Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, I wish I did blah di blah di blah.

A/N: Hey guys, I know that it's been a while since I posted anything but I lost my muse for quite a while…anyway, I now have my shit in gear so I am posting a new story, I have been writing this for a while and already have 10 or so chapters written, so I will be posting a new chapter to this every week or so, and I will tell you if anything comes up that means that I can't post the chapter for that week.

Anyway, tell me what you think, if you guys don't like it then tell me why, I could really use some constructive criticism so let me know how you receive it.

So, without further ado, I present this….

Flames

Sam was 15 when it happened; he, his father and Dean had been tracking this witch for two weeks and had finally managed to track down and corner her in an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. The witch, outnumbered and seeing them move in for the kill, had desperately sent out a wave of power, knocking his Dad and Dean back into the wall of the building, several shots from Sam's gun had kept her away long enough for him to ascertain that his family were not really hurt, just unconscious. After a few minutes of frantic dodging from spells and bullets alike, a clever move on the witch's part had allowed her to summon Dean away from the protective circle and hold a ritual knife to his throat.

For a moment all was still as the witch and Sam stared each other down, a second later Sam dropped the gun; there was no choice in his mind between killing the witch and saving his brother, and he wasn't yet skilled enough to do both. The witch was just starting to lower the knife when Dean groaned and weakly fought against her icy grip, the witch had panicked, raising the knife to plunge it into Dean's chest.

And that's when it happened.

A wave of hot power and pure fury washed over the youngest Winchester,

'How dare she?!' He seethed, 'How dare she try to hurt Dean!'

No one hurt his family and lived to tell the tale. No one.

The wave of power pushed outwards, rushing across the small space between him and the bitch that was trying to hurt his brother, heating the knife in her hand until it glowed ruby red and the witch was forced to drop it with a shriek of pain. She stared at him wide-eyed, releasing Dean in her shock and shakily stepping away from the infuriated teen. Sam stepped forward and the bitch froze in shock, unable to move, not even breathe as Sam strode towards her, placing himself between her and his unconscious brother without a hint of hesitation.

"You chose the wrong hunter to mess with." Sam growled, piercing her with a fierce glare, making her flinch at its sheer intensity; unbeknownst to him Sam's usually warm, soft green eyes had changed to an intense burning gold, a clear sign of the power that now flowed through him.

He raised his hand, pointing at the – still frozen – witch, and spoke in an icy tone that sent shivers down her spine, a complete opposite of the burning heat that he'd called forth earlier,

"If you had just left you would have lived." He stated softly, she could do nought but sob silently as his words brushed her senses, punctuated with power, "But you tried to hurt my family, and for that you must suffer."

The witch whimpered in terror and screamed as golden flames erupted around her, "Goodbye, Witch, you chose this path and now you will burn with it." He spoke darkly, bending down towards her blackened and dying form, "You shouldn't have tried to hurt Dean." He whispered, watching her burn until the light faded out of her eyes and she slumped to the ground in a blackened lump.

He left her burning as he stood up and went back over to Dean, and, with great effort, he managed to lift Dean over his shoulder and carry him back over to where their father lay slumped against the wall, he just about managed to move them both into comfortable positions before the power left him and he fell to the ground next to them, panting in exhaustion and staring at his hands in horror.

In the half an hour it took for Dean and his Dad to come round, and for the last ashes of the witch to settle on the Warehouse floor, Sam had come to his decision; he wouldn't tell his family, not Dean, Dad, Bobby, Pastor Jim, Caleb, he wouldn't tell anyone, instead he would hone his new powers, train them until he had perfect control of the flames, then and only then would he even consider telling his family. So when they woke up, with his father demanding to know where the witch was, and Dean fussing over him and making sure he was okay, he lied, telling them that he'd shot her when she'd tripped over some rubble in a stupid mistake, pointing to the pile of ashes as his evidence.

