AN: Well, what can I say? This little ditty just sorta popped into my head when I was in the middle of my next one-shot fic, so I had to write it down. It's just another way this story could have ended. Enjoy!
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We didn't start the fire.
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire.
No, we didn't light it but we're trying to fight it.
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The demon gasped, and quivered, and lost. His gaze went, not to Sa, but to Dean, and the older Winchester saw accusation there. But before he could figure it out, the demon murmured a few words in a language Dean didn't recognize, though somehow Sam seemed to. And then he was gone, and there was no indication that he'd ever been there.
XXX
Dean was relieved from his invisible bonds the instant the demon disappeared. Rubbing his aching wrist and arms in relief, he immediately started toward Sam, who was standing as if frozen in the middle of the large warehouse, staring unseeingly at a wall.
When Dean's shoe slapped against the concrete floor, Sam started as if a gunshot had split the air. He turned quickly to face Dean, taking a single step back in the same movement.
Dean stopped.
Their eyes met, and for a long time they just watched each other, Dean resisting the urge to rush to his younger brother because that just wasn't the thing to do right now.
Sam's eyes were lucid, brown, human again, and there was no doubt that he was no longer treading the line between good and evil, but his expression still didn't hold any real emotion, and Dean felt a chill go through him.
Then Sam was running past him, out into the night.
XXX
Dean stood as if stunned for a long, long time after Sam left, his heart pounding like a snare drum and every part of him tense and shaky.
His first instinct had been to go after Sam, but by the time the heavy door had thudded closed behind him, his brother was nowhere to be found.
And besides, twenty years of experience had taught him that chasing Sam was fruitless—if the younger Winchester didn't want to be found, then he simply wouldn't be. He would turn up when he felt like it and not before.
And for most of their childhood, telling himself that had worked.
But now…
Sam had been through a traumatic ordeal. He must be exhausted, possibly injured. It was certain that he was out there alone, and it was also a fairly safe bed that he was blaming himself for all of this.
Now, all bets were off, and it was actually possible that this time, Sam wouldn't come back.
Standing outside the warehouse that would haunt his memories for a long time to come, Dean wracked his brains for a plan to take care of yet another problem. Without really noticing, he began to walk slowly back toward the street, his steps preoccupied.
He walked all the way back to his motel without thought, and he didn't even notice the dull ache of his injury.
By the time he walked into his room, he still didn't have anything resembling a plan, but he'd managed to stumble on a slightly comforting thought.
At least Sam was comparatively safe. The demon that had dogged his steps for over twenty years was gone, and now, at least for a while, he wasn't in constant danger. And besides, after the display he'd seen tonight…who was to say Sam couldn't handle anything that came his way?
Sighing, Dean sat on his bed, running a hand through his hair. He hadn't noticed before, but he was tired. He couldn't sleep, though…now was a bad time to sleep…
XXX
Dean woke scarcely an hour later with at least the beginning of a plan.
Well, he still had no idea of how to track his brother down. But he did know how he had to begin—he certainly couldn't move freely around the city until he had his own transportation back.
Luckily, Salvation made up for its overabundance of warehouses by only having a couple of mechanics, so it wouldn't be too difficult to track down his car.
So at least something was going right this week.
XXX
"I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to wait until morning!"
Or…maybe not.
Dean barely held his temper in check as he faced off with the stubborn woman at the desk of the local mechanic's front offices, whom he'd been arguing with for a quarter of an hour so far.
"I know you guys are closed! But I called less than an hour ago and you told me that you have my car. And now I need it back." He didn't know how to make it any simpler.
But the woman was shaking her head, her mouth forming a thin little line. "You'll have to wait until morning."
She jumped in surprise when a pair of hands slammed onto her desk, and the stern look changed to alarm as Dean stepped closer and leaned over the large piece of furniture.
"Look. I swear I'm not gonna hurt you. It's the last thing I want to do. But you don't understand! I need that car back. You can't possibly know or understand why, but it's important!" He bit off the rampage with a grunt, and his hand went almost unconsciously to his chest.
The woman's eyes softened as her eyes followed the gesture, and next time she spoke, she sounded truly sympathetic.
"I really am sorry, sir, but…"
"But I'll have to wait until morning." Dean sighed heavily. "Fine. What time do you open?"
