Title: Need
Author: Still Waters
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
Summary: Tag to 1x01. Dad was still missing, Sam was practically catatonic, and Dean was freaking out. But he didn't need Sam to talk. He just needed him to wash his face.
Notes: Set immediately following the end of the pilot episode. I could always see the Stanford fire freaking Dean out, forcing him to relive the fire that took Mary and changed their lives. I wanted to explore that similarity, as well as expand on Sam's reaction to the grief of losing Jess. I wrote a brief line about four year old Dean washing the soot and blood from an infant Sam's face in a motel the night of the Lawrence fire in my fic "No Bravery", and that image became the center of this story - a look into a moment between the brothers in the wake of another supernatural fire. As always, I hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading and thank you to those reviewers I am unable to respond to personally via private message. I truly appreciate your support.
Dean couldn't take it anymore.
It didn't matter that it had been twenty-two years since Sam had last been marred by soot and blood, the smell of smoke heavy across his skin. Time did not heal all wounds, and dammit….
…..he needed Sam to wash his face.
"C'mon, Sammy. You don't even have to say anything. I get it man, I do. There're clothes and towels in the bathroom – you can just…..do your thing and go right back to bed. Promise," Dean pleaded.
Nothing. No half-hearted protest that Dean could never understand, that he hadn't known Jess, hadn't ever been in love like that. Just the same eerie unresponsiveness Dean had been dealing with for the past four hours, since he had pulled his brother from a second fire and watched him load weapons against the evil that reduced another of his potential lives to ashes.
Twenty minutes after declaring that they had work to do, Sam had stopped working…..and went completely silent. No tears, no words, no emotion in frighteningly empty eyes. That was what had made Dean pull off the road and into a motel for the rest of the night – he had wanted to put as much distance between them and Stanford as possible, but when Sam's open book eyes went 'lights out', Dean knew they were in trouble. So he turned off at the next motel sign and ignored the strange looks from the guy behind the counter as he kept glancing nervously at Sam's still form in the car while paying for the room. The kid seemed to have forgotten how to walk, so Dean practically carried Sam inside, where he deposited him on the far bed, took off his boots, and bundled him in all the room's blankets but one. That last one Dean took and tucked around the thin curtains, trying to block the red/orange glow of the motel's 'vacancy' sign from defiling their space – the word was too descriptive of the twenty-two year old shell in front of him, the colors too reminiscent of the night's supernatural flames and emergency lights….colors that reflected off glassy irises in a mirror memory of what Dean had seen on Dad's face as they sat in huddled shock on the Impala's hood during an identically tinted Lawrence night so many years ago.
"Please, Sam," Dean begged, pacing a shaky line along the salt-lined windows and door. Ever since he had secured the room, he had vacillated between mindless chatter and terrified observation, silently imploring Sam to scream, cry, fight…anything other than this horrific emptiness.
But there was no answer, no flicker of understanding or recognition. Nothing. And Dean couldn't take it anymore – the soot and blood on Sam's face, the familiar smell of their childhood burning on Sam's clothes. He was freaked – Dad was still missing and now he was alone in a room with 6'4" of barely breathing loss trying to curl itself back to the size of the infant it had once been. An infant blessed with no memory of fire.
"Sam?"
Dean could handle the silence. He didn't need Sam to talk – he could do that enough for both of them. But he desperately needed something. Something to work with. Four hours of pleading, worrying, and pacing hadn't gotten him anywhere, and he was at the end of his rope. He needed the tools to fix this. Now. For both of them.
"Okay," Dean blew out a shaky breath, coming to a stop at the foot of the bed and scrubbing his hands wearily across his face. "How about if I do it? Sammy? That okay?" He willed a petulant 'it's Sam' to break the emptiness and put him in his place. For the tears threatening his own steadiness to run down Sam's face. Something. Anything. But Sam didn't even blink, leaving Dean with the same pervasive nothing.
Dean swallowed back a half-sob as he trudged to the bathroom, wetting several washcloths and grabbing a dry towel. He returned to Sam's side, sitting gingerly along the edge of the blanket cocoon, afraid to disturb the protective barrier he wished could be enough to shield Sam from life's horrors….and began gently washing his brother's face.
Sam shuddered with the first pass of the cloth, his breath hitching in his chest, head shifting minutely as if he would have rejected Dean's action if he had the strength.
Dean jumped at the movement. "Sam?" he asked roughly, half-concern, half-relief.
Sam didn't respond…..verbally. But, in the blessed space of Dean's blinked surprise, those familiar, soulful eyes returned – flipped over to a 'no vacancy' sign threatening to shatter under the occupancy of more words, emotions, and memories than one body could possibly handle. Dean suddenly understood…..and was amazed he could even hear the silent explanation over the roar of anger, despair, and protective instinct that flooded his chest with the realization.
Sam couldn't wash the blood off because, as macabre as it may have been, it was the last time part of Jess would touch him; couldn't cry…because the tears would wash away the soot and Jess was in the ashes.
For the second time that night, Dean found himself connecting two people who had never been more different. Because he remembered seeing the same thing in Dad before he was old enough to understand what it was. Remembered waking up in the middle of that first night at Pastor Jim's to find Dad burying his face in Sam's baby blanket, stiff with dried smears of Mom's blood, wrapped in his smoke-saturated bathrobe despite the freshly washed one Pastor Jim had left out for him. But Dean understood now. Those things had been all Dad had left…..of Mom, of his life….until he had looked up and saw four year old Dean standing there – and remembered that he wasn't alone. That he still had something.
And that was just the something Dean needed. A tool he could work with. Because he'd be damned if he was going to let Sam think he was alone in the world.
"Aww, Sammy," his voice broke, meeting Sam's eyes with gentle understanding. He pulled the washcloth back, holding the stained fabric in Sam's line of sight. "This isn't Jess," he shook the cloth emphatically. "This can't take her away from you. Believe me, man, she is always gonna be with you. Jess is here," he tapped Sam's temple lightly, clearing his throat roughly, before continuing, "and I'm here." Dean shifted his hand to Sam's jaw, before dropping it through the blanket barrier to grasp one cold, corded forearm. "With you." He squeezed Sam's arm firmly, the words and grip an uncompromising promise.
Sam blinked, eyes bright.
"And I might not be nearly as good-looking, but you're not gonna be alone tonight, you hear me?" Dean asked, reaching across Sam to pat the other side of the bed. "I'm gonna be right here. 'M not goin' anywhere."
Sam swallowed, throat bobbing painfully.
Dean held up a fresh washcloth, mirroring Sam's attempt at composure. "Okay?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice even.
Sam nodded, a movement so minute it nearly didn't register, but enough to release long-dammed silent tears from eyes drowning in a grief long beyond words.
A single tear of his own escaped as Dean brought the washcloth back up, ghosting Sam's eyes shut so he could clean blackened lids. Sam shook at the touch, a strangled sob lodged in his chest.
Dean desperately needed to tell Sam that everything would be okay…..just as much as he needed to hear it himself. But he knew the importance of the right tools for the right job…..and knew that there weren't words for this moment…..for any of this – so he left language in the toolbox and continued with silence, hands, and faded motel fabric.
Cradling Sam's jaw with his left hand, his right moving threadbare cloth mixed with rusty tap water and free-flowing grief, Dean did the same thing he had done twenty-two years ago, trying to fix their world in the wake of fire and loss.
He choked back his tears and silently washed his little brother's face.