Disclaimer:
You know, I recently read the summary for the next ep of Supernatural that's coming out, and hey! Dean supposedly gets his reality warped and gets to see what life would have been like if his mom had been alive. Wow, that sounds oddly familiar--why, I'd even compare it to chapter one of this story. Maybe I'm not the one who should be posting a disclaimer, huh, Kripke?
::coughcoughcough::: Well, he owns Sam and Dean at any rate, worse luck still.
Author's Note:
Hey, kids. It's been a while.
I'm sorry the updating has been slow but I've been swamped with work the past few weeks and it's only thanks to a long weekend I even found the time to churn this latest chapter out. I can't thank you guys enough for all the great feedback you've given me--in fact, it's due to several reviewers' comments that this chapter even exists. A few people wanted to know if we'd ever get to see what was going on with Sam while Dean was off having his adventure in Alternate Reality land. I had intended to write a separate fic for Sam, but I figured, why wait?
So welcome to Interlude, Part One, which shifts focus from the Dean we all know and love and concentrates on how the Dean from the different reality might be dealing, and how Sammy's handling things as well. I think what I'll do is have two chapters for Canon!Dean, then an 'interulde' (comprised of two parts, or chapters) with Sam and AU!Dean, which sorta blows my original seven chapter idea out of the water, but oh well. I hope this works out and doesn't ruin the flow of the story or anything.
So anwyays, please enjoy! I had fun writing this chapter, and I hope you have fun reading it. Reviews are always appreciated, so if you have a minute let me know what you think.
ooo
Interlude, Part One:
Into the Fire
"Winchester, there's still a little girl in there!" Chief sounds frantic.
"Impossible!" Dean protests. "I swear, Chief, I got everyone out, even the Goddamn cat."
"The mom says her daughter's not here!"
Dean turns to stare at the house in horror, watching as Manny and Greg try to hose it down. A window explodes, and the fire roars louder as more oxygen feeds it.
"I'm going back in," Dean yells, pulling on the oxygen mask and helmet.
"Nobody could survive something like that," Chief hollers, his huge hand clamping down on Dean's shoulder. "Winchester, that poor girl won't make it. I'm sorry, but I'm not losing any of my men today. You're staying here."
"The hell I am!" Dean jerks away, panic gripping him. He has to save the child, has to get to her. This is his job, and he will do it if it kills him.
Literally.
"That wasn't a suggestion, that was an order." Chief's voice is steely. "Don't even think about it."
"I'm sorry, sir," Dean says, "but I already did."
And then he sprints as fast as he can, ignoring Chief's calls for him to stop, ignoring Lyle when he tries to slow him down, ignoring everything but the burning building in front of him. He bursts through the crumbling front door and immediately gasps from the suffocating heat—it still surprises him, every single time.
"If I were a little girl trapped in a burning house," he mutters to himself, ducking to avoid a falling beam, "where would I be?"
The stairs are already halfway destroyed but he manages to get to the top, to douse some flames. Knowing he'll need to go to the hospital at this rate anyway, he tugs off the oxygen mask and hollers,
"Hello! Is anybody there? I'm here to help!"
"Hello, Dean," a calm voice says. He spins, surprised to find himself staring at a pretty woman with dark skin and huge green eyes. The fire seems to melt away around her, the roar of it softens, disappears.
"Who are you?" Dean asks uncertainly, coughing as he inhales a second lungful of smoke and ash. "Am I supposed to save you?"
She laughs.
"No, of course not. I do not need saving."
"Then why are you here?"
"I am sorry to invade your dream," she murmurs, "but this is a particularly unpleasant nightmare of a memory, isn't it? I haven't much choice, I'm afraid."
"What?" Dean is confused—where is the fire going? Why is everything suddenly becoming light, why is there grass everywhere and some old stone well standing in front of him?
"I'm going to warn you that when you wake up it won't be familiar," the woman sighs. "I haven't much time. Just listen to me: trust Sam. All right?"
