the Impala up in front of the room and cut the engine. He glanced over, cleared his throat. "Sammy."
Sam shook his head, less rejection than helplessness and reached for the door. "I'm gonna take a walk."
"You have your cell?" was all Dean asked.
He patted his pockets absently and shook his head. They'd been going everywhere together, so there hadn't been a need, and he'd left it recharging in their room. But he couldn't stay there any longer, and Sam opened the door.
Dean's phone was thrust into his line of sight. "Take mine."
Sam glanced back at him.
The smile that curved his brother's face had none of its usual edge of cynicism. "In case you get lost," Dean added.
The tightness in his chest loosened a little. Sam closed his hand around the phone, eyes on Dean a moment longer before he pushed out of the car.
Then he just walked.
There was death in his thoughts, and Jess, and the man who'd lost his brother. Sam missed their mom more, too, now that he had a sense of loss to replace the emptiness he'd always felt in her wake. All of it mixed and tangled inside him until the mess seemed hopeless, consuming. The wind dried the tear tracks on his cheeks as he walked, Sam feeling too tired to brush them away.
He eventually found himself back on Oak Grove.
There were no before and after pictures of their house in Kansas, but after the fire in Palo Alto, he'd picked through the apartment he'd shared with Jess and it had been much like this. Outside, the damage didn't look so bad, just some sooty siding and boarded windows and doors, one partially collapsed chunk of roof. It was inside, underneath, that the real damage lay.
Sam sank down against the fence along one side of the property, leaning his head back against the chain metal, and just looked.
"I think we're done here, Sam."
Dean's voice, when it came eventually, didn't surprise him. Sam didn't look for him, didn't budge. "I know."
A pause, then his brother settled next to him in the grass, knees almost but not quite touching his. He could feel Dean's warmth. "Dude, what's with the hanging out at fire scenes?"
Sam had done the same thing back in Palo Alto, drawn back to the last place he'd seen Jess alive. "What's with the questions you already know the answers to?" he said wearily.
Dean was better at silence than most people would have expected. He just gave it solely to those he respected too much to distract with chatter.
Sam finally dragged in a breath. "So, this was all just a wild goose chase?"
Dean shrugged. "We had to check. But…yeah, I don't think this is one of ours."
Sam nodded slowly, hair catching on the metal links behind him. "What if we never find it, Dean?"
"We will. Dad's on its trail, remember? It's just a matter of time now."
"Sometimes I feel like we're the ones in the fire," Sam confessed in a whisper.
Dean leaned into him a little more. "I'm not gonna let you burn, Sam." It was the same tone he'd used by a campfire in Colorado when he'd vowed they would find Jess's killer.
The afternoon sun glittered off the broken glass on the porch and walkway, turning it bright silver. It was almost beautiful. Sam swallowed. "I miss her."
"Yeah, little brother. I know."
The roughness in Dean's voice surprised him, but Dean had known loss, too. They were grieving for different things, but this couldn't be easy for him, either. Sam turned his head a little now to take in the opaque brown Dean's eyes had darkened to, the lip he was chewing, the near invisible tension that lined his shoulders and back. Sam wasn't the only one struggling, and somehow, perversely, that helped. Or at least distracted him a little from his own pain. Sam settled back against the fence, leaning against Dean's shoulder. His brother took the weight and, just as Sam knew he would, relaxed into it. Dean had always functioned better when he could do something to help. Anyone, but especially Sam.
It was one of the many things he'd realized about Dean those last two months, and wondered how he'd missed before.
They sat until the sun moved on, and the house and glass were once more cast in shadow, just dim, broken remains again. Sam filled his lungs and shifted.
"You ready for that beer now?" Dean asked.
"Yeah." He nodded, then offered Dean an unexpected smile. "But I'm not buying."
Dean was pushing himself up to his feet, then reached to give Sam a hand. "Yeah, well, considering I make your spending money, that's pretty much just semantics, anyway, bro."
"Semantics?" Sam echoed with amusement.
Dean's eyebrow went up. "You know, professor, I do know a few words over one syllable."
"Right. You just can't use most of them in mixed company."
Dean smacked him on the back of the head. "Get in the car, Sam."
He grinned and obeyed, settling into warm vinyl and not for the first time felt like he'd come home. Sam looked back once more at the house, then turned away. Time to move on.
00000
Behind them, in the dim, boarded-up remains of the house, the grandfather clock quietly began to tick.
The End