A/N: My apologies for the long wait, though part of it was because of the error that wouldn't let me upload this for the entire weekend. I hope it's all right, and I'd love to hear your feedback via reviews.
Rule Nine: A little lighter fluid goes a long way.
The body smelled about as good as a sweat-soaked gym sock covered in rotting vegetation and sour milk. Sam pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose and mouth to block out the smell, but it seemed to have saturated his clothes as well, suffocating the room with the detestable odor of death.
Thankfully, if he stood a few feet away, he couldn't distinguish any human features of the body due to it being obscured by the wooden walls of its hole in the floor. However, the smell of something that had been decaying for over a hundred years was still overwhelming.
Apparently, sometime during the nineteenth century, an aristocratic family lived there with several servants. But the master was a cruel man; he often beat his slaves to within an inch of their lives, using a variety of torture methods so that they would be subordinate to his every command. Driven to the brink of insanity, the slaves had eventually cornered the man and stabbed him to death, burying him under the floorboards of the basement just deep enough so that the smell didn't permeate the room.
Five years ago, an African American family had moved into the house. Immediately, the master's vengeful spirit reprised his role by torturing them to death, one by one. Only the one son escaped, and after dappling in the underground community devoted to the paranormal, he had discovered John Winchester's number.
And that was why they were there, staring at the gruesome bones of the dead master under the mess of broken floorboards. Sam felt his stomach turn over as he imagined staring at dead bodies like this for the rest of his life. He'd already spent eighteen freaking years doing it. And he couldn't do it anymore. He had to get away.
Reaching into his pocket, his fingers brushed the folded envelope. He still hadn't opened it yet, too afraid of the probable rejection—of the confirmation that he'd be stuck here burning bodies until he keeled over from old age. The thought made him shudder involuntarily.
"Hey Sam," Dean called from where he was leaning over, inspecting the remains. "You wanna haul ass or what?"
Blinking, he nodded and bent over to lift the canister of lighter fluid. Straying as close to the body as he dared, he began pouring the liquid into the hole. Thankfully, the smell overwhelmed that of death for a few moments. Sam gazed down into the distorted skull, which was absolutely writhing with maggots and other things that he didn't really want to get a closer look at. So he continued to douse it with lighter fluid, every drop a vindictive need to destroy this body, this horrible body that he had to look at and smell because his father was just kind enough to lead his sons into danger and dead bodies. Thanks, Dad.
"Whoa!" Sam felt his hand swatted by Dean's, and he stopped pouring. "Jesus Sam, you think you used enough?" The sarcasm was evident when he glanced back down to find the body literally swimming in liquid. Dean let out a low whistle. "A little lighter fluid goes a long way, you know... Fuck, this thing's gonna light up like birthday cake in a nitroglycerine plant."
Dean was frowning slightly, but Sam could tell that he wasn't really that pissed. He could tell by the glint in his eyes. He dropped the nearly empty canister and muttered, "Sorry."
The twenty-two year old glanced over at his younger brother, and Sam could see the beginnings of concern etched there. "You okay?"
Sam bit out a harsh, scoffing snort. "Peachy."
But before Dean could say another word, John Winchester himself bounded down the staircase with a lighter in hand. "You ready, boys?" he panted, clearly having narrowly evaded the ghost's wrath. He looked spent and out of breath, but other than that he seemed all right. Sam didn't feel the least bit of sympathy.
"Wait, Dad, I think there might be too much—" Dean started; but John, apparently eager to finish the spirit off, had already flicked a small orange flame onto the lighter and tossed it over the hole.
It all happened in simultaneous, comical slow-motion.
John's eyes widened as he looked down into the hole.
Dean reached out in a futile effort to snatch the lighter from midair.
Sam cringed as Dean missed and the tiny flame sailed down onto the body in its lighter-fluid-bath.
The burst of fire that erupted from the hole sent all three Winchester men leaping for cover. Sam dove to the ground to avoid the explosion, instinctively throwing his arms over his head. The blast threw him several feet through the air before he landed with a hard thud against the far wall, sliding to the floor so that his arms remained over his head and his face was pressed into crevice between the wall and floor. He lay there for several moments, sucking in oxygen and blinking the stars from his eyes from when he hit his head.
