All Roads Lead To Hell
By: Paraflymore
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Supernatural and if I did I would be way nicer to them all.
A/N: This is my version of the episode "What Is And What Should Never Be"
Summary: Everybody I know seems to know me well but they're never gonna know that I move like hell.
Fighting For Nothing
Chapter Three:
"What Should Never Be"
He rises up from the bed, breath catching in his throat. First thing he notices is the smell, he isn't in that dank abandoned warehouse anymore.
He's in a room and it smells like vanilla and... weed smoke?
And then he realizes there is a woman next to him, and her body is just covered up by the sheet, her tan leg sticking out from under it. Her long dark hair is hiding most of her face but he would recognize that leg anywhere...
Lila.
The fuck?
He gets out of bed wandering through the strange apartment. He's never been here before, he knows this. And the only thing he can do is call his brother, he grabs his cellphone from his pocket and dials Sam's number. Maybe he knew what the hell was happening to him.
"Dean?" He says sounding more than a little confused and surprised.
"Sam,"
"What's going on?"
"I don't know, I don't know where I am the djinn, it attacked me..."
"The gin? You've been drinking gin?" He chuckles.
"No ass hat, the djinn, the scary creature remember? it put its hand on me and I woke up next to Lila."
Sam scoffs. "Look man just get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow okay?" And then he hangs up.
Weird.
He glances at the counter, there is a stack of mail there. Dean Winchester 53 Barker Ave. Lawrence, Kansas.
"Lawrence?"
"Dean," she says calls coming down the hallway. She has a silky road on now and a sweet smile on her face.
God she was something to look at.
"Come back to bed." She whimpers, looking up at him with big doe eyes.
"Lila..." He whispers.
She yawns, grabbing his shirt and pulling him closer, "Its three am baby."
He nods. "I'm sorry..."
Lila smirks, the lazy smile on her lips is enough to drive him mad. "Well hurry up, I hate sleeping without you." She presses her lips to his and he's shocked.
This sure as hell feels real. He needs to have these dreams more often.
"Well don't keep me waiting too long." She says with a coy smile, running her finger down his chest.
He nods, feigning a smile.
There are pictures of them all over the apartment. Vacations and dates, some with smiles, some with goofy faces, a couple of them kissing. They had this whole life that he couldn't remember, this whole relationship that actually looked like something normal. But did this have something to do with the djinn?
Then he sees a picture on the fridge of his mother smiling happily, its Christmas time, he can tell from the tree behind her and he has his arm slung around her, both of them have on goofy ass Christmas sweaters and he is a full grown adult.
And his heart leaps right out of his chest.
He isn't even thinking as he's driving.
Its like he knows these roads like the back of his hand.
Maybe he does.
Maybe everything before this was the nightmare.
God help him as she answers the door because his heart stops.
Her face is what his dreams are made of. So much more beautiful than he ever remembered her to be.
"Dean?"
"Mom." His voice breaks, because it has been so long since he said that word, and he never thought he would say it again.
"Are you all right?" She asks, reaching for him. He moves away from her hand, unsure if he should trust this yet.
"I don't know." He says with rocks in his throat. He really thinks he is going to bust out crying right there.
She looks so concerned, "Well come inside..." Her blue eyes haven't looked away from him. "Lila called and said you just took off. She's really worried."
"Let me ask you a question," He says turning around and looks at her. "What did you used to tell me when I kid before I went to sleep?"
"Dean, I don't understand..."
"Just answer the question." He snaps.
"I told you that angels were watching over you." She says in an exasperated tone.
Shit.
"I don't believe it..." He whispers pulling her into a hug, so tight she is having trouble breathing. She pulls away and looks at him with a concerned look on her face. Blue eyes scanning over him and she places her hand on his cheek and fuck him if he doesn't care anymore. What ever the hell is wrong here, he didn't care, not after she touched him and he felt real and all the ice melted off his heart and he could breathe right.
Maybe this was real, maybe that djinn, maybe it gave him a wish a wish that his mother never died in that fire, and now this was his life, now this was reality.
Was it really possible though?
"Honey, you're scaring me." She says in a small voice that breaks his heart. She pulls away from him and looks at him, "Now just tell me what's going on."
"You don't think that wishes..." He looks at her, transfixed by this women who he never in a million years thought he would ever see again. She was the one thing missing from his fucked up life and he couldn't stand the thought of hurting her.