"But I don't—"
"There are other places I must be." The woman smiles disarmingly. "Just embrace the change, Dean. It will do you some good, I believe."
"I—"
"Goodbye."
She waves a slender hand once, and suddenly the fire is surrounding him again. He smells smoke.
It clears a little, and through it he sees himself hunched in the bathroom, face in hands. He sees Grace looking terrified, leaning in so she can touch a strange scar on his side. Sees tears in his own eyes as Mom bends down to give him a hug.
"What the hell kind of screwed up dream is this?" he demands, coughing as he inhales more smoke, as flames lick his boots. "I don't understand."
It echoes when he says it, and he seems to be floating away from the fire now, the echoing filling his head, ringing in his ears.
I don't understand…I don't understand…I don't understand…
--
Dean's eyes fly open and he draws a shaky breath, reaching up a hand to wipe off the cold sweat beading on his brow.
He'd been having the strangest nightmare—it had started off familiar but quickly morphed into something even more terrifying than usual. Who had that woman been, anyways?
It takes him a few minutes to realize the ceiling he is staring at is not his own.
What the hell? he wonders, sitting up and squinting around the strange room. It looks…like a motel room, really, not that he has much experience with motels, per se. It's just sort of seedy-looking and the bed is uncomfortable and…well, it feels like a room that would be in a motel, if it makes any kind of sense at all (which he suspects it doesn't). A quick once-over reveals that there's another bed in the room and a couple of duffle bags off to the side. Dean frowns, unable to recall coming here—wherever here is. How drunk did he get last night, anyways? All he can remember is having a killer headache, leaving Sam at the bar to go off with some girl named Starla or whatever, and then getting into a car and driving…well, it just sort of blanks after that.
But he's pretty sure he went home. Seriously, he's never just woken up somewhere and not known where he was or how he got there. It's scary.
"Good," a familiar voice calls. "You're up." Oh, thank God. Sam's here. Dean can never remember being so glad to see his younger brother in his life—he means that sincerely. He and Sam aren't exactly the best of buddies or anything, which is why the reason the kid wants Dean to be his best man remains a mystery.
"Hey," Dean says weakly, frowning a little as he surveys his brother more thoroughly. Sam is holding coffee and a bag of what looks like fast food—and he doesn't look remotely pissed off. At least, he doesn't look like he had to 'rescue' Dean from a girl and sober him up or clean up his puke or anything. Sam looks pretty calm, although there's something strange about him. Something in his eyes or whatever.
"So, any visits from the witch last night?' Sam eyes him, passing over the coffee. "I didn't hear anything, and you said you'd wake me up. Did she not come or something? Or did you get her?"
Dean stares at his brother, utterly confused.
"Uh, sorry. Come again?" I must have gotten more drunk than I thought.
"Selenamaridra Jackson, the wishing well? Does that ring a bell?" Sam looks kinda annoyed. "Look dude, I'm not in the mood for any screwing around."
"Neither am I," Dean says, scowling. "I have no clue what the hell you're talking about!"
"Oh God." Sam stares at him, then suddenly kicks the nightstand, throws down the fast-food and says, "Goddammit, Dean!"
"What?"
"You said this wouldn't happen!" Sam now kicks Dean's bed. "You moron, I should have known not to listen to you!"
Helplessly, Dean looks on as his brother carries on about curses and witches and promises Dean apparently made.
I must still be dreaming, Dean decides as Sam takes out a knife and starts stabbing it over and over again into the nightstand, his face etched with a dark kind of fury Dean's never seen before. Either that, or I'm really, really, REALLY drunk.
"Um," Dean says carefully when Sam's finally stopped ranting under his breath, "would you mind telling me what the hell this is all about? I don't get it—where are we?"
"Oh." Sam stares at him. "I…God, Dean."
"What did I do now?" Dean feels kind of bad, actually. He's only been home a day and he's already messing up Sam's life again. "Look man, I'm really sorry for whatever it was. I promise I'm not going to ruin the wedding, okay?"
