Author's Note: Howdy all! Hope your holiday was good. I had some drama that kept me away, but I'm like a cat, landing on its feet. Anyway, back to what you want (or I hope you want!) Hope to update tomorrow or the next day.
Sizzle, crack, groan, snap. On and on the pyre devoured, consuming barn timber, scorching each splinter to ash and dust. The inferno thrashed, tearing fiery teeth into the winter dry wood that struggled to maintain some sense of its former structure. Groaning, the rusted nails strained, just barely gripping the remaining tinders together. Amid the inferno, Dean settled stagnant and helpless as the fire gorged on anything in its path, leaving not a shred whole in its wave.
"DEAN!" Sam barked, sucking in the throat coating, charcoal thick smoke. He surged to his brother, gasping and ignoring danger and self-preservation. If saving Dean meant undertaking the suicidal notion of burning alive, so be it. His intention clear, he squinted in expectation at Bobby, offering his friend a cop out of the situation. He owed Bobby at least the option, but he found denial with a simple salute.
"Not in this or any lifetime." Bobby slithered with a sudden push forward while his friend dodged seething, cascading embers.
Both skidded, skimmed, dived, and shoved the deadly obstacle course with a determination beyond doubt or question of success. Each sought out more than the sinewy road to redemption and forgiveness. At the end of all things, losing Dean had been losing an integral piece of themselves. Facing it again sparked unimaginable, but they felt it as surely as the flames spread in sadistic countdown.
Fire adorned each wall, circling the Winchesters like wagons in classic westerns. Flames, heat, and smoke wrestled to decide who would snatch life first. Debris, ashes, and cinders swirled and slashed at Bobby and Sam with every step. Suddenly, the fire blasted through the roof, opening up a sweltering cavity above them and flinging hot tin down in a metallic holocaust. Sam sprang, whirled, and plunged forward, landing next to Dean.
Soaring beyond the most recent fire downpour, Bobby somersaulted, landing clumsily on his knees. Crawling the next few feet, he tested how wedged Dean was under the vast beam. Not even the slightest budge could be made against the mammoth restraint. Bobby lunged over the beam, reaching out a hand to test Dean's pulse. "Quick, but he's with us."
Sam swiped a hand across his face to his stinging eyes, clearing a track of soot from the burn on his cheek. Sam and Bobby's lungs protested from the tar pitch stockpiling inside of them. Even breathing didn't seem as important, at least not in regards to themselves. The saving relief was to see Dean breathing in shallow pants.
Bobby yanked the skewering wood out of Dean's leg, whipped off his belt, and slapped it above the largest part of Dean's thigh, cinching a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. One mission accomplished, he glanced at Sam briefly, but found adrenaline already propelled the youngest Winchester.
Shedding his down to t-shirt, Sam wrapped his flannel over the sparking flares at the end of the beam, snuffing the fire's life out enough to clench his long arms about it. As specks of fire bit Sam's hand with razor sharp flicks, he remained stoic-trapped only in horror of the threat that his brother's motionless frame would soon be overtaken. His face morphed with frantic determination. Each man grabbed an end of the beam, straining until the veins on their arms stood in solider attention.
"No good!" Bobby shoved the biggest plank he could find, driving it as far under wood, bearing his weight on it. Yet, the beam only shifted, slamming into the raw leg wound.
Eyes shot wild, screaming panic in harmony with the timbre of Dean's voice. "NO! MOM!" Trashing, he fought in opposition of his captivity. To him, the battle was far beyond in his former home of hellfire. His head panged from the force split from Hell.
A steadying hand reached for him, shaking with Sam's expectation. "Easy. I won't let you burn."
The sudden intrusion upon his arm startled Dean. A cringe resurrected from within, awaiting the piercing, boring of chains into him. He balked. The blackness of his pupil boomed to the rim of his iris, cancelling out any shred of the gentle green, as if fear pried his eyes wide to see all the horrors the hereafter had for him. Then the emerald forced itself back, challenging to find focus. Yet, all he discovered was painful memories, his mind finding a hold on reality as fruitless as water holds in a rusted pipe. Dean's left arm rose oddly and pure maddening pain tore from him.
"No. We can't let him die like this! I can't let him die!" Even the sound of the words terrified Sam. Again, his brother marked by death like an unending bastard attendance call. All the skill of his father and the demon blood within him were useless- powerless. Not even reaching for his own dark power formed a barrier to rescue Dean.
"STOP!" Dean bellowed, waving one arm madly. The other began to flop without direction. The socket swelling with its own sodden heat.