"What?" She asks him, looking confused and frightened.
"Forget it," He tells in a teary voice, wrapping his arms around her again, he doesn't think he could ever get tired of hugging her. "I'm just uh, I'm just happy to see you that's all... " He holds her at arms length and smiles at her. "You're beautiful."
She laughs, "What?"
He lets her go, turning around to marvel at the
"Was there ever a fire here when I was a kid?"he asks, looking around at all the pictures. There are dozens of them, lining the walls and tucked on shelves. Smiling Winchester faces.
They were a normal happy family.
"No, never." She tells him, her eyes still watching him as he scans over the pictures some more. Its so strange, this house it was almost exactly how he remembered it to be when he was a kid. And that certain feeling washed over him, that contentment that he hasn't felt in so long, like he was home...
"Dad plays on a softball team?" He asks with a chuckle. "Dad's softball team... that's funny to me."
"He loved that stupid team." Her eyes look up at him with tears glistening in them.
It hurts but he should have expected that everything wasn't perfect. How could it be it was his life after all.
Right?
"Dad's dead, and the thing that killed him was?"
"A stroke." She tells him, "He died in his sleep, you know that"
He shook his head. "That's great."
She raises an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"That's great that he went peacefully, I mean it sure beats the alternative..."
Mary nods, looking at him with a confused look. "You've been drinking?"
He shakes his head. "No, I haven't"
She touches his cheek and he buries his face in her palm. "I'll call Lila, have her come and pick you up."
"No." He says quickly. "Don't do that."
She looks scared of him again, and he's got to chill with the jumpiness he knows this. She looked like she was seconds away from calling the cops on him.
"I wanna stay here, I miss the place. You uh, you just go to sleep."
Mary touches his face, smiling at him. "Are you sure you're okay?"
He nods. "I promise."
She kisses his cheek, and pats his chest before she walks out of the living room. She turns back around and glances at him from around the corner. "I love you."
"You too." He tells her with a nod.
He wakes up and birds are chirping and he rubs the sleep from his eyes. There's a picture of them from Christmas looking at him and its kind of creepy because he honestly expected to wake up in that motel room, probably with a concussion because he had to hit his head pretty fucking hard to be tripping this bad.
He calls Sam again and gets voicemail.
So he takes off down to the local college and meets with a professor who specializes in occult studies and he gives him the 411 on djinns. Apparently Muslims believe that they can grant you one wish.
Apparently that's whats happening here.
Apparently he got a wish.
But when has anything supernatural ever been a good thing?
He opens up the trunk of his car, and all he finds inside is a spare tire and an old maxim magazine.
He chuckles. "Look at us baby, we're civilians."
Dean catches sight of this girl standing across the street, she looks so out of place, and she's staring a hole through him. Her dress is in tatters and its dirty. And his first thought is she's some kind of ghost or something.
And he knows he has to help her...
Honking breaks his trance and he realizes that he's in the middle of the road, and he just barely missed being hit. He waves the truck off and notices that the girl is gone.
Maybe he's having a psychotic break.
He's thinking as he's walking back to his car that he shouldn't be so concerned with trying to find something wrong with this place. Maybe he should embrace that he has this little bit of perfection now. He should be thankful that he's not chasing down demons and dealing with a psychic brother who may or may not be something evil.
Maybe he should just be happy.
His phone starts ringing and he sees Lila's name pop up on the screen he answers it with a smile.
"Your mom called me this morning." She says angrily, at least some things are the same here, Lila Dawson is still mad at him.
"I'm sorry I just took off like that... I had a weird dream."
She scoffs. "Trust me. I'm used to the Dean Winchester freaks out by now. I just hate when you don't call me."
He sighs. "I'm sorry."
"You should be."
He fights the urge to smile, sliding into the front seat of the impala. "Can I make it up to you?"
"You can try for the rest of your life." She laughs. "Your mom is making us lunch, so hurry up and get your ass here."
She's the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. Her long dark hair falling in her face as she chats away with his mom. They seem to get along pretty well, like friends even. Its so much more than he could of ever thought to ask for.
And he's half way certain that he has a djinn to thank out there somewhere.
"This is the best sandwich ever."
Mary laughs, "Thanks."
Lila takes a long sip of her tea and smirks. "What's gotten into you?"