At last he groaned and rolled over onto his back, gazing up at the charred ceiling. His eyes stung a bit as he blinked through the smoke, but he propped himself into a sitting position against the wall to survey the damage.
The basement was a wreck. Everything was charred and smoky, and little tufts of orange flame clung to pieces of the room; they smoldered high and hot in the hole beneath the floorboards. Grimacing, Sam turned his head to see his father, who was wiping his grimy hands on his grimy shirt, and Dean, who was lying nearly motionless on the other end of the room.
"Dean?" he called out, hoping that his voice would rouse his brother. The latter groaned and rolled over, much like Sam had, but didn't respond. Dean!" With a sharp pain pulsing through his head, Sam stumbled to his feet and quickly crossed the room, avoiding the spots of fire dancing and spreading around him. By the time he got to his brother, John was already there, bending down over his eldest son.
Sam cringed at the gash along Dean's hairline, spilling crimson blood over his sooty, glistening face. "Dean, can you hear me?" John asked firmly, inspecting the cut.
Dean squeezed his eyes shut. "I hit my head. I'm not deaf."
Sam sighed in relief at the familiar snark. "Are you okay?" he asked, wincing inwardly when he realized the idiocy of the question.
His dad was already helping Dean to a sitting position as Dean cracked his eyes open with a smirk. "Yeah, me'n those pink elephants dancing around the room'll be just fine."
"Cut it out, Dean," John ordered.
"Yessir," came the expected, mumbled reply.
"Now, why the hell did you use so much damn lighter fluid?" John demanded sharply, hauling Dean to his feet. The latter stumbled and braced himself against the wall.
When Dean didn't reply, Sam jumped in, not prepared to let his brother pay for his mistake twice. "He didn't. I did."
The oldest Winchester rounded on the youngest, his eyes glittering with fury. "What the hell were you thinking, Sam?" His voice seemed to be bordering on both anger and exasperation. "That might have blown up the whole house! I would hope that if I've taught you anything, it's the value of being careful."
"Sorry, Dad," Sam muttered, turning his eyes back to Dean. John had let go of his son in order to fully face Sam during the reprimand, and Dean was still leaning heavily against the wall with his head rolled back and his eyes closed. His left hand was curled around his stomach, which had surely made contact with the floor along with his head, while his right hand was pressed flat against the wall behind him. From the way he was cautiously trying to steady himself, it was clear that his head was swimming from the blow.
Sam glanced back at his dad, who had followed Sam's gaze to his other son. Heaving a sigh, he pulled his car keys from his pocket with a loud jangle. "All right, I'm going to go pull the car around to the house. You get Dean to the front door. I'll meet you there."
And with that, John was striding away quickly. Sam turned back to look at Dean and couldn't help but frown at the amount of blood coating his face. "Dean?" he asked tentatively.
"Yeah, Sam, I'm fine," the latter mumbled. "Don't worry about it."
"But—"
"I said, don't worry about it."
A moment of silence passed, and Dean didn't seem to want to move from his spot.
"Dean… I'm sorry."
Sam watched with a surge of guilt as the twenty-two year old blinked his eyes open and focused on Sam. "How many times do I have to tell you not to worry about it? Look, you wanna make up for it, just do one thing for me." Sam nodded, listening. "Don't ever use that much lighter fluid again." Dean smirked, but there was a seriousness in his eyes that Sam rarely saw. "It doesn't take much to start a fire, Sam."
Biting his lip, Sam nodded and glanced away. He couldn't look at his brother's bloody face anymore. He couldn't do this anymore. "Maybe it'd be better if I just stopped coming on hunts," he offered hopefully.
Dean snorted. "Stopped hunting? Nah, as much of a nuisance as you are, we wouldn't be able to hunt without the brains and the big puppy-dog eyes."
Sam felt a spark of indignant anger well within him at the jest. "I'm serious, Dean," replied firmly, glaring at the charred basement as if it had done him some great offense. "I want out. You know I want out." Unconsciously, he reached a hand into his pocket and fingered the folded envelope, his heart picking up its pace.
"Yeah," Dean sighed heavily, knowledgeably. His eyes drifted over to his little brother again, deep and thoughtful. "Just… be careful. Dad's not gonna like it." Sam glanced up at his older brother with a frown and a questioning look. But Dean's only reply was, "It doesn't take much to start a fire."
