Title: The Firefighter, The Witch and The Closet

Author: Silverkitsune

Part: 2 of 5

Pairings: None

Rating: PG-13 (language)

Spoilers: Through Nightmare in Season one

Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to comment on the previous chapter! Comments do the author good, and constructive criticism is always welcome. I hope you all continue to enjoy this.

Chapter 2-Dean Winchester, Demon Hunter Extraordinaire

It was winter in Lawrence, and Dean wondered if that meant something important or fascinating to someone considering that back home it was the middle of spring and humid as hell. Flakes of snow drifted by his nose before landing on his ungloved hands and melting on impact. There was no wind, just a still icy cold that radiated off the sidewalks and the tall brick buildings in front of him. The minute he'd stepped outside the cold had gently pressed its palms against the exposed flesh the holes in Dean's jacket and jeans had left open and vulnerable. The only warmth he had was pulsing out of the terrified young man he held in front of him.

"Do you have a car?" Dean asked. With his arm across the younger man's windpipe Dean could feel his hard breathing, and the way his Adams apple bobbed as he swallowed before answering.

"Yeah," he replied softly.

"Where is it?" Dean asked.

"In the alley. To the left."

Dean pushed him forward trying to ignore the cold, the chaffing knifes that were strapped to his ankles, the awkward position his holstered gun had fidgeted into, and the twist in his stomach that came from pushing a Sam look alike into the darkness. He felt better at the sight of the Impala sitting patiently in the alley.

"Nice car," Dean said appreciatively. "Keys?"

"They're in my jacket pocket," the other boy replied.

Dean spun him around. Pushing him against the Impala's passenger door he fished the keys out of the younger man's pocket.

"Well, this has been fun," Dean said once the keys were safely in his possession. "But I've got things to see and stuff to do, so you can, you know, scram." He motioned with his hand for the younger man to leave.

It all should have ended right there. The whole thing shouldn't have had a beginning, let alone an ending, but this moment was where Dean's little looking glass mishap should have ended. Unfortunately, as he was shooing Sam away, Dean noticed the hand doing the shooing was empty.

"My map," he said.

"Your what?" Sam's voice, so painfully familiar, asked.

"I had a map. Did you see a map?" Dean asked frantically looking back in the direction they'd just come from.

The brown haired man shook his head.

Dean glanced at the firehouse, then back to the double of his brother. "Do you know how to get to The Beaver Caves?" When he got no response, just a pair of confused brown eyes Dean slammed his hands onto either side of the other man, leaning in close. "Do you?"

Sam flinched at the movement, but nodded. Dean gritted his teeth in an effort to ignore the fear now rolling off the kid.

Dean took a deep breath, "Get in the car."

"But you said I could-"

Reaching around him, Dean opened the Impala's passenger side door. "Get. In. The. Car."

Clumsily, Sam bent his body and climbed in. Dean closed the door behind him before jogging to the other side. Slamming his own door he spared a glance at his unwilling co-pilot.

"Put your seat belt on," he grumbled, sliding the key into the ignition. He didn't bother to check if his instruction had been followed before backing out of the alley.

They passed houses first. Warm looking two story homes with families on the inside waiting out the cold night. A playground that not so much looked as felt familiar to Dean when they passed came and went, followed by a line of small privately owned businesses. One of the buildings had a neon sign stretched over the front door which glowed with the words "Psychic Readings" in purple letters. Slowly, the markings of civilization fell away, until it was just Dean and the Impala against the dark stretches of snow covered fields.

It would have been easy to relax. To pretend he was home, riding in the direction of some small town in Illinois with a poltergeist or an abandoned hotel in Indiana with a black dog. He had all the correct visuals; Sam as acting navigator, the Impala under his steady hand. Hell, he'd even spotted a tatted shoebox in the backseat. Still, he knew it wouldn't have worked. He would have known in his gut that something was off.

The Sam­ to his left had the same look, same hair, same tired bags under his eyes, but Dean was willing to bet they were the result of too much late night studying, and not from becoming a sleep deprived nightmare magnet. There was something missing from the steps made by this Sam; some cold, coiled tension that had been completely unavailable, utterly unnecessary in this body. There had been no attempt to throw him off when he'd grabbed him at the station either, and no trace of shadows in the brown eyes that had been filled with such surprise and worry. In this place, Sam was not a hunter, and from the look of the man he'd left behind at the firehouse, neither was he.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Dean said trying his best to sound like a rational human being and not a deranged psychopath.