"Just a good sandwich." He takes another bite, savoring it.
The two of them exchange looks, and he tries not to think too much into it, in fact he wasn't going to think too much into anything happening any more.
"Where's Sam? I tried to call him earlier."
"Oh." Mary says, getting up from the table to get him more tea. "He'll be here."
Lila takes the last bite of her sandwich and smiles at him. "Well I have to get to work, thank you for lunch Mary." She kisses him on the cheek and touches her arm on the way out.
He looks out the window. Was it just him or was today like the most beautiful day he's ever seen?
"Looks like the yard could use a good mow." He says over his shoulder to her.
"You want to mow the lawn?" Mary asks, looking confused.
"Are you kidding? I would love to mow the lawn."
"Gee," She says laughing. "You would think you never mowed a lawn in your life."
Well...
Fuck it.
He deserved this life.
He deserves the smell of fresh cut grass and neighbors who wave at you from across the street – even if they do kind of look at you like your a nut when you do it. He deserves cold beer and sunshine and happiness.
He's marveling in it, soaking it up and if he could he would bottle this day and keep it forever.
Then a rental car pulls up, and God help him if Jess doesn't get out of it, waving at him.
He rushes out to her, wrapping his arms around her. "Jess! I don't believe it, you and Sam... Its so nice to see you."
"Good to see you too Dean," She says, patting his back and pulling away from him uncomfortably.
Sam clears his throat, eyeing him. "I see you started off mom's birthday with a bang."
He looks up at him brother. "What? Mom's birthday, that's today?"
"Yeah," Sam says, "Why do you think we're here? Please don't tell me you forgot..." And he sounds so disappointed in him, and he doesn't like it one bit...
Okay – so maybe this world wasn't perfect. Sam seemed a little upset with him, no telling what for, but he had Jess and that was beyond anything else he could ask for his brother. Those two deserved to have this happy, normal life more than anyone else.
Lila looks like a million bucks in her dress, tight and black with a red shawl around her shoulders. She smiles at him, sitting next to him at the table in the fancy restaurant they went to to celebrate his mom's birthday. She's sipping on a glass of wine and her dark eyes are looking right through him. "How about after this we get you a cheeseburger?"
He smirks. "Sounds awesome."
She smiles, leaning in to kiss him.
Sam makes a toast to their mom, and she smiles proudly at him. And he just watches them, the happiness swelling inside him. Then Sam holds up Jess' hand and shows off an engagement ring, both of them smiling and laughing.
It was perfection.
Beyond it.
He was so happy he thinks he is going to burst and then...
Ghost girl is back.
Staring at him from across the restaurant.
And he has this overwhelming urge to help her.
He has to help her.
Its the only thing he knows for certain.
And he's across the room before he can even stop himself.
Someone grabs his arm, and its Lila, and she looks afraid, and worried and it breaks his heart. When he looks back at where the girl was standing there is no one there.
And they are all looking at him like he's crazy.
He has to stop, he has to just be happy.
If there is a ghost girl following him then he is just going to ignore her.
He isn't a hunter here.
"We should celebrate." He tells them, after they've said goodnight to their mom and everyone is walking off in their own directions. "I mean the night is young, you're engaged and we both have beautiful girls on our arms."
Sam and Lila's eyes meet and the exchange between them seems awkward.
"Will you two give me and my brother a minute?"
Both of them smile and walk into the other room.
He doesn't know why but he feels like he's in trouble.
"What are you doing?"
HE shrugs. "What do you mean Sammy?"
"And since when do you call me Sammy?"
"I'm sorry man..."
He shakes his head. "That's what you said when you stole my ATM card, and my car, and my prom date..."
Okay, now he gets it. He's an ass here, and apparently his brother doesn't like him much.
"I mean the whole thing with Lila is water under the bridge..."
"What?"
"It doesn't matter anymore Dean." he scoffs. "But we're not friends, and we never have been." With that he walks off, leaving him with a bleeding heart.
So that was a fucking curve ball.
Him and Sam weren't friends here. Sammy wasn't his Sammy here.
And he tried not to let that fuck him up so much, but Sam was... Sam was his rock. And he didn't really know how to be himself without his brother.
"Where is your head?" Lila asks, leaning over on the couch closer to him.
"I'm just thinking about Sam."
"Yeah..."