Sam stares at him.
"What wedding?" he demands.
"Okay, now who's screwing around? Seriously man, not funny." Dean stands, squinting around. "You didn't answer before. Where the hell are we?"
"New York," Sam sighs.
"What?" Dean yelps. "Dude, we can't—that's impossible, we can't be in New York! How did we get here—and oh, God. Jess is going to kill you! Well, after she kills me that is, but—"
"Jess?" Sam's face is completley white, his eyes wide. "Dean, I think that…"
"We gotta get back to Kansas, man. Now." Dean paces anxiously.
"No," Sam say quietly, looking very, very sad. "We don't."
"You'll miss you're wedding!" Dean cries. "The one you begged me to be there for? Hello, I took a week off work and everything."
"Dean." Sam looks even paler, if that's possible, and—dude, are those tears brimming in his eyes? "We have to talk."
--
"Sam, this isn't funny."
"I'm not trying to be." Sam shakes his head. "Look, I know this must be really scary, but don't worry. I'm gonna try to fix it. We'll get you back to normal."
"Normal?"
"You have amnesia or something. Or…God, I don't know, but there is something wrong with you. That witch screwed with your mental health."
"My mental…no! You're the one who's crazy! Ghosts? That's freaking impossible, okay?" Dean stalks off to the other side of the room. "I don't understand," he mutters. "You're not acting like yourself."
"What do you mean I'm not acting like myself?" Sam demands. "You're the one who's gone crazy!"
"Says the guy who believes he hunts ghosts for a living." Dean snorts. "Dude, newsflash: you're like a year away form being a lawyer, you're engaged, you're about to start some dream life out in California and boy are Mom and Dad proud."
"What?" Sam is now squinting at him. "This doesn't make any sense though," he says after a moment.
"You're telling me." Dean leans down to look through one of the duffels and yelps as he discovers a gun. "My God—what do you have this for?"
"For hunting!" Sam looks thoroughly exasperated. "Put it down if you don't remember how to use it, okay?" Obligingly, Dean tosses it back down, shifting through a litany of strange things like salt and crosses and books of Latin before he locates a change of clothes. "What are you doing?" Sam asks.
"What does it look like?" Dean tugs off his shirt. "Changing."
Sam glances at him briefly, then does a double take as the shirt slides over his head.
"What the—Dean, take your shirt back off!"
"Excuse me?"
"Do it!"
Too creeped out by this strange, scary Sam to disobey him, Dean rips the shirt back off and eyes his little brother nervously as he walks over and starts to examine him.
"Your scars," Sam whispers. "They're gone." He runs a finger down Dean's shoulder and exclaims, "And your stitches! It's like they were never there!"
"Dude, this is kind of weird," Dean decides, edging away from Sam. "What stitches? What scars?"
"You're not him," Sam says wonderingly, staring at Dean as though transfixed. "You're not Dean!"
"Yes I am! Sam, what are you frigging on?"
Sam flops down, staring wordlessly at Dean.
"So," he says at long last. "Tell me about yourself."
--
"I don't understand," Sam says, and Dean feels a strange jolt of déjà vu. "Mom is alive? How is that possible?" Dean opens his mouth to answer, but Sam continues on. "And Dad and Jess, too? And you're a firefighter? I just…what the hell did Dean wish for, anyways?"
"Sam, this joke has really stopped being funny, okay?" Dean stands again, pacing. "I'm taking the car and going home."
"What? Dean—no!"
But too late. Dean's already jumped up, snagged the car keys from off the nightstand and headed out the door.
Two seconds later he's back, white-faced and wide-eyed.
"Dude," he says, "please tell me that Impala sitting in the parking space outside the door isn't ours."
"Uh, of course it is," Sam says, looking puzzled.
"But—I crashed it when I was sixteen. Completely demolished it!"
"Well, not here you didn't." Sam shakes his head. "Look, I get that this isn't your fault or anything, all right? I'm sorry I freaked out on you."
