You are an average, every day hero. One day, you cross paths with a pair of out of the ordinary heroes, and are drawn into a world unlike any you have ever known. Rated T for language and violence. Reader X Dean.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sam or Dean Winchester, or the world of Supernatural.
I write this for my friend.
You wake up, blinking your eyes in the early morning light. You don't have any particular wish to remove yourself from the warm cocoon that is your bed, to step out into the comparatively icy air of your room. Your heater is broken, so the autumn chill is inescapable without layers or fire- but only a fool would leave a fire burning while they slept. Yet, remove yourself you must. People were relying on you. You had an obligation to help those who needed it.
As you readied yourself for the day, you thought of all the countless people you had already saved, or at least helped. How many lives you were an integral, yet fleeting part of. It made you happy every time you thought of the smiling, ash and soot covered faces; or the smiling faces you would see later, in the hospital when you would visit those you could not speak to before. Not even the memory of those who were less fortunate, the tear stained faces…or the faces you couldn't recognize as people anymore. No, not even those – far and few between- memories could get you down when you thought of all the good you were doing. You dried your hair as your reflection smiled out at you from your bathroom mirror. You had a feeling that today would be a good day. Your pals at the station would have cooked some delicious meal for lunch, there would be no fires for you to fight, the old Chief wouldn't be as critical of you today…Feeling revitalized by this unusual optimism, you thought about maybe bringing in a sweet breakfast for everybody.
Opening your bathroom door, you immediately decide against expending the effort as the steamy heat you had gathered rushed out, and you are hit by the cold morning air yet again. You rush the rest of your morning routine, eager to get to your car- which comes complete with a working heater.
You were wrong. You were called out to a job a half-hour before you were to go home. Someone had reported the "sudden break out" of a bedroom fire. A woman was trapped in the house on the upper floors. The address was not far from the station, you and the others arrived in no more than five minutes. The house was fully ablaze when you arrived. You and another firefighter went in together, finding nothing baring your path to the woman. The walls had fire clinging tight against them, and smoke was thick in the air, but there was nothing else. The fire did not even burn the furniture. You and your partner hurried up the untouched stairs to the upper floors. Here, the fire burned fiercely, devouring everything. Your partner thought he saw the woman, and drew your attention to her. Or what was left of her.
Your partner suddenly fell through the floor, and the stairs behind you had become a deadly inferno. In front of you, the entire upper floor was collapsing. You rushed through the fire on the stairs, protected by your gear. Your partner's leg had been badly hurt in his fall, and with his aid you lifted him over your shoulder and carried him out. He was almost too heavy for you, being a fully grown man wearing hefty gear; but adrenaline floods through you, aiding you in your endeavors. You struggled to get him out, thankful that the fire had not changed on the ground level. You barely got him out before you had to drop him or collapse under his weight. You passed him off to another firefighter and then went to aid the others in trying to keep the fire from spreading to the other houses. This was not a fire that could be put out.
After battling the blaze for a few hours, others came and relieved you. It was not until you were back at headquarters that you stopped to think about what you had seen. That woman's body had been difficult to recognize, but you had seen other corpses like it before. Yet those bodies had been burning for hours BEFORE you got there. This fire had been burning for only- at most- thirty minutes. Thirty minutes? But how could it have spread as it had in such a short amount of time? And the way it was burning, so specifically… like it did indeed have a life of its own- as it often seems- and was trying to destroy the walls, as if it were trying to destroy a prison. It had burned so differently on the second floor. The source of the fire was supposed to have been a room on said level, but… Things just didn't add up. Something was wrong.