A/N: I'm not sure about whether I'm happy with this, but I haven't posted anything in a while and did pretty much all the editing I could do. I died inside many times while watching all the amazing hurt!Sam, hurt!Cass, and brotherly moments in 8x21 tonight, so you know, here's a fic about something that happened eleven episodes ago! I'm so great at this. Anyway. Rated T for slight fire goriness and swearing. Read on if you dare.
"Sometimes I see flames. And sometimes
I see people that I love dying and... it's always..."
Maybe it's the boxing matches they were watching or the lingering sadness of leaving Amelia behind for good. Maybe it's a product of the shock of actually being on even ground with Dean for the first time since he's been back from Purgatory. Hell, maybe it's the goddamn chili. Whatever the reason, when Sam finally goes to bed that night—even if it's with the memory of Dean's half-smile and a warm, comfortable silence in his head—he has the dream for the first time in years.
The fire dream.
Only it's new and sharp and so so raw he can't breathe.
He can't breathe at all, can't get enough air. He's running, running down a sidewalk at night, footsteps pounding on cement, heartbeat thudding in his ears, breath heaving in and out. Running toward something because he's searching, scanning, hunting under the cover of darkness and running running running. Can't be late, not too late yet.
He recognizes this street the style of streetlamps their too-bright fluorescent glow the oak trees twice his height with maybe 50 feet between them. Taught to remember things, he was taught to remember important things, but why's it important? And so damn familiar? Suburban and nondescript, these one-story homes with prim and proper lawns. This crabgrass and that rosebush. This house and—and that one, that one there—
Whose house is that? His house, does he have a house? Why would he. Is that. Whose house is that?
And he's running across a lawn, too many lawns away but running as fast as he can 'cause something something's wrong here has to be just has to be unsafe look at the smoke look at the light bright nearly orange look at it whose house is that?
Whose house is—
Amelia.
The name flashes through his mind abruptly and it's like she's been there all along. Amelia. Amelia, her glowing smile dark curly hair strawberry shampoo morning kisses forgiving eyes broken healing warmth Amelia. He knows her and he knows knows knows she's in trouble.
But the house is still so far away and the lawn is so big and oh god he can see it, the fire; the house is on fire, big yellow orange red roaring flames eating it up, and screaming, someone is screaming. It's happening again, just like—just like Jess, the fire—he has to warn her before it. Before.
"Amelia!"
She can't hear him he's too far away but she has to, needs to hear, to know—
"Amelia, run, get out! You have to get away!" His strident call yields no response; there's only screaming, unintelligible cries for help. And he can hardly breathe but it doesn't matter nothing fucking matters if he can't save her. Why can't he save her?
"Amelia! AMELIA!"
The house, her house, their house is burning and there's screaming so much screaming and Christ if she'd just be okay, just just—fuck, please. His chest burns with lack of oxygen, legs aching beneath him, but he keeps running, propelling himself forward with the image of her on fire in his head, skin red and burning and crisp like Hell, beautiful features burning unrecognizably in the flames.
But that's really—no. No no no, she's not actually he was only imagining that she can't be on fire. Who is that on fire? Who is that in the window? Can't be Amelia. Can't be—their house.
Her house.
Too late.
"AMELIA!"
He hears his voice crack hears the choked sob the unintelligible sounds of grief torn from his throat like a wounded animal. Sees the body the flames licking across her limbs up the window frame crackling falling not screaming anymore, just quiet quiet quiet. My fault my fault my fault.
"AMELIA!"
And he's screaming himself hoarse through the silence, not caring anymore, just needing so fucking badly for her to answer, for it to be somebody anybody else who's dead in the window, the window of the house that can't be can't really be hers.
"AMELIA!" Needing her to be alive, unharmed, impossibly whole. "AMELIA!"
Sam's eyes open with her name on his lips, the sound of his terrified call reverberating in the air around him; but the house is gone, the screaming cut off. He's sitting up in bed, panting hard, staring into cold darkness, ears buzzing with something akin to panic. Distantly it registers in his mind that his hands are shaking, his chest heaving uneven breaths, but he can't control it, can feel only the sharp burn of fear and guilt in his gut. Still on fire on the inside.
But Amelia's alive. Just a dream, not a vision. A dream. Amelia's okay. I left her with Don; she's okay. Left her to stay with...to stay. Dean.
Shit, I probably woke him up.
He listens hard and can hear his brother disrupting the quiet to his right, breathing regularly, there like he should be, and he thinks maybe not and doesn't know if that's a good thing.
Gradually he manages to match his breathing to Dean's—in two three out two three, like he was taught to remember, like he was been reminded time and time again after nightmares and visions and pushed-yourself-too-hard-again runs—and once he's marginally less shaky he lowers his head back down to his pillow. After a moment he turns just slightly to the right, looks over warily and oh, of course I woke him up, he wakes up all the time now, doesn't he. Doesn't he. Purgatory does that to you. Snatches.
