(Thank you to lenail125, and my lovely guest Ruby for your review. You guys are the best.)

Chapter Five

To put it simply, Dean was worried. His brother was too quiet. It was almost like his smart and very alive brother had given up on everything. On talking, on eating, he even had his walk slowed to a crawl. Dean made sure to keep a firm hold on is brother's arm. Sam was too much like John. If Dean released his hold on Sam, his little brother would run. Not to anywhere in particular, he would just run. That's what his brother did when life got too hard, he would take off running and exhaust himself until he collapsed. Usually that happened in the comfort of the lot. Now here in California so far from home, Dean couldn't be sure where his brother would run.

His brother hadn't spoken to anyone. He'd only sat halfway out of the Impala his feet firm on the road, and his eyes unblinking from the firefighters still arguing with the blaze. He had only spoken when the police asked for his statement, and even then he stared at his grey shoes that had been white before stepping into his apartment. When the police had gotten everything they could from the two brothers they'd finally left them, impressing upon them the fact that if they had future questions they would like him to be available. Basically don't leave town. Whatever. Dean was more focused on getting his brother somewhere other than here. Dean folded up his brother's legs inside the car and shut the door quietly.

Dean was able to guide his brother inside a motel room, but his brother plopped down on the bed immediately upon sight. Try as he might Dean couldn't even get his little brother to shower. Even once Sam had a bottle of water pressed into his hands Dean had to pull it out and force his little brother to take a drink. His brother had gone full comatose.

He himself wanted to take a shower. Like Sam he was covered in soot, and had the paramedics treat his minor burns and have him breath in some oxygen. Dean was ready to wash the horrible smell off of him, but once again, he didn't want Sam to go running. Dean took his respective spot on the bed next to the door and rubbed his hand through the shadow.

He made a quick inhale and lifted pleading eyes to his brother. "I need you to say something. Anything."

His brother didn't move. He stared at his shoes with the same dead expression.

"Please Sam." Dean's voice took a pleading tone to match his eyes.

Sam still didn't move but he finally did speak. His voice was deadpanned. "What do you want me to say?"

Dean scrubbed another hand across his shadow. "I want you to talk to me."

"You hate talking."

Everything was too quiet and calm. Dean knew just what horrors were circulating through his brother's mind, despite the cold exterior. "Sam..."

"We could talk about the puffin. The beak loses its bright color after breeding season." Sam still found his shoes interesting.

"Sam."

Sam didn't hear his brother. "Both male and female of the species work together to construct the nest. They line it with either grass or leaves and-"

Dean stood up sharply. "Damn it, Sam. Shut up about the stupid penguins."

"Puffins." Sam corrected.

"I still don't care." Dean snapped. "I know that if you continue to keep this wrapped up tight, you won't do so good. So we gotta talk about this."

"No we don't." Sam flopped boneless on the bed but twisted his head to face the wall. Right now the ceiling was an unfavorable sight. He kept expecting to see Jessica up there. Bleeding and burning. "I'll talk about puffins, the weather, but not that."

Dean understood. Sam thought for a little while that he could be happy. That he could accomplish the white picket fence dream. Sam had fallen madly in love with a girl and she had accepted him for who he was. Freak with crazy things coming after him and all, and this evening she was gone just like that. It was another death, that in Sam's mind, was his fault.

"Look I get it, Sam. You-" Dean stopped.

Sam suddenly and furiously rose to full height. After being crouched down and trying to curl in on himself and just disappear, his brother looked so large and imposing. Sam bumped his chest against his brother's and Dean allowed himself to be knocked down on the bed. Fury radiated off of him. "You get it? You fucking get it?! You don't get shit."

Dean didn't say anything. Usually it didn't take much to get the big kid to talk. Talking was something that his sensitive brother just did. But the older Sam got he tried to pick up the family motto. Keep everything to yourself. No matter what anyone asked, you were fine. Dean would sometimes have open the situation to have a talk. He usually didn't have to shove Sam through the door.

"You don't get that everyone dies, Dean. Mom died above my crib, and Jess died above our bed. Everyone dies. I cannot be normal. I cannot be happy. I thought I could. I had her for three years. Three freaking years and just like that it's gone. It's all gone up in flames again. Well you want to know something. Fuck your understanding, and fuck life." Sam's hand shot into his pocket and he ripped out a velvet box.

"Remember how weird I was acting. Well I was going to propose. I was going to make the step to keep her in my life forever, and Yellow fucking Eyes decided I was too happy. The enjoyment level was far too high. So now, I've lost her. Her parents have lost her. Her two sisters lost her. I ruined another family. I'm a cancer, Dean." Sam's voice lost its anger and Dean finally saw the beginnings of tears. "I'm a cancer. I just need to be cut out and destroyed."

