Title: Fractures
Rating:PG-13 for language
Spoilers: Vague spoilers for season one.
Disclaimer: If this universe were mine, I'd probably enjoy my day job. Kudos to those who do own it – enjoy.

Author's notes:This started out as a 'five things' fic but it just wasn't working; this is what came out instead.

Momentary
It's the noise that wakes him; loud, screeching, curling under his door and filling his room, tearing him from sleep.

Dean calls out for Daddy. Calls again, and when he doesn't answer, waits for a moment then calls out for Mommy too. Heart hammering painfully in his chest, he takes a deep breath and slips out of bed even though the only time he's allowed up between bedtime and morning is to go to the bathroom and he doesn't need to go now.

It's hot; the heat hits him in a rush as he opens the door and he's kinda glad that he didn't stop to put on his dressing gown or slippers. He makes his way along the hallway, heading instinctively for his parents' room, but he hears something that might be Daddy's voice – though it's high and awful and not really Daddy's voice at all – coming from Sammy's room. So he changes direction and heads that way instead, and he's almost at the door when Daddy bursts into the hallway in a whirl of black smoke, a howling Sammy clutched to his chest.

Daddy?

Daddy's eyes are wide and for a heartbeat he stares at Dean, who wonders if he's going to get in trouble because – but no, Daddy presses Sammy into Dean's arms. Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back. Now Dean, go! The baby is big and bulky in his blanket; Dean struggles to get a grip tight enough to stop his brother sliding straight out of his hands.

The corridor is filling up with smoke and he desperately wants Mommy but Daddy told him to take Sammy so he does, running as fast as he can. He reaches the top of the stairs and stops momentarily, tightening his grip on his brother, making his way quickly – but carefully, carefully, Mommy always says to be extra-specially-careful with the baby when they're playing near the stairs – downstairs.

He's almost at the front door when Sammy wriggles and Dean drops him. Drops his baby brother, right there in the hallway. And because he's scared, because the house is filled with smoke and that awful screeching sound is burning in his ears and Daddy is calling Mommy's name in that high, scared voice – because he is four and he's scared and Sammy is so hard to hold onto in his blanket, for three pounding heartbeats Dean wants to just leave him there and keep running till he reaches the safety of the front lawn.

A gift, not given
Sam's soccer team has made the final and more than anything else in the world, Sam wants to play in it. But the game is on Saturday and Dad's already told them that they're leaving on Thursday, heading for Oklahoma where a poltergeist is making life miserable in one of the outer suburbs. Sam knows from bitter experience that no matter how calmly he might ask, no matter how rational he tries to make himself sound, Dad won't change his mind. He never does. Dean says he never will.

Doesn't mean that Sam's not going to try, though.

He comes home from school on Monday with the permission slip clutched tight in one hand. Dean isn't home yet – still at school, if he bothered to go at all today – and just as he'd hoped, Dad is alone in the kitchen. There are a few bags of groceries on the counter and Dad's already cutting up the vegetables to have with their steak. He smiles a welcome as Sam walks through the door. "Good day, kiddo?"

Sam nods. "Good day." He drops his bag by the table and climbs up onto the stool at the counter; Dad pauses in his work to pour Sam a glass of juice. Then he smiles, winks, and extracts a chocolate bar from one of the bags on the counter. "Don't tell your brother."

Sam has no intention of it. He splits the wrapper carefully along the seam, breaks a piece off, relishes the taste of the chocolate against his tongue. And in spite of the battle he knows is coming, Sam is lulled by the familiarity of their after- school routine – just sitting here at the counter with Dad, sharing the chocolate with Dad, chatting with Dad.

Then Dad asks him what he's got in his hand.

We made the final, Dad.

Dad grins – a real, honest-to-god grin that goes all the way to his eyes and makes Sam's tummy flip-flop – and reaches out to ruffle his hair. Well done, Sport. That's great.

Hope mingles with chocolate and almost chokes him so that he has to take a deep breathe before asking, the words coming out in a tangled rush: the-game-is-on-Saturday-Dad-please-can-I-play?

Dad's eyes cloud over. We're leaving on Thursday. I'm sorry, Sammy.

Sam's response is instant, and he knows it's a bad idea to verbalise it even before he opens his mouth, but it's instinctive and he just can't help it. But Dad –

But nothing, Sammy. We're leaving. Dad's tone indicates that the discussion is over; the solid thump thump thump of his knife against the chopping board as he resumes dicing the carrots confirms it. If Sam were as old as Dean, as smart as Dean, he'd notice that Dad's eyes are shadowed with regret rather than anger. But he's not, so he doesn't.