"I don't understand," Dean cries, echoing Sam. "This is impossible—this is crazy. Why aren't I home?"
"Well, it has to do with the wish my Dean made at the wishing well, I guess," Sam sighs. "Though to be honest, man, I have no idea if we can break this curse or what…but I think you should be back home tomorrow. Everyone else's personalities changed every day."
"Please tell me your Dean will be nice to everyone," Dean says, suddenly looking worried. "I'm already in so deep with Dad and Grace, I'd prefer not to go back and have them pissed all over again."
"Uh, to be honest, he'll probably be having some kind of breakdown," Sam says softly. "Seeing Mom alive…and Dad…he's not going to handle that well." He pauses, frowning. "Who's Grace?"
"Our sister," Dean says, looking puzzled. "Remember her?"
Sam's eyes widen even further than they have been.
"We have a sister where you're from?"
"Of course we do. And another little brother, too—whoa, Sam, are you feeling all right?"
"This is insane," Sam whispers. "Why is everyone alive?
--
They've traded their stories a hundred times over by now, but each of them—especially Dean—is having trouble really processing.
"Sam," he say quietly, "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay." Sam shrugs it off. "Really."
"No," Dean says, "it's not." He lays a hand on Sam's arm hesitantly, feeling weird but oddly big brotherly—an emotion he hasn't experienced for years. "You guys have a really shitty life, you know that?" Sam coughs, masking something that sounds suspiciously like a sob mixed with a laugh.
"Gee, thanks." He pauses to survey Dean. "And you know, you have a really awesome life, right?"
"I wouldn't go that far." Dean sighs, folding his arms, staring down at his feet. "I mean, you do. You've always been the golden boy, and now you're gonna lead the golden life…and me? Man, I'm the frigging black sheep of the family. Everything I do pisses Dad off and the only one I'm even close to is Gracie—and even she's not happy with me right now."
"But Mom and Dad are alive." Sam sounds and looks so wistful when he says it, it's enough to make Dean feel like an A-Grade asshole for whining about his trivial problems. "I mean, you grew up in a home. I bet you played sports and had a home-cooked meal every night and went to prom and…" He trails off, looking sad, suddenly. "Why didn't the Demon come? Why wasn't I Chosen?"
"I don't know," Dean says, because it's true. "I just can't believe this kind of stuff is real."
"Well," Sam says after a moment, shaking his head, "I've got research to do. Let's go."
"Go where?"
"The library," Sam says simply. "But first, I gotta make a phone call."
--
"Jo?" Dean watches as Sam frowns, looking puzzled. "What are you doing back home? Oh—yeah, sorry. This is Sam." A long pause, and then he laughs shortly. "Bet that didn't go over well with Ellen. No, no…yes. No, we haven't. Uh, well he's actually why I'm calling."
"Who is that?" Dean asks Sam, ignoring him as his brother motions for him to be quiet.
"No, Jo, he's…well, I think he's okay. It's really complicated, actually. Would you mind putting Ash on?" Another long pause in which Sam's expression jumps from exasperation to amusement and back again. "Okay, okay, I know. Well, see, there's this wishing well in Upstate New York, and—oh. Yeah, the wishing well. Of course we took the job on…and, uh, yeah. He made a wish, and…no, Jo, don't come down here. That won't help anything. Jo! Put Ash on!"
Dean sighs, standing and heading to dig in the duffle bags while his brother argues ceaselessly with the person at the other end of the phone. One bag is filled almost entirely with rock salt, a few guns, and knives—which is just creepy, Ghostbusters or no—and the other one has the clothes and the books and the other gun. Dean picks up one leather-bound especially worn-looking one and flips it open, running a finger down the first weathered page.
I went to Missouri and I learned the truth, the first sentence reads in Dad's slanted, Yoda-like handwriting. Curious, Dean skims through the book, eyes widening as he reads about various different supernatural stuff Dad apparently knows how to waste. He's halfway through a page featuring something called a Djinn when Sam's loud, angry voice startles him.