"Hold on." Sam demanded. "There has to be a way."
As if on autopilot, Dean raged against his time in hell as if yelling a protest to heaven, confessing and damning the way things were. Secret pain falling away from thickly coated lungs. Only the sweltering heat proved strong enough to swallow away his words. No matter how he rallied against Mary's promise, the end would result in the same- her falling forever to the darkness of Hell. "Mom!"
"It'll be okay, kid. DAMMIT!" Bobby's grip slackened. It wasn't often the Winchester boys shocked him. Sadly, he wished it wasn't today. "We got to get more leverage. "
"Don't- don't do it." Dean cried, reaching out to emptiness.
"We won't leave you. I swear." Sam gave him a nudge. "I promise."
Yet, Dean wasn't truly with them. His mind had wandered to deep in painful flashback. The pang of losing Mary sank him, leaving his mind scrambling in a loop of torment.
"What's wrong with him!"
"Having a fit!" Bobby adjusted Dean's left arm, shielding it from the flames.
"Get away from him." Wanda screamed.
"I told you to git!" Bobby glared. "Damn tarn fired women!"
"Not without him! Here, wrap this around the beam." Tossing a rust chain, Wanda ringed it close enough for the men to reach. "And no funny business or you won't make it out either!"
"Hightail it!" He barked a response, but Bobby's demands, if heard, were not obeyed.
"No man tells us what to do." Gladys perched on top of the tractor, stomping on the throttle as it refusing chugged to a quivering start.
Wanda wrapped a short chain around the beam, giving both men a suspicious stare. "ON THREE!"
"Screw that! On one!" Bobby yelped. "NOW, NOW!"
Gladys set the tractor in motion, driving it straight towards the door, crashing it through as the chain freed Dean. The fire swarmed with newly oxygenated fuel source and it hissed out a fire bolt from a pissed off dragon. They drove down, hitting whatever coverage they could find. Barreling in a swooping sheer dive, Sam covered Dean. When the sudden influx of new life finally subsided enough, they moved.
When Sam's stance lacked elegance, his intention took on a carefully rush gentleness. He scooped Dean over his shoulder, balancing him carefully even as Dean wiggled and trashed in fight. He managed to secure his brother enough to make a break for the opening. Sam hurdled through and over obstacles as if in an Olympic sprint until he rolled out in tow with Dean. Bobby, in the meantime, shoved and marched Wanda out in front of him. Just as they crossed the crash made threshold, the barn succumbed to the damage, tumbling with a thunderclap to the ground.
Sam's knees quivered as he lowered Dean down trying to assess his brother's condition. The striking cold skittered to him now in vast contrast to the stifling punishing fire. It helped him to keep on going in spite of the feeling of though he were about to collapse and probably would have had he not Dean to care for.
With vulture speed, Wanda walloped Sam with a cracking whack. "How could you! He's your family!"
"No!" He shifted Dean towards him, shielding and covering Dean with as much as Sam's frame would allow a hold on the struggling man. "He wouldn't hurt you! He tried to save you!"
"You stay away!" Gladys uneasily climbed off the tractor, her legs bending and bowing as she tested her footing on the ground.
"Whoa! Easy there!" Bobby reasoned and was thanked with a smack of his own.
"Whatever game you are playing. You... You..." Wanda thwacked Sam's head again. Then, just for good measure, she picked up a broken branch as warning that she meant business.
Sam swathed Dean as best he could, keeping his obscure from the sister's assault. "This isn't his fault. Stop."
"Of course it isn't his fault. You- You murderer!" Gladys poked Bobby's side, driving him a step further from Dean.
"Shit fire and taters!" If he weren't a gentleman, Bobby would have seriously thought of pushing back.
"Get away from him! Don't you dare hurt him." Wanda crowned Sam with a large stick thwack on his head.
"Eooouooowww"
Trusting that the voice of reason would at least stop the immediate onslaught, Bobby hoped to gain enough time for he and Sam to bolt with Dean. "Hold up. We ain't here to hurt him."
"You just get back or I'll..." Her stick raised high, Wanda whooshed the air in warning.
"What? Yell me to death." Placing his hand up, Bobby looked like he was about to give in. "Play Punch and Judy with my head?"
Gladys hauled back a fist, packing a good punch.
"WHOA!" He grabbed her swing, and found Wanda bashed his legs with her claimed oversized switch. "DAMMMIT! Listen, I know this is confusing, but we won't hurt him. We didn't come all this way to find him."
Dean struggled against Sam, calling for help- screaming for Mary. The swelling in his left shoulder saturated, bruising up to his collarbone. "MOM! NO! Don't make me!"