The man who taught him how to breathe is turned on his side, watching Sam carefully, green eyes glinting with something—concern?—in the dark. Probably breathing extra loud to make sure Sam can hear it.
Scratch that—definitely breathing extra loud. Of course he is.
Sam sighs, loud and deep. His brother shouldn't still feel like he has to watch over him. Not now. "Sorry, Dean," he says, and his voice is scratchy, but he doesn't care. "Didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."
There's a long silence, and for a second he thinks Dean actually listened to him for once, but then he sees his brow crinkling up in the shadows. Like it does when he's worried, thinking. Damn it, Dean. Sam waits, blinking his eyes open wider, because he knows his brother is going to say something now and he needs to be awake for it. Owes him at least that much.
"You still have the option to go back to her, you know." Dean's voice is hoarse too; slightly choked, like the words are hard to get out. "If you really want to."
Sam chuckles sadly and shakes his head. "I don't."
"Look, I know you said she gave you a choice, but it's not too late—"
"I said I don't, Dean."
"Dude. Give yourself some credit. There's at least a chance. You love her. And I'd be fine."
"No, that's not..." He sighs again. "I meant I don't want to, Dean. Whether or not it's an option, I don't want to go back. I want to be here. Need to be here." With you, man; you're my brother, give yourself some credit, he thinks, but doesn't say it. He hasn't felt inclined to say much lately, and even if he wanted to, Dean would never let him live that one down.
"Oh." Dean rolls onto his back and lets out a long breath, like he'd been holding it awhile. "Okay." It sounds a little bit like relief—okay, a lot, it sounds a hell of a lot like relief—and Sam can't help but grin up at the popcorn ceiling of their hotel room. His brother is such a goddamn jerk.
After a moment Dean startles him out of his thoughts again, this time with a question: "Wanna talk about it?"
Sam quirks an eyebrow incredulously. Dean can't see it in the dark, he knows that, but he'll hear it clear as day in Sam's voice, always does. "You're offering?" he asks, half-joking.
"Yeah, if it'll keep you from yelling at me in the middle of the night," Dean replies, a smirk in his voice to mask the concern. "Talk all you want."
He can't help it; he smiles. Dean's antics just never get old. He has never been able to offer comfort without pretending it's for his own benefit, not unless things are really grim, but it's always been easier for Sam to talk to him than to anyone else. And Sam always has. Used to.
But not this time. This time he doesn't need words. The fact that Dean even asked is enough. Hell, his mere presence is enough.
"Nah, man, I'll pass. It's fine. Just a stupid dream."
"Dream?" Sam can almost hear Dean's voice in his head: a cigar's a cigar. Call it like it is.
"Nightmare, whatever. But I'm okay. No use talking about it."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure," he says, trying to sound as sincere as he feels, as he means to.
Maybe Dean understands what he's trying to say, because he relents: "Okay then. Go to sleep, Sammy," like Sam didn't just tell him the same thing a minute ago. Like there aren't a thousand different meanings behind his words, from everything'll be better when you wake up to I'll keep you safe.
"Mm-hm," he murmurs, rolling onto his side, "you too."
For a moment he watches Dean's shadowed face as it relaxes, green eyes closed to the world. The last thing to lose its tension is his jaw, which stays clenched for a few seconds after his brow smoothes out. Something was probably bothering him, some vestige of his earlier worry. Sam hopes to God Dean's not blaming himself for this one anymore, for getting Sam worried about Amelia before, for "taking" him from her. Of course he's blaming himself. It's Dean, he wears guilt like a blanket.
But he knows what I did, knows what that means. He didn't take me; I chose him. What else can I do?
It's a miraculous thought: maybe, this time, he has actually done enough.
With that hesitant comfort on his mind, Sam concentrates on his brother's regular inhales, lets the sound of safety lull him deeper and deeper. After a minute or two he's starting to let go of consciousness and the bleedings of guilt associated with it. All the things nagging at him, what he should be telling Dean to reassure him, streaming away and drying up:
Just because I didn't look doesn't mean anything doing what you wanted what we said we'd do you're everything you chase the fire away carry me out and I won't let it get you either I'll be right here as long as I can until until until—
Sam means to be asleep before the thought can complete itself, and maybe he isn't, but he tells himself that he is. And by now he knows that's all he can really do. Just one more thought drifts by him after that, and when it catches in his chest he grasps onto it and doesn't let go. Feels it lift him up, douse the fire in his chest, carry him off to an entirely different kind of flame, to dreams crackling with life sounds and warmth that he won't remember in the morning.
He chose me.
Dean chose me, too.