A/N: So it turns out, this is quite a bit like my other drabble-like fic "It Was Like This" in terms of being angsty, depressing, and themed. I'd be worried about being one-note except right now I'm still ecstatic that I've finished anything at all. Besides, where's the fun in writing SPN fic if you don't torture the boys a little? Enjoy.

Title: Burn
Characters: Dean, Sam, John (some pre-series)
Pairings: None
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-13 to R-ish? Mostly for language
Disclaimer: You know the drill. No own, no sue.
Summary: Dean has always hated fire.

Also? I'm my own beta. You've been warned.

Burn

Five tiny candles, wrapped in green stripes curling up the smoothest wax Dean has ever seen. It's perfect, and he's nestled beside Dad, tucked into his arm as Pastor Jim sets the cake in front of them. Perfect with five tiny candles in a tiny cake – just enough for Pastor Jim, Dad, Dean, and Sammy to smash all over his face. The wicks are unlit, and Happy Birthday, Dean is scrawled across it in blue gel. Perfect.

Perfect until Pastor Jim lights the match, and Dad's head snaps up to see it just as Dean vanishes from the table.

Suddenly it's far from perfect, and there's hushed talk, sharp. Daddy swearing, Pastor Jim gushing apologies.

They find him in a dark corner of the church, crying.

He hiccups as they coax him out, promising to have imaginary flames instead, saying Dean can make a wish and then pluck each candle out, lick too-sweet frosting from the ends of cold wax. Dean pushes his hands into Dad's and Jim's, and then they're making their way back to the table.

Sammy's still sitting in the highchair, watching Dean. He babbles something incoherent, but Dean seems to understand. "Sammy says he wants cake."

"Yeah?" Dad asks, clenching a hand around Dean's shoulder.

"Mmm-hmm." Dean nods. He moves to the table and prods the frosting with his pinky. "So long as there's no fire."

Sammy's wearing footy pajamas, a fluffy hat, and he's wrapped in a cape. Well, really it's a towel. Every blanket in the house is far too long to be of use to a barely three year old superhero. Dean's draped in an actual blanket, but he's refuses the pajamas, choosing to wear his outfit toga-style.

Dean's too cool for footy pajamas and fluffy hats. He wears earmuffs instead.

But it wouldn't be necessary at all if Dean would let his dad light the fireplace.

If Dean would let fire be brought into the house, let Sammy hover near an open flame, let his father bend over to start it. If Dean would let fire come anywhere near his family, he'd have to be crazy.

So they're huddled on the couch because the heater's broken. Sammy's sunk back into cushions so little more than his feet show. Dean's shivering in his toga, and John's been forced to waddle about in a marshmallow-jacket.

It's a funny scene, really. Except for the trauma behind it, except every time John mentions fire, Dean's shouting and screaming and shielding the brick fireplace with his entire body.

It would be funny if Dean wasn't so paranoid. It could be, would be, but it's not.

Because Dean's utterly convinced that if John spreads warmth through the room, his dad's going to die. His baby brother's going to die. Dean's going to die.

And that's never funny.

It's easy enough to forget it – the heat and the fear that eat at him with the flickering of a flame. Thirteen and he's above it, standing back to a wall with his black jacket and kids that seem to accept him. They're the rebellious type, skip their classes and don't do their homework because they think they're better. Dean doesn't think he's better, but Sammy is, so his priorities go there first.

So when Dean fails his math test and doesn't care because Sammy had been sick the night before, these kids seem to think he's God.

And now he's hovering between the brick wall and a chain link fence, and one of them pulls out a cigarette. Dean's never smoked before, but he figures what the hell, and turns towards them.

Then it's there. The lighter. Flickering, spitting little sparks of death and hell at their faces and they draw it closer, to their lips. And they're holding fire beneath their noses to breathe it in like heaven and something fresh.

Dean's stomach churns, he sees the flames dance, grow, and then his mind's eye is seeing one of the boys catch fire, go up in smoke. Sweat breaks out on his forehead. A boy's offering him one of the tiny white tubes, handing him the lighter, enticing him with death and flames.