"I supposed he is fighting because he feels so safe with you? Let that child go." Wanda smacked Bobby leaving cane size marks on his legs until he freed Gladys.
"We're on the same page." The only hold Bobby had over the situation was the chaotic attempt to keep the sisters at bay and off Sam and Dean.
"And you killed that girl's father! And got him-" She swung her wood javelin around in a grand slam, forcing Bobby to jump out of the way. Just when Wanda was about to strike another round, a strange sounding voice whipped the action to a standstill. They all stopped fighting for a moment, except Dean
"I killed him. I know." Sam glanced up. "It's all my fault. Everything I touched, but he needs me. Can't you hear him suffering?"
Finally, Bobby glared at Sam's audacity. "I swear! SAM! You need whupped to kingdom come! I have mind to let these hell cats have at ya. Wandell wasn't your fault. You couldn't have saved him that day. Dean-."
"Tell it to Holley. Dean tried to save her. He tried!" Sam turned his focus to his brother, the sound of his ragged breaths, the shifting of his alarmed frame, and the sound of pain each movement caused. "You just had to play the hero, didn't you?" He started, accusation thick in this stuffed-up voice as he looked at Dean. He blinked as his eyes burned. "You tried. And she's gone too just because I was weak."
"You can't control EVERYTHING. Meg was about as plum crazy as that kid in there. She killed him. Hell, Dean knew you couldn't have done a damn thing- the shape you were in. You couldn't have saved Wandell then or his daughter now. Damn, Dean couldn't even find a way to reach her. You know him- how he…" Bobby licked his lips, shaking his head. "It's the things you set right that makes you, boy. Dean knows that. He fought for you- for them in there." He nodded a head at the sisters, not caring if they were along for the ride of this conversation or not. "Don't soil that now with misplaced guilt. Today I saw the courage that always made me fight alongside of you. Dean's selflessness and your blind faith in him. "
"He didn't hurt?" Wanda kept her hand fisted.
"Course not! You don't understand. All of this is a mistake." Bobby dropped his guard, watching to see if the sisters were about to pull pit bull duty to protect Dean again. "But, I'm guessin' you got to know Dean a bit and can see that this..."
"It's still my fault. What I did. Mistakes I've made."
"Go ahead, smack HIM again. Damn dunderhead." He took a step backing, offering to stand aside to let Wanda and Gladys have a good shot at Sam.
Sam looked up, his eyes flickering with confusion with the sisters locking in on his gaze. "Just let me help him and I'll explain everything. If I can! I just..."
Dean cried out in a vision, lost to his surroundings, deep in the memory of his mother. He fell back against Sam. Stunned and Raging. Then all thoughts of murder and responsibility were lost to his panic filled screams
"Dean!" Bobby yelled as he whirled around to see the boy flailing desperately. He quickly pressed on Dean's leg, giving it more than a once over inspection. "It's not too bad!" He tightened the notch on his belt, being extra careful of the allowing enough circulation in the leg.
However, Dean locked in some part of his experience in Hell, dodging, shoving, and prying away from Sam to slam into Bobby's open arms.
"Alright now. Boy… Heaven help... Please." Shaking his hands like a child firing his first big gun, Bobby latched around him. "Easy."
Dean just leaned into it and he felt hands guiding him. There were no inches between them. His head slapped hard down on Bobby's shoulder, whirling up a mouthful of soot inside him. When he began to cough, a hand created small circles over his back.
"Breathe. Thatta boy."
Rasping out more coughs, Dean heaved up black oozing flem, which curdled with more sediment than liquid. The black substance hung tight to the corner of his lip as he tried to rally and speak. He mumbled distantly, sounding as if his voice had to transgress a maze of glop in his lungs, zigging and zagging to find escape. He rested his head against Bobby and pleaded in unawareness, whispering repeatedly. "Take Mom back. Not me. Make it stop. Make it stop."
"We'll sort it out." Bobby reassured.
He raised the energy, striking out from the depths at Castiel with blows that would find only Bobby. "You....can't..." Still lost in the vision and fighting, Dean jarred free from Bobby's grasp, flopping his back against Sam.
"Dean. It's- It's me. Please, I came for you to- to."
Moving forward, Gladys shoved Sam back a few inches to get to Dean. "Sweetie Pie? You come on back now."
"Mom?" He muttered, craving to hear his mother call him that stupid Sugar Pie nickname, only to hear Gladys calling him something familiar and alien. "He's having another bad memory."