Sam had been intently focused on his hands for the last half hour, and flinched at the sound of Dean's voice.

"Yeah, I know," Dean continued. "I wouldn't believe me either, but you have to trust me when I say I'm not going to hurt you. Do you understand?"

Sam raised his eyes from his hands, and studied Dean intently. "Why do you look like my brother?"

Dean shifted in his seat. "That's complicated. Well, ok it's not complicated. The answer is just going to make me sound really crazy."

Sam's attention went back to his hands. "Oh."

"Not crazy like serial killer crazy," Dean quickly added. "Just strange crazy."

"There's a turn coming up," Sam responded softly. "It's always really icy in the winter. You'll have to slow down, and take it at a crawl."

Dean lightened the pressure on the accelerator and watched as the dial on the speedometer dropped. Fifty-five mph to fifty; fifty to forty-five. His eyes shifted over to Sam, whose tall body was trying to merge with the door. Forty-five to forty; forty to thirty-five. It was unnerving to see Sam so frozen by fear. Thirty-five to thirty to twenty-five. The kid was painfully defenseless, and as innocent about what went bump in the night as the countless number of people Dean had saved. Twenty-five to twenty; twenty to fifteen. He had a sudden urge to pull the car over and make this kid lift up his shirt, just to see what Sam might have looked like without the roadmap of scars a lifetime of hunting had decorated him with. However, he had enough common sense to know that a move like that would be a monumentally bad idea. Fifteen mph. Dean drummed his fingers against the wheel, drawing comfort from the familiar action. He was just going to have to be patient about the whole thing, and try not to traumatize this version of his brother anymore than he already had. Ten mph.

Dean caught the blur of movement out of the corner of his eye, and Sam had both hands on the wheel and his bony shoulder digging into Dean's chest before his could so much as blink.

The Impala's tires squealed as the car spun. Dean fought briefly for control of the wheel before giving up and focused his attention on pumping the break as they twisted. He felt the back end of the car slide off of the road, and there was a dip and a bump, and then the car came to a jerky stop.

"What the hell was that!" Dean yelled. Sam had already unbuckled his seat belt and was halfway out of the car. Dean unbuckled his own belt and dove across the seats in one fluid movement. Grabbing the other man's jacket, he hulled him back into the Impala. Reaching over him, Dean pulled the passenger door shut. A swift punch suddenly landed in his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Another fist hit him squarely in the nose and Dean felt more than heard the bones crunch.

"Son of a bitch," Dean hissed.

With gritted teeth, Dean pulled away from the fists, and Sam shot up moving for the door again. Catching the collar of his jacket, Dean yanked Sam onto his back across the Impala's front seats. Grabbing the younger man's wrists with one hand, he pressed his other hand against the exposed throat. Sam struggles came to a quick end.

The two men stared at one another, breathing hard. Sam's eyes darted wildly around the car's interior. Dean's hand was firmly pressed against the other man's windpipe, and stared down at the other man with a scowl.

"What are you crazy? You could have flipped us!" Dean shouted his voice getting louder with every word. "What part of the, 'I'm not going to hurt you' conversation that we had like three seconds ago didn't you get?"

Releasing Sam's wrists and throat, Dean closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. His nose was bleeding and throbbing, but it would have to be something he dealt with later. When he opened his eyes he found Sam sitting upright, once again pressed against the passenger side door.

"Say here," Dean said, with a hard glare. "I'm going to check for damages. You can try to run if you want, but you won't get far. Trust me when I say that I am much faster than you."

Opening his door Dean stepped out into the cold. His feet sunk into the snow as he circled the car, and he was grateful for the biker boots since they were the only reason his socks weren't soaking wet.

"Pain in the ass," Dean muttered darkly, bending down to get a better look at the Impala's back tires. "No matter where I go, or what version of him I run into he is always one huge pain in the ass."

Standing again, he gently kicked one of the tires with the heel of his boot. They hadn't sustained injury. That was good.

"Freaky, nerdy, choir boy, geek," Dean grumbled making his way back to the front seat. "Long banged, brooding, emo, eunuch, with no tolerance, and absolutely no sense of fun."

Curling his fingers around the handle he gave the door a pull. It stayed shut. Dean's litany of insults came to a halt. He tried the handle again, but the door wouldn't budge. Pressing his nose against the window, he saw the Impala's keys dangling from the ignition. Sam was on a cell phone talking quickly to whoever was on the other line.

Dean pounded his fist against the glass.

"Unlock this door!" he demanded.