Dean chokes on his own breath and stumbles backwards. "No, thanks, I'm just gonna…"

"Come on, Dean, you've never done this before?"

Stupid, stupid to let a tiny little flame worm itself beneath his skin. He shouldn't be such a coward, such a baby, and yet. "I've…I've got to go."

It's the reason he doesn't smoke, which is ridiculous. He's done everything else possible to get himself killed. But put a flame to his lips? Like kissing his mother's demise?

Dean can't do it.

Salt and burn. You gotta salt and burn 'em. Burn the bones. Let the gold and red and yellow and orange twist around them. Let it lick them clean, purge 'em.

His dad says it like he's quoting the bible, and Dean drinks it in.

Burn, burn, burn. Flames.

It's all good in theory, until he's standing over the pile at sixteen. Sixteen, and he's been talked through this before, visualized this moment. But it's different now, different in practice.

Good in theory, but not in practice.

The flames are lapping at his skin, staring him in the eye. He pushes himself through the motions anyways, because it's what's expected, because his dad expects it.

There's gas and a match, and everything goes up in flames just like it should, but out of the corner of his eye – a trick of the light.

His dad's burning.

Dean jumps backwards, almost screams as his body twists to face his father. Oh God, oh God, oh God, going up in flames. It couldn't be. Not this, not here, not now. His dad couldn't be burning.

And he's not. Dean sees it as he turns to face him. Face perfectly calm, painted orange by the dancing light and nothing more. He's fine, reveling in the warmth of the fire. Happy, if anything at all. He's fine. Dean breathes.

His dad looks up. "You okay, Dean?" Dean takes a shaky breath, then steels himself.

"Yeah, I'm good."

It had been a hunt. Less than an hour ago. The details are blurry, hazing together in Dean's brain as he presses the gas pedal to the floor.

Sam had been burned.

He'd been chanting Latin, Dean behind him keeping watch, Dad fighting who-the-hell-knew-what. It honestly doesn't matter because all Dean remembers is a shriek, a jump, misstep, and then the candles tipping. Everything else is like a flash of red and orange in his memory and nothing else.

Singed hair, flesh, Sam gasping for air in the back of the impala as Dean pushes the car forward. His dad is in the truck, just behind them.

And Dean can smell it. The hair, the flesh, Sammy dying in the back seat. There's fire and smoke, and Dean's seeing his mother go up in flames, his house and dreams. Dean's seeing Sammy engulfed by flames and he can smell it, taste it, hear it, feel it.

Dean swerves suddenly. He's pulling over to the side of the road, wrenching the door open, one two step, hauling his ass out of the car and then. Crouching in the ditch, emptying his stomach into the grass.

Dad pulls up behind him, then there's a hand on his shoulder. "I'll drive him, Dean."

"No." There is no argument, and Dean's wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand as he climbs once more into the car. Careful not to breathe through his nose, Dean gets to the hospital in record time. He gathers a burning body into his arms and rushes Sammy through the doors.

And if anybody asks later, Dean has to lean over the trashcan to catch his breath. Nothing more.

Sam's crying beside him, tears to douse the flames that lap at their father's corpse.

Some sort of poetic justice maybe. Dean was never one for poetry.

And so he doesn't cry. Instead, he merely stands. Face taught, eyes dry, getting drier from the heat of the fire. Wearing him ought, making his eyes and mouth and lungs ache. He breathes in the smoke and the ashes. And keeps staring.

Some sort of poetic justice maybe.

Purge his bones. Keep them clean.

But there are some stains that don't come off.

At this point, Dean's an expert at building walls. Stone walls, brick walls, walls with moats. Walls that are fire proof.

But Sam's inside the wall, and occasionally the stupid kid goes and opens a fucking door.

"No, Sam."

"Dean, it's easy. I swear to God. The ritual's right here," Sam jabs a finger at an old, crusty book. He looks at Dean with eyes that say trust me, and Dean does, he really does.

