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Sam’s burning, he’s pretty sure.
Him and Dean and Dad are in a crappy broken down Nebraska motel room, but they’re not all going to make it out tonight. Not when the walls are on fire.
“Dean!” Sam’s shout comes out more as a raspy cough from all the smoke, but he exclaims nonetheless. He doesn’t get a reply, though. The only two things Sam hears are the crackles of the embers swallowing up cheap drywall and the blood rushing through his ears. Air bends and waves in front of him, smoke curling through it and stinging his eyes.
God, why can’t Sam force himself to get up? He needs to move. Get to Dad, get to Dean, and get out. But for some reason, his legs weigh a thousand pounds and he’s trapped on his twin mattress that’s all springs and dust, and he’s going to die here. The fire is branching out, glowing tendrils licking at the wooden bed frame, and Sam’s watching it happen. Nobody’s coming to help him, he thinks.
Sam can’t tell what time it is- all the light in the room is coming from something that’s on fire- but he hopes Dad and Dean just stayed out too late at the bar post-hunt (“ maybe when you’re sixteen, Sammy” ) and he prays he’ll die alone. It would be really freaking nice to not be by himself while he burns, but Sam had known this is how he had to go out ever since Dad told him he deserved it a week or so ago. He was intoxicated at the time, but sober enough to recoil once he finished the sentence. Dad didn’t drink for a couple of days after that one.
Sam’s the most religious out of his family, but that’s a pretty low bar when you’re a Winchester, so even when he starts to pray (to anything that could be listening), it feels foreign. The air around him is so hot that he thinks he’s already on fire. Sam tilts his head as far back as it will go, until his neck is practically parallel with the ceiling, and he focuses his eyes upwards.
Help me, he whispers, wracking the corners of his brain for any rusty bit of faith he can reach. Sam repeats the phrase, whispering still, until the words loop together and blur like the smoke around him. Then the flames hit, and his chant becomes a scream.
It’s pain unimaginable. Lightning shoots up Sam’s spine, and all he’s praying for now is death. Agony rips through his nerves and tears them out from under his skin, digging into his bones with her razor sharp teeth. The only thought that makes it through his screaming is this is what you did to Mom.
She’s pinned to the ceiling above him all over again, her face contorted with anguish in an expression that Sam is sure his own face mirrors. They’re burning together now, and in spite of all of his hope that Dean is far, far away right now, Sam sucks in a horrible, polluted breath and uses it to call for him again. Carry me out again, he pleads in his head as his vocal cords strain to get a sound out.
“ Dean !”
—- —- —- —- —- —- —-
“Dean!”
Dean jolts awake, right hand already wrapped around the knife under his pillow.
Assess the scene.
He glances around, and there’s no immediate sign of an intruder.
The couch in the corner of the room is empty- Dad’s still out drinking (even though he told Dean he’d be ten minutes behind him, but who was he kidding).
Windows appear to still be locked, and the salt line’s intact. Motel room door is closed, and the other salt line is unbroken.
Dean glances around, takes another sweep of the room. All weapons are in the same place. Phones are on the nightstand. Sammy is-
Still shaking off remnants of drowsiness, Dean hops up and as quietly as he can manage, bounds over to the twin bed where Sammy’s wiry legs are sprawled out and twisted into the sheets. He’s breathing shallowly, Dean notes, his face pale and sweaty, brows knit together and eyes screwed shut. Dean decides it’s a nightmare, unsure of whether to wake Sam up or let him stay asleep.
That decision’s made for him when Sam starts moving again, though. The kid yanks his arms back by the elbows and clenches his fists until his knuckles turn white. Dean’s sure his nails have to be digging into his palms, but it’s not like Sam notices. Then, he lets out a quiet groan through his teeth- that familiar one that Dean’s come to understand as wow that hurts a lot but I’m too stubborn to ask for help. Okay, party’s over.
Slowly, Dean brings a tentative hand to rest on Sam’s shoulder.
“Sammy,” he whispers, then waits a second.
“Sammy,” a little louder this time. Usually Sam would have woken up by now- he’s a little princess about his beauty sleep being disturbed.
Not this time. Instead, Sam opens his mouth and screams , so abruptly that Dean jolts back for a second before returning to his side. The kid starts writhing around on the bed, crying out in pain with a kind of vulnerability he hasn’t shown to anyone, not even Dean, in months. What is happening?
He reaches forward, not exactly sure what he’s attempting to do, but Sam is all thrashing limbs and hoarse, incoherent half-screaming. Dean’s starting to worry a little more now, because his little brother’s lips are steadily gaining a bluish tint to them. Sam’s freaking out so hard that he’s barely taking in any air before he chokes it back out.
Dean grasps Sam’s head in his hands before he can go back to bashing it on the headboard. Before he says anything, though, the kid’s movements stutter to a stop.
“ Dean ,” he whispers, eyes still closed. Then he goes limp.
“Sam?” Dean shakes him as gently as he’s able to, but all he gets in response is a life sized ragdoll, complete with a shaggy mop of hair.
Yeah, Dean’s not doing this tonight. Where his finger rests on Sam’s carotid, the pulse is a bit (a whole lot) too fast and thready for his liking. He’s stopped screaming, but he’s still barely breathing at all, so Dean grimaces and apologizes in his head to Sam for what he’s about to do.