XXX
Dean was leaning against the door when the owner of the shop came to open the next morning. Actually, he'd been there by the time the sun showed its face, but the place was closed until eight.
The woman Dean had been arguing with must have talked about him, because the owner didn't seem surprised to find him there. In fact, apparently the fact amused him, to judge by his booming laughter. Of course, Dean couldn't be sure—he looked like a guy who laughed at most things. Kind of weird for a car mechanic, but what did it matter as long s he got his car back?
"So why're you so anxious to get this car back, anyhow?" the mechanic asked, making small talk as he ran Dean's fake credit card.
Dean shrugged. "Just have…business, is all, and I've already waited a night to finish it, so…"
"I got it, I got it," the other man replied, finishing up the receipt. "You from the city or something?"
Dean snatched the paper and the card, pocketing them as he replied. "I'm from all over. What's that got to do with anything?" The mechanic opened his mouth to answer, but Dean cut him off. "Never mind. Can I have my car now?"
XXX
Five minutes later, Dean was behind the wheel again, and even in his worry for Sam he felt a sort of elation at the knowledge that he had the old Impala back. But then it was gone, and all that was left was cold despair, because as of yet he still had no plan. And he had to have one—clearly just waiting wasn't going to cut it this time.
Without him really noticing, the car began to move along the route toward the local cemetery. He was still lost in thought when he parked and he stepped out. It wasn't until he actually stepped onto the gravel path wending its way through the graves and mausoleums and carefully cultivated gardens that he realized he had no idea where to go.
Guess is doesn't matter now, though. Actually, it may have been better that way. It would give him time to think.
There weren't too many graves, the town being so small, but there were enough that Dean was looking at quite a walk if he wanted to check them all. He paced slowly through the neatly mowed lawns, looking at each marker and finding names like Old Tom Huckleberry and Wise Ol' Williams.
In about twenty minutes he neared the other end of the cemetery and began to run out of gravestones. But he knew that the grave had to be there, by simple logic, and so he kept going.
Until he reached the more sparse edges of the area, at which time he stopped dead, and for one very practical reason.
For a long time, he couldn't get any closer. He just stood there, watching Sam, crouched in front of a grave. As he looked on, one of Sam's hands drifted up, and his finger carefully traced the letters etched deeply into the stone slab.
Dean's thoughts were quite mixed as he looked at his brother. The dominant feeling, of course, was an immense relief at finding his brother, and joy that Sam seemed physically unhurt. But then came worry about Sam's mental health, and fear of him running off again, and a weird longing to just turn and run right now before he had to face the questions.
He was about to go with the last idea when Sam suddenly stood up, turned around, and looked straight at him, and Dean froze like a deer in headlights.
Neither of them spoke. Dean wasn't sure what to say, and besides, he was afraid that his voice would scare Sam off again. And so they studied each other, carefully, and were silent.
Finally, though, Sam spoke first, with only a slight change of expression.
"Are you hurt?"
It was one of the last questions Dean had expected, but he shook his head with an outward show of calm that he thought highly admirable under the circumstances. Then he took a hesitant step forward, and his confidence was boosted when Sam didn't move away from him.
"What about you? Are you all right?"
Sam chuckled, his tone so devoid of any humor that Dean shuddered, and turned back toward the grave.
"Am I all right? That's…a really good question…"
Dean ignored the sudden shame welling up in him, and took another step.
"Where did you go last night?"
Sam didn't turn from the grave.
"I don't know. I just…walked. Everywhere. And…I ended up here." He shook his head. "I don't know why. I didn't know…"
Dean noticed then that Sam's voice was scratchy and hoarse and…broken. He stepped forward again, and Sam kept talking.
"Did you see him before he died?"
Dean winced at the blunt question, but he answered anyway.
"No. I was still comatose."
Sam looked back at him, startled, but after a moment the veil dropped again and he turned away.
"So this is the world we live in now."
His voice was soft and sad, and Dean sudden;y felt as if he was intruding on something very private.
"Well…yeah."
"It's different."
"Yeah."
Just about out of options, Dean decided to try for humor. He took another step.
"But we don't have an evil demon hunting us anymore, so it's actually an upper."
Far from wrenching a smile from Sam, the words had the opposite affect. Sam whirled and spoke heatedly, angrily.
"You should have let him have me."