"I just don't get why we don't get along."
She takes a sip of her wine. Apparently, this Lila was a wino. He guessed it beat whiskey. "I just don't think you two know each other very well, and if you ask me its his loss."
He smirks. God she was perfect. Everything he ever wanted, and he couldn't really be mad in a world where she looked at him like that.
"He said something weird, like 'the whole Lila thing is water under the bridge', what the hell does that mean?"
She sighs. "We really can't talk about this..."
"Why?"
Lila takes another long sip of wine. "Besides, you know what happened just as well as I do."
"You were his prom date?"
She nods. "Yeah."
Fuck.
"So you and Sam?"
"It was a million years ago Dean, and besides I'm with you now."
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
How the fuck did this ever happen.
"And he seems pretty happy with Jess anyways now..." But her voice sounds bitter and he swears she looks jealous for half a second.
"Yeah he does."
She smiles, leaning in to kiss him. "I love you Dean. I always have."
He can't seem to sleep in this world either – so he watches TV and as he's flipping through the channels he sees a memorial for that flight him and Sam stopped from crashing last year.
And then it all starts crumbling around him.
Every case that they solved, every person that they saved none of it happened here, so they were all dead.
And ghost girl is in his living room looking at him. "Help me." She chokes out before she disappears again. He opens up the hall closet to get his coat and he sees two bodies, strung up, their hands tied above their head, desecrated, rotting and he can fucking smell them.
He's going to be sick.
But he just runs, and he just wants to talk to his dad, but all he has here is a stone with his name on it so he goes there. Sure its kind of silly, but something inside his chest tells him that John Winchester will be able to help him through this.
He pours his fucking heart out to that tombstone. He cries and he screams and he resists the urge to claw up the ground and dig him up.
"I know what you would say, the djinn put you here and he can put you back." He wipes tears from his cheeks. "I know what I have to do."
He knows this is probably crazy, but he has to try. This life was perfect, he had his mom and his girl and Sam had Jess, but so many innocent lives weren't worth his happiness.
And besides, this place felt off from the get go. Its why he never let himself get too comfortable, why he always questioned everything, why he was so on edge. He knew, deep down that none of it was real...
He finds a silver knife in his mom's things and he's heading out of the house when someone grabs his arm. He knows its Sam and he tackles him to the floor, just to see if he can do it easily.
"That was so easy I'm embarrassed for you." He chuckles.
"Dean, what the hell are you doing?"
He helps him up and pats his back. "You really wanna know?"
Sam nods.
"I owe someone money."
Sam sighs, "Some things never change."
"Look Sammy, I'm sorry. Tell mom I love her okay?"
He leaves him standing there and he is starting the car up when the passenger door opens up and Sam slides in. "Look whatever stupid thing you are about to do, I'm not going to let you do it alone."
"Why?"
"Because your still my brother..."
So he's eighty percent sure this isn't real. And the other twenty percent is him not wanting to say goodbye to all the things he didn't have in that other life. His mom, and Jess. Sam had suffered enough losing her. It wasn't fair.
But he knows he can't stay in this world, and besides he couldn't stomach a place where Sam wasn't his best friend.
"What's this?" Sam asks, pulling the lambs blood out of the bad between them.
"You really don't want to know."
"Uh, yes I do Dean."
God. This Sam was even more annoying than the real one and he never thought that would be possible.
"Its blood."
"What?" He asks, sounding scared.
"Lamb's blood. You see thats why I need the silver knife, to kill the djinn."
Sam picks up his phone and starts dialing a number, but Dean snatches it from him and tosses it out the window.
"Come on Dean, I am just trying to help you."
"Sorry Sammy, I'm not going to a padded cell," Not yet at least.
He was going to set this all right.
No matter what it took.
The warehouse is the way he remembers, and its like deja vu as he makes his way through the dark with his brother breathing heavy behind him. He didn't blame him for being scared, in this life he looked like a crazy person.
They don't search long before they find something...
Those same bodies that were strung up in his closet, and the smell... God the smell. Then he sees his ghost girl, but she's not a ghost at all. She's tied up just like those bodies, and she has an iv bag full of blood connected to a tube in her neck.
Shit.
He hears footsteps and the djinn's shadow appears behind a dirty curtain. He pulls Sam out of the way and they hide behind a wall, out of sight.