At the time, Sam wasn't sure what he meant by that. But as he helped Dean out to the car, still playing with the envelope in his pocket, he kept the sentiment in his mind.
It was a week later that he had finally gathered up the courage to open the envelope, fear and anticipation and nervousness twisting his stomach into knots. But the letter started with "Congratulations." And he had to read that first word a full five times before it sunk in. Nobody got congratulated for not getting into college. A rush of fierce joy like he had never known spread through him, and he felt his body surging with adrenaline and confidence.
And that was when he told his dad and brother that he'd gotten into Stanford.
Most normal families would perhaps hug him, congratulate him, thump him on the back, or even smile. His family did none of those things.
John merely laughed and told him that he wasn't going to college and that the application fee had been a waste of his money, and he should be more frugal in the future. Dean merely stared at the kitchen table with a small nod of his still-healing head before exiting the room.
Graduation passed with a half-hearted pat on the back and a distracted "good job, kiddo." Nobody mentioned Stanford.
Summer passed with tension, more knots in his stomach, and a couple of ravenous werewolves. Nobody mentioned Stanford.
But fall was approaching awfully fast, and Sam knew he'd have to tell them, and goddammit, he finally knew the truth of Dean's words when he told his father that he would be attending Stanford University in a few weeks' time.
"You take one step out that door and you don't ever come back, do you hear me?" John shouted. "No son of mine is going to abandon his family!"
"Fine!" Sam bellowed right back, righteous anger surging through his veins. "Then I don't want to be your son, you bastard!"
"GET OUT!" John roared, his eyes wild with fury. Sam found that his hands were starting to ache from being clenched so tightly into fists. "I want you out of this house!"
"Good!" Sam shouted right back. "I'm gone!"
He dashed up the stairs two at a time, trying to ignore Dean, who was hovering in the next room listening to every word of the argument. Arriving in his room, he threw all of his belongings haphazardly into a duffel bag and stood next to his bed, taking a few deep, steadying breaths to calm himself down. His gaze fell upon the letter from Stanford, folded neatly in the envelope and sitting innocently on the desk. Striding over, he pulled it out and glanced at the paragraphs that he'd read at least fifty times that summer, the ones that breathed freedom into his lungs.
Dean had been right. All it took to start the raging wildfire of the Winchester blowout was that piece of paper, simple and white. It was the spark that had caught flame. And now Sam would be leaving.
Through his seething anger, a vindictive pleasure arose. Dean's words echoed in his head, and he knew them to be true—but he also knew that some fires needed to be stoked, needed to happen. And because of this one, because of that little spark of the acceptance letter—that little bit of lighter fluid—Sam was leaving. He was done hunting.
Yet there remained an inexplicable twinge of sadness amid his other raging emotions. Bending over to shove the rest of his books into his duffle bag, Sam discovered his old copy of Macbeth. He flipped through it for a brief moment, remembering how he had spotted Dean reading it surreptitiously. He'd never told Dean (as he would probably deny any type of reading for enjoyment), but he knew that his brother liked the book.
Zipping up his duffel bag, Sam tossed the book onto the stiff mattress of Dean's bed and hurried back down the stairs.
He'd believed his brother's words when he'd practically blown up the slave master's house with too much lighter fluid; he'd known that his brother had a point when he'd had that huge fight with his dad; but he finally understood the horrible truth that night as he watched the love of his life burn to death on the ceiling above him.
Fate was not without a sense of cruel irony.
Where Sam had once believed the acceptance letter to be his ticket out of hunting, his little bit of lighter fluid that started the fire of freedom—now it was nothing but a death sentence, a condemnation to pain and guilt and destruction. It was that stupid letter that had caused the chain reaction of Sam going to Stanford in the first place; of Sam meeting Jess; of Jess bursting into flames like a sick birthday candle. Fate mocked him.
Her eyes glistened, filled with pain; her face was pale and stricken; her stomach was gutted, and the blood dripped onto him, and Sam couldn't think of a time when he had been sorrier to have accepted that damn letter. He watched her body burn above him, and he knew that it really hadn't taken much to start that fire—that he, himself, as good as started it. His brother's words from four years ago came back to haunt him that night.
"A little lighter fluid goes a long way."
And Sam understood the truth of it.
But then Dean was there, had come to save him from the flames, and the stench of death slowly rinsed away.