"Another?" Bobby's grabbed Dean's arms, wrapping them around across one another so Sam could control Dean's movements more easily.
"Dean? Easy... easy. I'm here. It's Sam."
"MOM! SAVE MOM!"
"I can't. God, I wish I could...Shh." He sniffled. "Mom's gone."
"No. Got her. They got her." Confessing things he never would have said-torments of hell- his mother- and fears. Broken words that said why too much, speaking of insurmountable pain. Some sounds were mere mumbles, but the message was clear. Mary was in hell with him. Somewhere- Somehow, Mary saved Dean and it was tearing Dean apart.
Sam sucked in a gasp, struggling to hold him tighter."Hold on. You can't leave again. You just can't."
"What the hell happened to you all!?" Wanda's face shocked wide with an uncertain gaze.
"The things that-." Gladys started, equally in a daze as her sister. She bent down and started stroking Dean's hair. "Shh. Push it away. It's not happening. Let it go."
Dean quieted, finally breaking free of the horrors of his mind.
"Dean? Kiddo, you okay?"
The faces distended oddly, shapes hovering over him, but he knew the voices. He tried to speak, but his lips pushed out unformed airless words.
Sam hoisted him up, buoying the of Dean's head to rest on a shoulder. "You're going to be okay. Just need a little help. That's all. It's over."
"Not like this. Not.... in...front of them." Dean whispered, begging Sam. A sharp pain zipped up his thigh. His eyes darted hazily down, gluing to the bloody stain on his pants. "Please." He squinted so hard, trying to find more focus, that his crow's feet became cavernous. "No more." Tears bombarded from his clench lids. "Mom's waiting...waiti..." His eyes opened with a strange glassiness as if scanning the distance, seeing things that could never be seen.
"What!?" Realization gutted Sam. "He thinks we- we're going-"
"Not them...not here."
Mutterings almost too jumbled to understand banged hard in Sam's ear. Sam's breathing heightened. His teeth parted, wanting to chatter with a sudden chill. "I…"
"They're fine. We got them out." Bobby's gruff voice sounded raspier than normal, carefully choosing his words. They needed to get Dean out of here and in his experience the less truth the better. "We're explaining everything to them right now. You taker'..."
"Poppycock! You haven't explained anything." Jiggling her head as if something had loosened a pin in her neck, Wanda settled to get answers.
"I will- just- he needs me and this time I can't…" Sam propped his shoulder higher
"Not them... don't. Not here.
Suddenly, the wind blown trees started to look dark and ominous, and strange sounds bawled in the distance. However, it was just the fire dying out as its fuel source went extinct, reducing to consumed ashes. When lights returned, it popped in colored flashes. The noise pitched higher- closer. Sirens.
Sam swallowed hard thick smoke paste down his throat, trying desperately to find a rational, or at least reasonable sounding excuse for the sisters, but his words gravy thickened with the lump he just swallowed. He didn't care what they thought of him, but the last thing they needed was more complications at the moment and thoughts of protecting Dean crammed any thoughts he had at the moment.
"I say we put them in room with a polecat. What do you say, Dean. Let's see how quick-" Her jib was lost, smothered in Gladys' concern.
A smidge of awareness sparked. After all that had happened, he was back to square one, starting the game over. Only this time he had no tricks or cheats to pull. No more running when all he thought to be worth a damn was right in front of him. The sisters had almost made him believe he was worth it too. Merely, a foolish man's dare that he could find a way to fix everything.
All things had been denied him- simple things- a home, family, children, his father's approval, measuring up, and the list was endless. Death was favored to a life without ties to Sam, a life of solitude without friends like Bobby, a life while his mother suffered, and a life where innocents paid for the dark that plagued them. That's what he had to offer the world.
At the bottom of his life barrel scraped the inevitable demise at the hands of those he trusted most. Perhaps, it was better that way. However, with every fiber in him that pained, he wanted someone to remember him kindly at this end.
At least on the other side, he would have his mother again and he could carry the final act of protecting two elderly sisters who shown him nothing but kindness, albeit strange kindness. No matter what Sam and Bobby did to him, Wanda and Gladys survived the Winchester madness, intact with grit and moxy.
"Trust me. We're here-" She began again.
Dean chuckled. "Do trust." He whispered so sloppily he could have been speaking in tongues, but Sam got the message. "Please. Don't let them see. Can't see. Not…" Dean's head jutted back, falling to the darkness of unconsciousness before he could finish his plea.
"I'm here to save you." Sam's shoulder shook, hunching over in defeat. "I'm here- here to save you. I just want my brother back. Dean? DEAN!"