Dean's first reaction was disbelief, and a desire to yell very, very loudly. He swallowed the impulse, and took another step. Five more to Sam…He forced himself to speak calmly.
"How can you say that, Sam?"
"Because if you had let it take me before, Dad would still be alive."
So, here was another thing for Sam to blame himself for. Great.
"You can't know that for sure, Sam. We don't know what caused the accident."
"I do. I can feel it. The demon caused it so that he could get me."
Two more steps. He was acting like Sam was a suicidal maniac, but he didn't care. Rushing him now would do more harm than it could possibly do good.
"If you had just let it have me…you and Dad could have been free. Of all this—hunting, revenge, this life."
"That's a load of crap, and you know it," Dean replied calmly. Another step.
"Do I? Do I know it?" Sam asked. "I don't, Dean! It would just have been…better. For all of us."
Dean didn't want to thing about what that meant. Sam told him anyway.
"I'm so tired, Dean. I've been tired…but I couldn't rest. And then this demon came along, and offered me that chance. All this death and pain and hurt…he was going to make it go away. He offered to make things simple. I'd love for things to be simple…and I would have been happy! Don't you want me to be happy, Dean?"
He sounded five again, his voice broken and childish.
It was only then that the truth dawned on Dean. Sometime in the last months, his brother had become a majorly screwed up young man. And now, with this whole ordeal, he had moved precariously close to toppling off the edge.
Dean couldn't allow that to happen.
But he had stopped moving forward for the moment. He simply couldn't move.
"You are so far off here, kid," he murmured. "Of course I want you to be happy. But what that demon was offering…it would have taken lives—all people who would die at your hands. That would have been the price of your 'happiness.'"
"What if I don't care?" Sam demanded. "What if I'm just tired of caring all the time? What if…what if I just want it to be over, and I don't care how?"
"Stop it, Sam! You've got to stop saying things like that, Sam!" Dean said, and the raw fear in his voice must have caught Sam's attention, because the younger Winchester did stop. "Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? All this stuff like 'I don't care' and 'I just want it to end'…it's not you! And…okay, I'm not denying that the demon caused the accident and I'm also not denying that it did that to get to you, but unless you tracked it down and asked it to please kill us all in a huge car crash, you didn't cause it! And you didn't kill Mom or Jessica either! God, how many times do I have to explain this to you!"
He was almost shouting now, shattering the peace of the early morning air. But with the next words, his voice softened again.
"Dad and I…we hated a lot of people, and a lot of things. Blamed just about everyone for our lot in life. But you…you were never, not for a single second, included in that list. So for the love of all that's good and the hatred of all that's not, stop saying so!"
Dean didn't thing he'd ever in his life been as angry as he was right then.
Sam looked at the ground, and then back to the grave, and one single tear made its way down, until it froze halfway down his cheek. "I'm sorry."
"DAMN IT, SAM!" He did shout now, at the top of his considerably-sized volume, and Sam actually jumped. "I TOLD YOU TO STOP SAYING THAT! THAT MEANS YOU DON'T SAY IT ANYMORE! NOT THAT YOU REPEAT IT TWO SECONDS LATER!"
Sam sighed. "I meant I'm sorry for making you say all that. I know you hated having to."
And it was true. Dean did hate opening up…hated any show of emotion, really. But now…now things had changed so drastically that Dean felt as if he were drowning and he didn't know what to do and nothing made sense anymore.
And now he was taking that last step and engulfing his brother in a rough and sudden hug and he had no idea how he'd gotten here…
"Sammy…" That was all he said—just "Sammy"—but it was enough to tip the world upright again, and Dean didn't feel so lost now.
Sam hugged him back, and Dean felt the moment when all the tension drained out and exhaustion set in instead. Soon, he was holding his brother on his feet as well as hugging him.
Dean realized then that he was shaking. The tremors matched his brother's so exactly that it was hard to tell when one man's left off and the other's began, and Dean would not have been surprised if their hearts were beating and breaking simultaneously at this moment.
But mostly, Dean was just thinking that he'd forgotten how weird this felt.
It was important, though—something that needed to be done. A hug wouldn't fix everything—hell, it would hardly help anything, let alone repair such deep damage as his brother was apparently suffering right now.
But it was a start.