Sam glanced at him, and shook his head.

"Sam!" Dean growled. "Let me in you little-Oh! You did not just flip me off!"

The younger man was glaring at him now. Readjusting his grip on the cell, he pulled his legs up and lifted them across the front seat, crawling over to the steering wheel.

"Shit!" Dean snapped, slamming his hand against the side of the car. "Sam, so help me if you don't open this door right now I will do something you, me and the car are all going to regret!"

Sam didn't respond, too busy trying to fold his tall gangly body in the positions he needed to maneuver in the small space of the Impala.

Backing away from the front door, Dean pulled his gun out of his holster. Flipping off the safety he pointed it at the driver side's backseat window, and fired. The first shot sailed in through the backseat's window and out of the car via a newly created hole in the back window. Dean fired again, this bullet imbedding itself into the leather upholstery, and the last two shots entered and exited the same way the first had. Pulling his jacket off, Dean wrapped the leather around his hand before using the butt of the gun to smash away the rest of the glass. Once unlocked, he pulled the door open, and slid into the backseat.

Sam's wide eyes greeted him. The cell phone was clutched in his hand with a white knuckle grip, and the younger man's mouth hung open in shock. Dean could hear another voice shrieking out of the ear piece. Plucking it out of Sam's still fingers, Dean brought the phone to his ear only to pull it away after a shout almost blew away his ear drum.

"Sam!"

Dean frowned.

My voice does not sound like that, he thought.

"Sam! Sammy! For Christ sake! Sammy!"

"He's fine," Dean finally responded, fiddling with the volume on the side of the phone in an effort to save what little hearing he had left.

There was a pause, and it went on for so long that Dean thought the phone had dropped the call.

"Hello?" Dean asked.

"If you hurt my brother I'll kill you."

When Dean had stumbled out of the firehouse closet, the first thing he'd noticed about his alternate universe self was the uniform. Dean had always held a certain affinity for firefighters, and while this version of him needed a few karate lessons, he had to admit that he'd felt a small niggling of approval at this Dean's chosen profession. It hadn't been until later, when he'd seen the man's face shift into a look of absolute rage at the fact that a dangerous person had a hold of his little brother that Dean had felt approval for the man himself.

"God damn it. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," Dean answered. "And I am not going to hurt him."

"I want to talk to him. Let me talk to him."

Broken glass glittered across the seat and the floor. One of the larger pieces lay next to the battered shoebox Dean had seen earlier. A glint of light from the cell phone bounced of the shard, and frowning Dean bent down tracing his hand over the area surrounding the box. It had looked strange in the temporary light, and the feeling of soft fabric under his touch only solidified Dean's suspicion. Gathering a good amount of the fabric between his fingers, Dean pulled. The box, which had been resting on top, tipped, spilling its contents onto the ground as Dean pulled up a folded blanket. Surprised, Dean pushed the blanket to the side and retrieved the items that had been stored in the shoebox; a first aid kit, a flashlight, extra batteries and a small coil of rope.

"Were you a Boy Scout or something?" Dean asked, curious.

"Wha-What?"

The rope in his hands, Dean straightened up, and made his way to the front seat. "Nothing. It's not important."

"My brother-"

"In a minute," Dean said. Sliding into the driver seat, Dean set both the cell phone and his gun onto the floor.

"Give me your hands," he demanded looking expectantly at Sam.

Sam obliged, and Dean made a quick job of binding them together, knotting the rope tightly around the wrists.

Retrieving the phone, Dean pressed it against the younger man's ear.

"Hi," Sam said, arching his head in such a way that he could speak into the phone without having to be too near Dean's hand. "Yeah, I'm ok. No. No. Yeah. He's got a gun, Dean. No. I-"

"Tell him you have to go," Dean said gently. The look of despair and terror Sam shot him made Dean feel ill. He wondered when exactly he'd gone from Dean Winchester, demon hunter, and protector of the innocent to Dean Winchester, evil, kidnapping, bastard.

Sam bit his lower lip, and took a shaky breath. "Dean, he's says I've got to go. I-what? No, I-Dean?"

Pulling the phone away, Dean shut off the power and deposited the device into his coat pocket. Re-holstering his gun, he gave the keys a twist and the Impala roared to life.

"Did you tell him where we were going?" Dean asked casually.

"Yes."

"Figured as much," Dean said. Reaching into the backseat he grabbed the blanket and tossed it over the younger man's lap.

"Going to be a cold drive," he said. "Try to stay warm."