Dean kept his voice soft. "Sam-"

Sam ducked his head down. The small velvet box slipped out of his brother's abnormally long fingers. "You should cut me out of your life. I don't want you to die. I don't want any of you to die. Dad, Bobby, Missouri, Pastor Jim, Caleb-"

"Sam." Dean scowled. "You are not a cancer. Everyone loves you and wouldn't dream of having you out of their lives. Especially me. Dude, I need you."

"What if you die. What if any of you die all because of some stupid plan with some stupid unnamed demon. I don't want to be responsible for another death. I don't want to watch as everything I care about just crumples around me."

Dean had enough. He stood up and cupped the back of his brother's neck. "I will never leave your side. And Yellow Eyes, that fucker will have to do a whole lot to kill me. You know me. You know dad. We do not go down without a fight. I'm sorry about Jessica. I really am. She was a nice girl. But you are not to blame. It is not your fault." When Sam refused to meet his eyes Dean moved his brother's head to force them to. "Hey, hey Sam. Get that through your college brain. It was not your fault."

"But it was." Sam said his voice low. "I could have stopped it."

"Unless you've gone all psychic and saw it all happening then you couldn't have known." Dean chuckled but his attempt at humor died when his brother's sad puppy eyes drooped down. "You didn't, did you? You didn't see it happening, right?"

Sam squeezed his eyes shut. "You don't want that answer."

"Sam." Dean prodded further. Yes, Jess had died and he wanted to be supportive. But he also needed to be kept in the loop. The best way to protect his brother was to know what was going on with his brother. "Sam if I'm keeping you safe I gotta know."

"I have these dreams at night." Sam's voice was broken. "They're so vivid and horrible and at first I just thought it was the job. I thought the horrors of hunting was following me, but one day I looked in the paper and there was my dream. A woman dead, and I had seen her. I had seen her die. Her husband had gotten angry because she was cheating on him. Walked in on it and shot them both. I saw it. I felt his anger. I would try and match my dreams to stories in the paper or news after that. Thought maybe I could call, as some anonymous tip. Then about a week before you showed up I had nightmares about Jessica. She was reading on the bed, and this thing flattened her against the wall." Sam choked in a sob. "And she slid up the wall and along the ceiling until She was in the middle of the ceiling. Then time passed. You could see it darkening and lightening outside the window, like sped up days. And I walked in and-"

Dean swallowed. "Fire."

"Yeah." Sam put a hand to his head. "I was so afraid it would come true, but I also convinced myself that it wouldn't. Because usually I would dream something and one or two days would pass before something happened. No more than two days. After a week, I thought I was safe. I thought-" Sam lost the strength in his legs. "She was up on the ceiling for days. She probably was pinned up after I left. She was crying. Scared."

Dean matched Sam's height and wrapped his arms around his big, little brother. Dean tipped his brother down and they both went to the ground, Sam half in Dean's lap. For the first time in a long time, Sam wrapped his arms around Dean's middle and ducked his head down to press into his chest.

"I failed her Dean." Tears finally started tumbling out. Every emotion he'd concealed that evening came out in those hot tears. "I'm just as monstrous as the things we hunt."

"You know that isn't true." Dean soothed. "It's never true."

xxxOOOxxx

Bobby's head perked up at the sound of the Impala's engine. Finally, the boys were home. Buddy lazily sleeping at his feet perked up as well and bounded out of the dog door. Bobby couldn't catch the mutt before he'd disappeared. Today was not the day for the dog to get excited and jump around and he hoped Buddy would keep his wits about him and sense just that. Sure enough once he stepped out onto the porch, Buddy was half in the impala and half out giving the boy some kind of hug. Bobby was about to call the dog but he saw break into a small smile and laugh. From Dean's look he hadn't done that in a while.

Dean shifted out of the car and tried to close the door quietly but since that wasn't possible with his car he ended up startling the two reconnected friends. Dean threw Sam an apologetic look, and Sam shrugged. He glanced down at Buddy and rubbed to top of the dog's head.

"Come on boy. I bet I can beat you around the lot." The wide smile he gave the dog was reminiscent of what his boy used to always give him but Buddy knew his boy wasn't really happy. None the less he knew that his boy needed this, and leapt off the kid and got into a position to race. Sam tagged Buddy and raced off into the lot and Buddy ran behind barking. The kid and the dog disappeared into the maze of the lot.

Dean watched his brother go and gave a sigh. "We'll have to find him. Kid will exhaust himself and not have the strength to walk back."

"I know, I've helped you find him on more than one occasion. I bet he's been dying to do that since the fire." Bobby threw out the observation as he walked down the stairs and helped Dean unload the Impala.

"Yeah, I didn't know where he would go so I didn't let him, but now-" Now the kid was home and Dean knew all the hiding spots his brother could crawl and squeeze into. He'd let his brother run. Some reason Sam always felt better afterwards.