The thing Dean hated most about hugs, though, was that he had no clue when they were supposed to end. Or even how to end them, actually. So if it was up to him, they probably would have stood in that cemetery until both of them dropped dead themselves, simply because he didn't know how to stop a hug. Ward them off…yes, that was an easy thing. But once he was caught in one…well, he was as helpless as Dean Winchester ever got.
Luckily enough, though, Sam took charge after a while, and pushed him away, carefully.
Dean looked away, embarrassed, but in a moment his eyes were fastened on Sam again, and he felt a sudden, overwhelming need to say something, to break the infernal silence.
"That took about ten years off my life, so don't make me do it again."
Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid
But it wrenched the first smile of the day out of Sam, and immediately the thought disappeared and Dean felt like he could fly.
"You good, Sammy?"
The feeling returned.
Stupid! What is with you right now!
Sam smiled again, as if trying to reassure Dean's very thoughts. "No. But…I'll get there."
Maybe.
The word hung in the air, unspoken but louder than a bomb.
Dean decided not to touch in it. Instead, he slung an arm around Sam and pulled the younger man tight against his side, guiding them both slowly, but firmly, back down the long path to the car.
"So how did you do it, anyway?" Dean asked as they walked. He kept his voice light and casual in a bizarre attempt to preserve some kind of normalcy.
Sam didn't ask what he was talking about, but he didn't reply either, and as a few seconds passed, Dean realized how the question must have sounded.
"Sorry," he murmured, even more embarrassed than before. "Forget it."
"No, it's okay," Sam replied. "I just…don't know how to answer that, because I don't have a clue how I did what I did. There was just all this power, and I had no idea where it came from or what it would do to me, but suddenly I knew exactly how to use it. So I did. Instinct…all instinct."
"Do you still have it?" Dean asked, keeping his voice bland and hiding the sudden awe and slight fear he felt—not exactly of Sam himself, but of what lay within him.
He felt Sam's shoulders rise under his arm as he shrugged. "Yeah, it's there. I can feel it inside, but—it's like there's a wall or something between it and me. So…no, I can't use it anymore."
"So…you're normal again? You won't…hurt anyone by accident or anything?"
Sam chuckled, and Dean savored the sound. "Yeah, Dean, I'm normal. Or…as normal as I ever was."
"Oh. Good. Good."
"Why?"
Dean was the one who shrugged now as he casually replied, "Well, we can't send you back to Stanford if you could kill someone by accident, can we?"
Sam didn't stop walking, but his steps faltered in his surprise. "What?"
"Well, that was what you wanted, right? To go back to Stanford once this was over?"
"Well…yeah, but…"
"So, it's over, and you should do what you want now." God knows you deserve it.
"Well…what about you?" Sam asked, sounding shell-shocked.
Dean smiled, distantly. "Me? I'll keep doing what I've always done, Sammy."
"But…don't you want something more than that, though?"
"No," Dean replied, and he was surprised to find that it was the truth. "Because now…now the vengeance part is over, and I can do it just…to help. To do something…right, you know?"
"You're very open today," Sam observed. "Very…chick-like."
It took Dean a moment to absorb the fact that Sam had just opened the floor for banter. "Shut up…Samantha."
"Make me, Deanna."
Dean cuffed him lightly on the side of the head, and they walked in companionable silence for a while.
"So will you come visit me?"
"Every chance I get," Dean replied without skipping a beat.
"And you'll actually come inside?"
"Yep."
"And stay more than a few minutes?"
"If you have beer, sure."
"And maybe stay overnight once in a while?"
"That's a toughie. You might have to throw in M&Ms."
"So…we're doing this now."
"Rhetorical question, right?"
"Statement."
"Right. Drive you to California, then?"
Sam paused, and then all the banter was gone. "…Not yet."
"What? Why not?"
"I just wanna…drive with you for a while."
"Pretty long drive to California, Sam."
"I know, but…please, Dean?"
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So, with one last look back at their father's grave, Sam and Dean Winchester—who would be the last of their line, but that was many years yet in the coming—climbed into the Impala, and left Salvation, never to return to that sad place.
They had no agenda, no route, and no idea of where they were going.
They just…drove.
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We didn't start the fire.
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire.
But when we are gone,
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on...
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AN: So there it is. The thing that has been taking over my mind for the past four days. I hope you enjoyed it!