Naturally Dean had been as proud as a peacock – not that he wasn't usually like that, but even prouder if that was possible, and since it was Dean… – that Sam had protected them and had had their backs when they had been knocked out and had so easily taken down the witch, his father hadn't really expressed his pride but the small smile on his face for the rest of the night was worth it.

The trio went home grinning and for a minute Sam was able to forget about his strange powers, simply enjoying his family's praise, his amnesia lasted for all of 24 hours before he caught his eyes glowing in the bathroom mirror the next afternoon and it all came flooding back to him. He packed up quickly and they were soon on the way to the next hunt. Since Dean was riding shotgun, Sam was able to practise making tiny flames appear on his palms, and although it was a good start he resolved not to try harder until he was able to get some time alone.

Over the next year or so, Sam grew more and more adept at controlling his flames. Two years later and Sam had near perfect control over his flames and could bend them to his will, then he started experimenting with his flames, their size, shape, colour, intensity, he played around with everything, slowly building a small repertoire of useful flame techniques that required more skill than just a "Point and Burn" move.

Finally, Sam was 18 and sneaking out in the dead of night having gained a scholarship at Stanford, he knew how his Dad and Dean would react if he told them that he was actually going to attend college, so he hadn't told them, leaving a letter filled with half truths about him going to hunt solo for a while and that he would call when he could and also to tell Bobby to keep in touch, he'd left the address of a drop off mail box so that he could receive letters along with his phone number and email address, just in case.

He knew 4 years at college would be the last taste of normalcy that he would get, with his ability he could never be normal, so he chose to study dead languages, along with ancient history, myths and legends as well as quite a few current languages as well; he reasoned that since he'd taught himself Latin and French just fine, then having actual teachers should make it a hell of a lot easier. In any case he would at least be able to get the correct books for learning said languages. Besides, he was going to have to go back to his Dad and Dean after this – even if he hadn't wanted to go back he was sure that he could never cut them out of his life completely – and if he was going to be able to convince them that his decision had been the right one then he should learn some useful things for hunting along the way; it was what he was going to do for the rest of his life after all so he might as well be prepared.

Despite his rather active life at college, he didn't stop hunting, if for no other reason than to keep his skills sharp, however he did stick solely to the Stanford area when hunting in a vain attempt to avoid other hunters, particularly his Dad, Dean and anyone else he might know. Speaking of said people that he knew, he had received a flood of angry emails and calls the day after he had left telling him how 'irresponsible' and 'idiotic' he was and to 'get his ass back to Bobby's right now or else.' A week of voicemails and calls later, a hasty hour of removing the GPS out of his phones and laptop and half a ton of angry conversations later and they'd finally come to an agreement; he had to call Dad and Dean every week, one call each, and Bobby every fortnight, and he had to immediately call if he was in trouble or injured.

He broke the last promise within a week when he broke his ankle in a tussle with a werewolf, the wolf went down but his ankle had been snapped in the process, his few college friends had been very helpful for the next six weeks as they carried his bags while he hobbled around on crutches.

By the time he was 19 and a year had passed he had fallen into a comfortable rhythm of hunting anything and everything in the area, calling Dean every Sunday night after getting off his reasonably well paying job as a bar tender at the local nightclub, leaving a voicemail for his Dad every Wednesday, and chatting with Bobby every other Thursday during his free period. He exercised every morning before he went to his first class and every other free weekend he would drive down to Pastor Jim's to collect supplies of silver bullets, holy water and the like.

The only time that he called his Dad and Dean outside of his schedule was when he was 20, when he called to tell them to be on the lookout for Vampires because he'd just taken out a nest of them on the edge of Stanford. It had been a huge surprise to run into one Vamp, let alone a nest, he'd thought that they were all extinct, after getting over his shock he set out with enough weapons to fill an army base, half a ton of salt and a small can of lighter fluid (it wasn't as if he needed it that much anyway.)