He watches it in horror as it appraches the girl, and she rustles awake, muttering and crying, asking for her dad. "Where's my dad, please, where's my dad." But the thing doesn't falter, and it's hands light up with that blue lightening and it touches her face, and she's out again. Then it unhooks the iv and squirts her blood into its mouth.
And Sam gives them up, scoffing at the sight he's seeing. He totally forgot he had an amature with him...
He grabs him again and pulls him under a set of old stairs, trying to emphasize with his eyes for him to shut the fuck up.
This wasn't real.
None of it...
The things footsteps clank up the stairs and once he's sure its gone, they come out of hiding.
"What if I'm like her?" He says, spinning around and looking at everything around him. He's been here before or maybe he never left... "What if I'm tied up in here some place, what if this is all in my head?"
"Dean, please, that thing could come back..." Sam reaches for him.
"What if it gives us some supernatural acid and it just feeds on us slowly?"
"You're right. I'm sorry, you're not crazy but that thing could come back and its gonna kill us, for real." He grabs his arm but Dean pulls it away.
"I don't think your real..."
"I'm real!" He pushes his chest, grabbing him and shaking him. "You feel that? Does that feel real?" He's fucking terrified, he can see it in his eyes. But it doesn't really matter.
Dean pulls the knife out of his jacket pocket. "There's one way to find out..."
"What are you doing?"
He sighs. "An old wise tale, if you're about to die in a dream you wake up." He holds the knife out, ready to plunge it right into his gut.
And then Sam's face completely changes. "You had to keep digging, didn't you? You couldn't leave well enough alone."
He blinks and the warehouse falls away, and its peaceful and quiet and there all there looking at him, dissapointed looks on their faces.
"Come on, lets go home." His mom says, stepping forward and touching his face. "You can get some rest Dean."
"If I stay here I'll die."
"But in here it will feel like years, a lifetime."
And fuck that was so much more than he had before.
Jess steps towards him, smiling a sweet smile. "You don't have to worry about Sam anymore, he can have a life and a family."
"Don't do this." Lila says, stepping closer to him, pressing her lips to him. "We can have everything you ever wanted, happiness, peace, family. I love you Dean."
He shakes his head. He wants to stay, he wants to stay with her and have all of those things. Nothing was keeping them apart here, not a damn thing.
But its not real.
He knows this.
And Dean Winchester would rather have his sucky reality than this weird acid trip he was having.
So he plunges the knife into his gut and thrusts himself back into the real world.
"Dean," Sam yells, his hands on his face. "I thought I lost you for a second."
He chuckles. "You almost did."
It was definitely a head fuck.
He was having a hard time adjusting back to reality.
And he really wanted to call her.
"That was the hospital," Sam tells him, hanging up his phone, "The girls been stabilized, she should pull through."
"That's ood." He nods, looking down at his knuckles.
Sam sits on the other bed and looks over at him. "How about you, you alright?"
"Yeah..." he looks over at him. "You should of seen it Sam, our lives. You were such a wussy."
He chuckles, "So we didn't get a long then huh?"
Dean shakes his head. "Not really."
"I thought it was supposed to be this perfect fantasy?"
"It wasn't." He tells him, his stomach is in knots. "It was just a wish, that mom never died, we never went hunting and we just never... you know."
Sam nods. "We'll I'm glad we do." His eyes are all seriousness when he looks up at him, "And I'm glad you dug yourself out Dean, most people wouldn't of had the strength, they would have just stayed."
"Yeah, lucky me." he stands up, needing to move. "I gotta tell you though man, you had Jess, I had Lila, and mom was gonna have grand kids."
"Yeah but Dean, it wasn't real."
"I know." He lets out a breath. "But I wanted to stay, I wanted to stay so bad..." His eyes drift off, and he's not really looking at anything as he speaks. "I mean ever since dad, all I can think about is how much this job costs us. We've lost so much." He looks right at him. "We've sacrificed so much..."
"People are alive because of you." Sam tells him.
He looks down again, always unable to take a compliment.
"Its worth it Dean. Yeah, its not fair. Yeah it hurts like hell, but its worth it."
His eyes finally meet his brothers.
"And there is something that you can still have, someone who still exists outside of that dream." He hands Dean his phone, "Call her man. Tell her how you feel. Please."
He takes the phone in his hands, staring at it for a long while.
And then he dials her number.