Bobby dragged out a box out of the back seat that smelled of smoke. From the slight burns on some of the items Bobby figured that it was whatever survived from the fire. It didn't look like too much, had made it out. On the top of the box was a picture that had sustained little damage. It was the picture of Jess and Sam in front of the Christmas tree. It had water damage and was a little burnt on the edges, almost significant of what damage the kid probably had on his heart.

"This all that was saved?" Bobby looked sadly up from the box.

"Yeah. Wasn't much. After the fire was out and they'd investigated, they let me back in to take a look at the place. It was destroyed, Bobby." Dean propped open the door with his foot and he dragged in his duffle and helped Bobby with the box. "They set that place up a year ago, and last I had seen it, they were making it theirs. Now it's just- it's just a hollow burned out shell. Sam didn't have any clothes other than the ones he had worn. He has nothing but- but that." Dean helped put down the box on the ground in the hall.

"And us." Bobby corrected softly.

"He always has us." Dean agreed. "I'm going to uh- I'm going up stairs and checking on what clothes he left behind. Whatever needs to be replaced I'll run to town with Sam and we'll pick up a few other things for him." Dean was about to head up stairs but paused. "Has dad responded to any of our messages?"

Bobby scowled and rubbed a hand across his stubble. "No, I don't think the stubborn, son of a bitch has even checked his phone."

"He did say the hunt would take him in the middle of the woods. No service, no electricity. I don't know when he'll be finished." Dean shrugged. "I think he said something about a Wendigo. Somewhere in Blackwater or something like that."

Dean scowled and scrubbed a hand across his face. "I guess we'll have to wait until-"

The boy didn't get a chance to finish. The rumbling of a familiar truck sounded and Bobby made it to the window in time to see a big imposing black truck driving to the front of the house and parking. Dean joined Bobby a little later and didn't even blink as his father hopped out of the truck a thick bandage on the old man's arm and blood staining it. All the kid did was walk to the door and mutter under his breath about torn stitches.

"Would you mind letting me tell him?" Dean's expression exhausted further than Bobby thought possible. Bobby would have to talk to Dean as well and make sure the kid wasn't going to overwork himself to the point of collapsing.

"Sure boy." Bobby said softly. "I'll be in the study. Annie is on a hunt in Milwaukee, and called for some help."

Dean any other occasion would have joked about Bobby's lover, but today certainly wasn't the day. "Thanks." Before his father could reach the door Dean had opened it and stepped out onto the patio. "Hey, you okay?" He gestured to the bandaged arm.

Apparently his poker face wasn't up to par because his father's suspicions raised instantly. "I'm doing fine. Got clipped by the claws. I just need to have Bobby redo my stitches is all. What's wrong? Why is there the smell of smoke?"

Now that Dean thought of it the box had left a stale smell behind it. "I uh. I gotta talk to you about that."

Telling Bobby had been tough. His brother had been on the bed refusing to stare at the ceiling but refusing to get off his back, while Dean had stepped out to make the horrible call. Bobby had done a search of the demonic activities in the area, and sure enough they closely mirrored signs from the day of his mother's death.

"Talk to me about what?" Now John was really concerned.

"Jessica is dead. There was a fire, and-" Dean stopped.

He didn't have to go further. His father had already pieced together the story with precision. He already knew what Sam had seen, and what his youngest was going through. From Dean's tone and manner, it mirrored everything that had happened this his Mary, his boy's mother. Every part of his heart bled for the kid.

"Sam saw her on the ceiling? The demon?"

"Yeah. I saw it too. I joined Sam at his place after the hunt and I- well there was just something wrong. I came in on time to drag Sam away, but yeah, I saw her on the ceiling. It was just like you said. The flames…they leapt out at Sam. Like it was trying to keep him away, from saving her, and the fire was coming from around her." Dean dragged a hand across his mouth. "The police don't suspect foul play. Apparently he was the perfect amount of shock, his friends vouched for him that he was out of town, and they're labeling the whole thing an accident." Disgust was clear in Dean's tone. "Inspectors are more than willing to assume that Jessica knocked down a candle and the bed caught fire."

"Then the floor would have more damage than the ceiling. I could do their job with my eyes covered." John snarled. He recalled the police back in 1983 saying the same thing. No one cause the fire. It was some faulty wiring.

Dean shrugged, his eyes still blazing. "I know. At least they're not dragging Sam through the mud for this."

"Yeah." John said quietly. However, the mention of his youngest boy John felt a sharp sense of worry course back through. "Where is Sam now?" John demanded.

"We just got back from Stanford. Sam immediately went running with Buddy. I'm giving him some time before I go out and hunt him down." Dean winced at the thought of whatever was actually hunting his brother down and wished he had used another term. "He's quit school."