He'd gone in guns blazing and took out half of them within the first few seconds of fighting, it was almost dawn so most of the Vamps were tired and ready to sleep the day away so his attack had caught them all by surprise – and although he could have gone in during the day and burnt the whole barn down, Vamps included, he still risked killing any of the victims that were still alive and unturned in that scenario so this was the best he could come up with on such short notice, he had to deal with the bloodsuckers quickly because 10-11 of them (this was a large nest) could easily turn and wipe out whole towns if left alone.

From there it had been easy to pick off the remaining 6 or 7 of them at long distance, easily lighting most on fire and picking off the stragglers with well-aimed silver bullets. In fact the clean-up was the most tiring part of the hunt because he had to 'tag' each Vamp to make sure they were all dead before checking for any unturned victims – there were none – and disposing of all the evidence at the end by salting the whole barn and setting his aflame with a snap of his fingers.

He walked out of the barn with a few scratches and bruises but not in pieces and with no broken bones – thankfully the Vamps were too tired and full to move at full speed so picking them off was far easier than it would have been had he engaged them at midnight – and sent one last look at the orange flames licking up the sides of the barn before stowing away all of his weapons in his duffel and slinging it on his (well-earned) Triumph Commander and heading back to his apartment for a shower before he had to go to College.

As soon as he was through the door he'd dumped all his stuff on the couch, tossed his keys onto the table and headed straight for the shower for a good soak. After that he called his Dad and Dean, thanking God that they had decided to take a joint hunt for once, it would make telling them and their inevitable rants a hell of a lot easier, he called Dean and told him to turn on speaker phone and get his Dad while he was at it, Dean had grumbled about early morning calls and stupid little brothers before relenting, realising Sam wouldn't have called if it wasn't important, and rushing out of the room to get their Dad. He returned a few minutes later with their Dad in tow and had immediately asked what was wrong. Sam told them and that's when the conversation devolved into shouting:

"Vampires." Sam had said as soon as he got a word in.

"What?!" Dean asked incredulously, "What d'ya mean 'Vampires'?"

"I just wiped out a nest of them." Sam deadpanned, gaining a stunned silence from his listeners, "I called to tell you to be on the lookout for them, clearly they're not as rare as we thought." He said dryly.

"You took down a nest of Vampires." That was Dad.

"Yes." Sam replied.

"Just now?" "On your own?" Both Dean and Dad asked at the same time.

"Yes to both." Sam answered, sensing the inevitable explosion.

"Of all the irresponsible–" Dad again.

"You could've been killed–" Dean.

"How could you be so stupid–"

"Didn't have any back up–"

"–irresponsible–"

"–any brain in there?–"

"–half assed planning–"

"–supposed to be the smart one–"

"–could've asked us!"

Sam sighed and let them shout over each other for a full five minutes, keeping a wary eye on the clock so that he didn't miss his morning Ancient History class.

Finally they finished by saying, or rather shouting, in sync,

"What do you have to say for yourself?!"

And Sam replied by telling them that they were both mother hens, he had been hunting solo for the last two years and he's been okay without them, there weren't that many of the bloodsuckers anyway (a blatant lie, but oh well) and if he had needed help he would've gone to Bobby anyway since they were on the other side of the country from him, and this job needed to done quickly before the nest grew any more than it already had. His spiel had, thankfully, got them to shut up and he'd hung up after promising to call again in a few days and saying that he'd call Bobby and tell him about exponential increase in the Vampire activity.

The call to Bobby 5 minutes later had been better, but only just; Bobby had thoroughly chastised him for taking on a whole nest of Vamps on his own when he had no practical experience with Vampires in the first place. Sam had apologised – as Bobby had a better point than his Dad or Dean – and had made the same promise to Bobby as he had to his Dad and Dean before ending the call and rushing out of the apartment to get to his first class.

XXX

Yes, yes the ending was a little abrupt, and I apologise for that but finding good cut off points while trying to keep the chapters short and flowing is a lot harder that I thought….i am far too used to writing one shots…

So, let me know what you think about it and whether you like it, the next chapter will be up around Friday if you guys like it before I go back to weekly updates.

Reviews are lovely,

Tenebrae xx