"You can't help him anymore than I can!" Sam hollers. "Didn't you hear Ash? He says the only information he's been able to dig up is that we gotta wait this out—Jo, no. What? I…Jo, that's not fair. I was frigging possessed, you can't use that to guilt trip me!" A long, long pause in which Sam looks incredibly guilty, then sighs long and loud. "All right, all right. Come then—but he won't know who you are so don't expect him to. Holiday Inn, right off of Victor-Egypt road…Yeah, right back at you." He flips the phone closed forcefully and then mutters, "Dammit."
"What," Dean asks, "was that all about?"
"Put it this way: my Dean has really weird taste in girls," Sam informs him inexplicably, before he stands, shrugging on a jacket and grabbing the keys to the Impala. "All right, now we can go to the library. I talked to a family friend, Ash, and he would know anything there is to know about this, but he says so far the only info he's found is just waiting for the curse to run its course. He told me to do some research on my own but he'll keep looking himself."
"And who's coming here?" Dean asks as he follows Sam to the car. Sam sighs.
"Jo," he says simply. "Though I have no idea what she thinks she can do."
"Jo's a girl?"
"Short for Joanna," Sam explains, sliding in to the driver's seat. "Don't worry. If she drives out here, it'll take her a couple days at least, so you should be long gone—and even if she does get a flight, she won't get here until tonight."
"Wow." Dean sighs, staring up at the Impala's ceiling. "This is going to be really weird day." Sam pauses, closing his eyes briefly.
"You're telling me," he mutters finally, and then the Impala roars to life.
--
The day passes quickly, and it's filled with books.
Dean hates research; he never liked school, and this just reminds of dreary, endless days in stuffy, boring, Lawrence High. Days where he would sit and stare out a window as some teacher droned on about World War I or parabolas or whatever and think that he was meant for something else, something exciting, something meaningful.
Not this. Not small-town life with the same boring, mindless idiots he'd known since he was a little kid. Not the same routine over and over and over again.
He had wanted—still does, in fact—for his life to mean something, he'd wanted to actually do some good in the world.
It was why he'd become a firefighter, actually. Dean isn't stupid; he hasn't ever wanted the job for glory or heroism…he just has so much Goddamn energy. Might as well put it to good use.
Firefighting, he thinks, is a depressing job. You see a lot of death, a lot of destruction, a lot of fear…but there's something so beautiful about soothing it, as strange as it sounds. Like the time he stopped what could have been a horrible fire just before it got out of control, salvaging this ancient old house a family had lived in forever. Or when this little boy drew him a picture of a stick-figure version of himself holding a stick-figure Firefighter Dean's hand after Dean rescued the kid and his pregnant mom. When the water finally douses the flames for good, when everybody gets out alive, when dawn beaks and night seems to just melt away, leaving only the heady scent of smoke behind…that's what it makes it all worth it, really.
But even that isn't enough, not in the long run. Dean saves lives, yes, but what about the people who don't make it? How do you explain to a mother that her daughter is dead? How do you rush into a burning building without wondering if you'll make it out alive, if you'll never see your father again and apologize, if the last thing your family will remember you saying is, You all are pathetic, if you wasted your life after all?
At times Dean can love it, firefighting, but most of the time, he feels like he settled or something. He feels like there was supposed to be more, like there's a puzzle piece missing. At first that piece feels insignificant—like, Well, what's the big deal? I did all this work and it looks just fine. It's only one piece, after all. But then maybe after awhile, you look at the puzzle and the missing corner of blue sky naggles at you, makes you wish you could find it so you could finish the job. It's fine, but it's not the best it could be. You worked hard for it, but maybe if you'd hunted under the couch cushions a little longer, bugged your messy little sister a little more, you would have found the piece, made the puzzle whole.
"Dean?"