But Dean simply does not put the same faith in ancient piles of moldy pages that Sam does.

And, if he really wanted to be honest, he doesn't trust the candle Sam's waving around either.

"Look, Dean, I know it may seem like a stupid idea, but it's really not. The rituals short, and it'll keep us protected with no residual effects."

"Sam…"

"Honestly, Dean, I don't see what the problem is!"

"I just don't like the idea of sticking my hand in a fucking open flame!"

"For Christ's sake, Dean! Kids do it! You just pass your hand over the fire. You don't even feel it! Look!"

And Sam does the unthinkable. Before Dean can blink, before he can breathe, Sam is shoving his hand into the fire, fire, fire. Putting his hand in an orange, yellow, burning flame, and –

Dean lunges. "What the fuck Sam!" He whips the candle away from the tiny table, away from the reach of his brother's hands, tiny baby hands reaching for something they don't understand.

Sam stares at him. "Dean…"

"Are there any other options?"

"Dean…"

"Are there any other options?" Dean repeats, eyes boring into Sam, begging, pleading.

"We could get tattoos," Sam says slowly, gaze still locked with Dean's.

"Tattoos?" Dean asks blankly. "Like matching, ink and needle, matching tattoos?" He raises one eyebrow and Sam shrugs.

"Or, you know, we could just do the ritual and…"

Dean blows out the candle and slams it back down onto the table. "No way in hell, dude. We're getting the fucking tattoos."

But they sure as hell aren't showing anyone.

In his dreams, they come at him with fire. Torches with twisting, blazing streaks of heat clutched in the mouths of black-as-night hounds.

Fire and the dreams come almost every night. Every night Dean's sweating from the heat, bleeding into his sheets and pillow.

Fire, fire, fire.

And then Sam's there, hand fisted in Dean's t-shirt, yanking him out of the pits of hell. Dean wakes gasping, staring up at Sam, and somewhere inside he wonders when the roles reversed.

They don't speak for a moment. Both mouth "just a dream," and Sam's grip slackens, letting Dean fall back down to the bed.

Sam slides down to the floor between the two twin beds crammed in this impossibly small room. He settles on the worn out carpet, tinged gold and red and scarlet like pooling blood. He sits with his knees drawn up to his chest, and they both know he'll fall asleep like that. Lately, he always does.

But this way, when Dean lets one hand spill over the edge of the mattress to land on Sam's shoulder, it almost looks natural. Like maybe it was an accident.

Like maybe Dean can still stand to have Sam more than three feet away.

But he can't.

And so they fall asleep like that. And right before, right before he slips back into darkness, Dean hears the scream inside a whisper.

"I'll save you," Sam murmurs.

And they fall asleep like that.

Two days in hell. Three years. An eternity maybe.

Dean doesn't know, but there's the fire and the flames and the pain and the red and the orange, gold, yellow, heat, slapping his face, caressing his skin, running through veins like pulsating blood.

And he's dead. That much he knows.

Until he's not, until he's standing by the side of a road.

Standing, just standing. Like nothing's happened and he watches the clouds for a moment, rolling and spinning in the sky. The sun's shinning, a great twisting heat against a surreal blue, and it warms his skin. Not like the searing heat of hell, just the soft tickle of life running down his back.

Life.

He turns on his heel and looks back down the other end of the road. There's nothing, just the stretch of a thousand miles of pavement and no end in sight. Dean turns again. A field is behind him. Dry grass, dead with the sun's gracious warmth pounding into its flesh.

And in the middle of the field –

There are flames.

The sun turns off, the sky goes black, the road falls out from beneath his feet.

There are flames in the middle of the field, and above it red smoke billows. He sees nothing else, feels nothing else. There is nothing but the fire.

And the stench of burning flesh in the air.

Sam always was one for rituals.

And Dean has never hated fire more.

END

A/N: Like? Dislike? Constructive criticism? Please review!