John sighed and wasn't sure how he felt on that matter. On one hand his son was safer being around his family, that had always been certain. But on the other hand, Sam was a highly independent kid. He hated being under the scrutiny of his family, however well meant it was. Not to mention just how hard his smart boy had worked at to get in there in the first place. That school had been his first choice. "He quit school?"

"Yeah, he says it's not safe."

"For him or everyone else?" John asked pegging his son's point without much thought.

Dean scowled. "Both, I imagine. He obviously isn't taking this very well, and I didn't expect him too. I had to keep prodding him to finally break down that night."

To say John wasn't happy about this would be an understatement. John was furious. It was one thing to mess with his happiness, but it was another thing to go directly after his son. Any one of his sons. Any supernatural son of a bitch with the balls to touch a hair on either of his boys usually ended up with said balls ripped off in a horrifying manner. John bit back his anger though. This was not what Sam needed. He had gone down the anger route when Sam was a child and look where that had gotten his family. Him as a drunk, Dean as a mother, and Sam in a cooler nearly dead. "How long are you giving him?"

"An hour. He isn't back by then; I'm searching for him." Dean shrugged.

John wasn't stupid. He knew his son would run just like he would. Now when John ran, he got in a truck and went days away from the boys no cell phone no contact, but Sam he'd just take an hour to exhaust himself. It all came from the same place though. If they were honest Dean was the one keeping everyone together. Dean was the strongest of all of them. "You already know he won't come back on his own. He'll need help."

"I know. And I'll be there. I've always been there." It wasn't a dump on his dad but he saw the old man wince all the same. "He'll need you too." Dean added quickly. "He'll need you to help him through all this. Just don't let him spiral down like-"

"Like I did." John finished. He raised his hands when Dean tried to correct the nature of the statement. "I get it son. I will suggest though that the alcohol in the house disappear. Sam wasn't a big drinker before, but- but tragedies tend to change someone's nature."

Dean nodded. "Bobby took care of that before we even showed up. No beers for anyone for a little while."

"I can handle that." John stated easily. Despite being sober a long time now, he still had his issues with alcohol. If he could he tended to avoid it. "I shouldn't be near the stuff anyways."

The discussion died down. Dean was emotionally spent from the week he'd spent in Palo Alto; with the police, with the fire, and with his brother. And John, was uncomfortable. He was still the kind of dad to throw meaningful glances and not words. When they both entered the kitchen dumping John's belongings in a heap next to the door they met Bobby's steady gaze. John went straight for the coffee and Dean joined his uncle at the table.

An hour went by and no words were exchanged. Neither did anyone look at each other. The only shift was when Dean glanced up at Bobby's clock and sighed. "I'll be back."

Sure enough about thirty minutes later he was. John beat Bobby out the back door as they heard Buddy barking a warning towards the house. The boys were coming in. Dean was helping a very drooped Sam back towards the house Sam's long arm draped over his brother's shoulder. Sam had his head ducked down pressed into his big brother's chest, but he shifted his feet awkwardly in time with Dean's. John looped Sam's other arm around his shoulder and supported his son's other side.

"Hey kid." He said softly.

"Hey dad. She's dead." Sam didn't start crying but his face drooped further. In an attempt to meet his father's eyes, he raised his head and missed a step. Had his family not had a firm hold he would have taken them all down. "She burned. He did it."

John brought one of his hands to support him. "I know. I'm sorry."

"I loved her dad." Sam's voice cracked in a bizarre combination of emotion and exhaustion.

They had reached the porch and stopped in front trying to get Sam to lift his feet high enough to make the step. "Hey sport. Help us get you up this step."

"I loved her sooooo much." Sam almost drunkenly pulled his foot up and they cleared the step. "Why do I bring bad things? I don't want to bring bad things."

"I'm sorry son." John soothed. They brought Sam in and Bobby closed the door behind them.

"Straight up." Dean grunted as he continued to support his huge little brother's weight. Bobby flanked the trio in case they needed help.

"I don't want to see things in my dreams anymore." Sam sobbed. "I don't want to see people dying. I don't want to see her dying."

That caught John's attention. John cast his glance to his eldest who shook his head firmly. The idea was clear, there was something up, but not now. This was not a discussion to have at the moment with an emotionally distressed Sam between them. "I know Sammy. I know, no visions tonight."

"You promise." Sam slurred.

Dean scowled. He hated promising anything he couldn't prevent. He was still looking into his brother's situation and didn't have a clear read on what was going on with him. But right now Sam just need to hear some reassuring words. And who knew, maybe he wouldn't wake up screaming tonight. "I promise, dude."

(Hey if you've gotten this far then you've made it to the end of the chapter. If you liked it feel free to leave a review or even a PM, please tell me how I am doing.)