It was the first time he remembered what it smelled like in his dream. Like something he hadn't smelled in a long time, something he never wanted to smell again for as long as he was alive, because, if he was headed to hell, that will be the smell waiting for him.
It was a week after Duluth, and while they were far from Minnesota, and her, he couldn't shake that feeling, the chill in his bones, that pit in his stomach.
Meg had gone after her for a reason, and Dean knew it, he could feel it in his bones. It was his fault. Sam was convinced it was because Jo was a hunter, but convincing Dean of that was impossible. She was so young, so naive, he had a hard time picturing her as a hunter.
"Are we gonna talk about this, man?" Sam spoke first.
"Talk about what?" Dean mumbled, eyes still on the road.
"These .. I don't know, nightmares." Sam shook his head. "You can't tell me -"
"I'm fine Sam," Dean grunted, tightening his grip on the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned a shade lighter.
"Dean-"
"Drop it Sam, alright?" He looked at his brother, giving him his most serious frown. "How far?" He nodded at the map in Sam's lap, and with that, the conversation was over.
"You need to get some sleep." Sam mumbled from the bed, his voice gruff from sleep.
"I thought you were asleep," Dean turned his head towards the bed.
"I would be, if you stopped shuffling," he turned around, his back to Dean, and waited. He didn't want to get into it, not right now. He needed sleep, they needed sleep.
"Yeah, yeah," Dean mumbled and tossed the folder of papers on the already cluttered desk in front of him. He exhaled slightly and rubbed his face. He was exhausted, he'd stopped reading hours ago, and just kept shuffling through the stack of papers from their current job. A banshee, or whatever the hell it was.
He needed sleep, he knew it just as much as Sam, but what he didn't need was another nightmare. The same damn nightmare, over and over again.
It started out the same every night. A long wooden staircase he'd never seen before that led to a second story of a house he'd never been in before. He followed the hallway to the only door at the end, and opened it, every night.
There was a crib, but no baby. There was nothing familiar but the smell, and what came after. That smell had never left him. To say it was like any fire smoke smell would be underrating. There was something distinct about this smell.
The room was empty, save for the crib and window curtains, and when there was nothing else there, he could do nothing but look up. He remembered the night they found Jessica, and the first thought through his mind was that's what mom must have looked like. Pretty, young, blond, dead.
But it wasn't Jessica in his dream, on his ceiling. It wasn't mom. It was the reason he fought against sleep. Jo.