It takes a couple seconds of Dean’s knuckles on his chest for the feeling to kick in, but then Sam’s gasping, shooting forward with such a suddenness that the brothers almost knock heads before Dean ducks to the side. The kid’s eyes are mostly just frenzied and bewildered, but when he realizes who’s in front of him, they turn round with panic, brimming with tears that surprise Dean. This nightmare must’ve hit him hard.
“Are you-,” Sam’s trying to talk but his vocal cords sound like they’ve been through a cheese grater, “-you okay? Not burnt?”
Why is he asking Dean if he’s alright? “Yeah Sammy, I’m okay,” Dean says slowly, really confused now. Burnt? What does the kid mean by burnt?
But Sam seems to be in no mood to clarify. Instead, he half leans, half falls forward into Dean and wraps his skinny arms around his torso. Dean lets his little brother rest on him, slowly pushing the mess of hair onto his shoulder when Sam starts shaking from the effort of holding up his own head. His inhales are sharp and stuttered- the breathing patterns he started making at the age of four to stop himself from crying. Bringing a hand up to rub Sam’s back, Dean whispers to him to “let it out, kid”, and that’s when Sam really breaks.
“I thought I was gonna die,” he whispers after a long moment. “The room was burning and you weren’t there.”
Dean breaks the hug to pull back and look Sam in the face. “Well, that’s how you know it wasn’t real, Sammy. When would I ever let something get to you without being there? I get first dibs on roughing you up, you know.” Sam chokes out a halfhearted, watery laugh, and Dean tries to grin, but it falls a little short. In the beat of silence that follows, Sam’s eyes dart around the room and the panic relights.
“Where’s Dad?” Sammy’s breathing is starting to pick up again. “Is he-”
“He’s fine,” Dean interjects. “Probably got carried away at the bar. You know how he gets.” Sam nods and swallows, the sound traveling through the dead silent motel room. Something about the way the kid tensed at the word ‘bar’ doesn’t quite sit right with Dean. He’d have let Sam go back to sleep by now, but he’s still shaking like a leaf, and everything about this situation is echoing in Dean’s head, screaming wrong, wrong, wrong . Sam seems to notice his uneasiness- he looks like he’s on the verge of blurting something out, barely restraining himself.
“You good?” Sam hesitates for a second before answering.
“Dad was right.” Dean can hear the tightness in the kid’s throat when he rushes out the words, but he doesn’t know why.
“About what?”
“About me. What I did to Mom.”
Dean stares at him for a second, trying to process the millions of unhelpful things John could’ve said to Sam in a moment of impulse. God knows their dad isn’t exactly good at being nice to his youngest son, especially when the subject is Mom. Of course, the kid had nothing to do with what happened to her except for being an unfortunately present witness, but it’s not like John really cares about reason during his drunk ramblings. “You didn’t do anything to Mom. What did he tell you?” Dean doesn’t mean for his voice to be quite as sharp as it is, but he doesn’t exactly care that much either.
“Well, you know, the usual stuff. I killed her, took her from him, that kind of thing.” Then Sam pauses and takes a breath, tears welling back up in his already reddened eyes. He’s holding something back.
“And?”
“That I was gonna burn like her. Said I deserved it.” The kid can barely get out the words before he’s hiccuping and curling in on himself, but Dean can only sit there like he’s been slapped across the face. This has to be a new record for John’s crappiest parenting (and he’s had some real gems in the past).
Dean has half a mind to drag the kid back into another hug, but he’s not sure if that’s the best course of action right now. Sammy’s back to full on sobbing again, and it’s not like Dean blames him. Jesus.
“I don’t wanna be evil, Dean,” the kid stutters out, voice muffled by the fact that his head is huddled in his arms. “Am I really that bad? I know we kill monsters, and I don’t wanna-”
“Jeez, Sammy, of course not. How could you ever be evil?” Then Dean’s lifting his head from his lap, forcing Sam to look him in the eyes.
“Hey.” Dean needs him to keep eye contact. This is important. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”
Sam nods his head just a little, but Dean knows he doesn’t actually believe it.
“I mean it, dude. It wasn’t your fault. You are not a monster, and I’m sure of it. Seriously.” Sam has this horrible look on his face like he thinks Dean’s about to tell him he’s lying, but nothing happens. Gradually, his mask of hopelessness cracks to reveal uncertainty.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he says, hesitant as if the words might set him on fire. Dean nods.
“It wasn’t,” Sam repeats, shaking his head- slowly at first, then more insistently. “It wasn’t my fault,” he whispers one more time, then Dean grabs him tight and doesn’t let go.
Usually after a nightmare, Dean would be comforting Sam differently, probably reassuring him with mumbled words along the lines of you’re safe now and everything’s alright. Tonight, they just sit there for a while, until Sam’s soaked Dean’s shirt through and their shoulders are both sore from the position they sit in. Dean doesn’t know what to say this time. Everything isn’t alright. John’s going to come back in a few hours, and Sam will be scared once more. John will get drunk again soon enough. He'll rip the kid apart and drink some more. He’ll apologize in the morning, and it won't change what he said. Rinse and repeat, keep following the pattern until it’s muscle memory.
But right now, in this short moment, the room is filled only with two brothers. Dean holds the kid close until his breaths even out into sleep, then lies him down gently onto the pillows and covers him with the bandaid colored motel blanket. Sam’s brows are relaxed now, and he looks about as close to peace as a Winchester ever gets.
Tomorrow’s gonna suck. Tonight, though, there are no slurred curses or shattering alcohol bottles- only the quiet hum of an old radiator and the lazy rustling of trees outside the window.