He jerks his head up sharply to stare at this brother who is not his brother, this familiar yet utterly unfamiliar Sam. Sam has always been so happy, as a baby, as a kid—even now, as an adult. He's the funny, intelligent, sensitive one, the handsome one. Dean hadn't been kidding when he'd called Sam the golden boy of the family earlier, because it's true. Sam has everything: the wonderful fiancée, the popularity, the kindness, the soon-to-be college degree…the kid casts a long shadow.
This Sam is just…he's so mature, it's almost frightening. Sam's always been responsible and everything, but this dude is so capable, so confident. Even when he's flipping out he's rationalizing it; and he's strong, too. He's also got this darkness to him, this sadness and worry in his eyes that tell Dean that even though the kid's already told him some of the tough shit he's seen, Dean doesn't know the half of it.
"Yeah?" Dean finally responds, running a hand hastily through his hair.
"You okay, man? You've sort of been staring at the same page for the past fifteen minutes."
"I'm fine," Dean says quickly. "Just thinking."
"Yeah, me too," Sam admits, "but I think I got something."
"Really?" This peaks Dean's interest. "What?"
"Well, it's not much, but there's a kind of curse mentioned on this website." Sam taps at his laptop's screen. "Apparently, it either creates or simply opens the door to alternate realities. It suggests that there are always several ways are lives could have planned out, different designs fate had. The curse rips the curse-ee from one reality to the next."
"Does it say how to break it?"
"Burn the cursed object or kill the caster of the curse." Sam laughs dryly. "Well, since we're talking about a wishing well, burning it will be kind of hard, and as for killing the caster…well, she's already dead."
"Well, there must be something.," Dean says worriedly. "I mean…you must deal with crap like this all the time!"
"This is sort of a first for me. Burning and salting bones, no problem. Need a demon exorcised, I'm your guy. But alternate realities? I'm not that much of an expert."
"What are we supposed to do?" Dean mutters. "I—look…could I see the wishing well?" Sam frowns.
"Well, sure, I guess so. What are you going to do?" he asks.
"I don't know," Dean sighs. "Make a wish or something?" Sam grimaces.
"Dude," he says, "don't even joke about something like that."
--
Dean stares at the old well, the same one from his dream, and shudders slightly.
"That witch was in my dream last night," Dean says to Sam as they both stare at the water, slightly entranced.
"Whoa." Sam suddenly, rubs his temples, backing away. "We…we gotta be careful. My Dean said the water sort of…compelled him or something."
"God." Dean shudders. "Let's just go—I don't even know why I wanted to come here. This place creeps me out."
By now, the sky is already darkening, and it startles them to realize neither of them have eaten anything since this morning, so they hurry to find a diner. Dean picks at his meat loaf before abandoning it altogether, and stares down at his folded hands.
This day has just been freaking exhausting. And to top it all off, he's missed Sam's wedding.
Great. Really fucking great.
"Stop brooding," Sam suggests as he takes a long sip of beer. "It'll all be over soon."
"I don't get it," Dean says. "I get stuck here, your Dean gets stuck there, we spend a useless day trying and failing to fix it…what the hell is the point of it? What does it mean?"
"Maybe nothing for you." Sam shrugs. "My Dean was the one who made the wish, after all, so maybe you're not really affected by it."
Dean doesn't know what to think about this, so he nods, takes a sip of his own beer, and waits until Sam finishes his spaghetti so they can go back to the motel and Dean can finally go to sleep and maybe forget any of this ever happened.
When they do get back to the room, Dean resolutely flops down onto the same bed he woke up in, not even bothering to get undressed, and announces,
"My head is killing me."
Sam snorts, moving into the bathroom to change and brush his teeth. Dean has the light off before he comes back out, and as Sam slides into his own bed he says,
"Hey, Dean..."
"Yeah?"
"This entire day…you haven't called me Sammy. Not once."
"Huh?" Dean props himself up on his elbow. "I never call you that anymore. You asked me to stop when you were five."