Neither does he argue. He finishes his chocolate and the last of his juice; climbs down from the stool. Balls the chocolate wrapper up in his hand and drops it neatly in the bin. He doesn't storm out of the kitchen with tears of righteous anger pooling in his eyes and wet on his cheeks; doesn't wait till Dean's back is turned while he's packing the car to slip quietly out of the house; doesn't spend the better part of Thursday night shivering under the bleachers of the soccer field till Dean finds him and hauls him out by the scruff of his neck. And Dad never, never tells Sammy that in Oklahoma, three people died for his one moment of attempted normalcy.

Unforgiven
Jess has been dead for seven days, three hours and forty-four minutes.

Sam knows, is as much aware of the time as he is the loss, because the grief of it pulses through his veins with each beat of his heart.

He's curled up in the front seat of the Impala, the car moving down yet another highway somewhere in Colorado, and he can smell smoke. He's got new clothes on – brand new; Dean gave them to him (after) and Sam didn't ask where or how he got them, didn't want to know, doesn't care – but he can smell the smoke. That first day (after), he spent a solid hour in the shower. Soaped his body, shampooed his hair, rasped at his skin with a nailbrush, over and over and over till the last of the black and the smoke had been scrubbed from his body.

Doesn't matter how often he does it, though. He can still smell the fucking smoke. He carries the scent of Jessica's burning deep inside; a psychological manifestation of a physical loss so profound he wonders sometimes that his heart can keep beating through it.

Sam has fallen back into the old life with an ease that should surprise him. Lumpy hotel mattresses and pissed-off spirits and greasy diner food. Arguing over the radio, the route, the best place to stop for the night. Long hours bent over newspapers in local libraries; evenings melting down silver and packing rock salt into bullet casings. These are the rhythms of before – before Jess and blaring sirens and thick choking smoke – and there is something soothing in its familiarity. Yet every time he closes his eyes, she's there – sprawled on the ceiling, burning, the smoke choking him awake with his screams.

They're somewhere between Indiana and Chicago, following another set of co-ordinates on yet another of the seemingly endless series of jobs Dad has for them. They've been on the road for maybe twenty minutes when Sam grabs for the doorhandle and grunts out stop, his breakfast already in his throat, and Dean skids to a halt on the shoulder because brotherly love goes a long way but Sam knows it doesn't extend to his puking in the front seat of Dean's beloved car. Dean reaches across him to throw the door open so that Sam can tumble out, dropping to his knees in the gravel to throw up in great, retching bursts.

Dean's door slams and he's beside him, squatting down next to him, one hand coming down to rest between Sam's shoulder blades. Hey, hey. You alright, Sammy?

He shakes his head, unable to talk. There's the soft crunch of Dean's boots in the gravel and the trunk of the Impala squeaks. Here. Rinse your mouth out. C'mon Sammy, you're okay.

He takes the water bottle Dean holds out to him, but he doesn't lift it to his lips. When he speaks, his voice is a hoarse whisper. It should have been me.

And Dean doesn't say anything, can't say anything, because Sam knows he's right. Both times, it should have been.

The eyeing of a scar
He's going out to get dinner, and he wants Sam to just take the fucking gun already. Sam won't; says he doesn't need it, says the salt will hold back what the amulets don't and though it's a rough part of town he can look after himself just fine, and Dean should get going before the diner down the road closes and he ends up with nothing at all. And he says it without any trace of irritation or determination; a flat monotone that doesn't exactly fill Dean with confidence. He seriously considers not going at all – he'll live off the vending machine for the night, grudgingly rather than graciously but he'll still do it – but Sam sees his hesitation and he thrusts his hand out, sighing. Give it to me.

Dean checks that a round is chambered before dropping the Colt into Sam's outstretched hand. He's expecting his brother to place it straight down onto the bed beside him, but he doesn't. Instead his hand curls gently around the butt of the weapon and he traces the barrel length with one finger. Get me a burger? Sam asks, because the food order is expected even if they both know that he's either going to toss it out or hurl it up shortly after he gets it. But they go through the motions because that's what they do, and if Dean's still uneasy about leaving his baby brother alone right now, well, he's had that feeling most of his life and anyway, Sam's got the fucking gun so he's good to go.

When he returns to the hotel room twenty minutes later, burger and fries soggy in the paper bag, Sammy's long fingers are still curled around the Colt and his brains are scattered on the sagging green wallpaper behind the bed.