There is a long pause, and then Sam says quietly,
"Oh." Another pause, and he adds, "We're not close, where you're from, are we?"
"No," Dean admits, a little sadly. "We just…we used to fight. Now, we sort of tolerate each other."
There is an even longer silence than before and then Sam says, quite firmly,
"Sorry, man, but that really sucks."
"Yeah, I guess it kind of does," Dean agrees after a few seconds.
"Really. I mean, it's not like you and me see eye to eye on everything here, but God, I don't know what I'd do without you. You've spent your whole life being there for me, teaching me stuff, being my big brother. You're my best friend, you know?"
Dean stares up at the ceiling, trying to understand and failing. The only person he's ever been close to is Grace—not that he'd trade that for anything—but the wistfulness in Sam's voice as he talks about his Dean kind of makes this Dean's heart clench.
"Sorry," Dean says, a little hoarsely.
"Well, I guess there's a price for everything," Sam says at long last. "As long as you're happy, right?"
"Right." Dean stares at the ceiling, then closes his eyes. "Hey, when you see your Dean again, after this whole thing is over…tell him I say hey, okay?"
"Uh, all right," Sam concedes after a moment, sounding a little perplexed.
"And also tell him," Dean adds, "he's lucky."
"What?"
"Look, I don't envy the hell you've put up with," Dean say bluntly. "Don't get me wrong, I know you guys deal with stuff no one should ever have to. It's just...I spend my life living in this state of inadequacy. I'm kind of pathetic, really—I'm man enough to admit it. But your Dean…man, from what little you've said of him, I can already tell he's got a better grip on who he is than I ever have." Dean sighs a little, keeping his eyes shut.
"Okay," Sam says softly after a moment, sounding a little surprised, even a little enlightened. "I'll tell him."
"And one last thing," Dean adds.
"What?"
"G'night, Sammy."
A pause, and then Sam's voice, sounding sad and amused and like he's missing his big brother all at once, responds,
"Sleep well, Dean."
Dean breathes deep as sleep claims him, dragging him away from this reality, back into a dream that isn't filled with confusion or witches or wishing wells, but something bright, something familiar.
The sun peeking through the clouds as the last stars fade from the sky, Dean standing next to Chief as the last flames die down.
A father hugging Dean so tightly he thinks his ribs may crack, thanking him for saving his family.
Running into a blazing building and cheating death, walking through fire without getting burned, saving a woman's life.
The way Mom's arms feel around him when he visits for the first time in over a year. The rumble of Dad's voice as he reads the sports page aloud. The eagerness in Simon's eyes as he shows Dean his latest book. Grace's smile when he tells her the dirtiest joke about firefighters he knows. The sound of Sam's voice when he says, "I'm glad you came, Dean. I'm so freaking glad you came."
Dean walks towards a house in Lawrence, Kansas, and he thinks to himself that maybe he will never find be what he was meant to be—not in this reality anyways. (It kind of helps to know that in another place, a different reality, there is a Dean who is doing what he was born to do.)
Maybe he'll never be the perfect son or brother, maybe he'll never be truly happy.
But it doesn't matter, not really, because this life is the hand he was dealt. He may not be able to lay down a royal flush, but still. A straight flush is nothing to sniff at, either—in fact, it's about as good as you can damn well get.
A/N again:
Once again, reviews would make my day! And heh heh, before I forget, I recently learned how to use Windows Movie Maker and so I decided I would do a trial project and see how it went. I was midway through writing this chapter, and, inspired, I decided to make a trailer for Careful What You Wish For because I am a dork and I had some time to waste. So yes, it's really crappy, but I was psyched because I found a Metallica song that worked and I had fun doing it, and the gist of it is it's on YouTube if you want to watch it and point and laugh at me. It can be found at:
http colon // www . youtube. com / watch?v equals ioI1sqo14r8
As I'm sure you're aware, won't post website addresses, so just take out the spaces and replace colon with an actual colon and equals with an eqaul sign you should be good to go. xD