Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page :)

Nothing in Dean's life has ever been more contradictory than fire. It represents too many things – loss and gain, hope and despair, life and death – and the warm, sharp smell of it has swirled inside his lungs so often in his relatively short life that his brain can't seem to figure out how it feels about it. In most ordinary people's lives fire is a bad thing; destructive, consuming, something to be feared, avoided. But Dean's used to it. He doesn't necessarily like it, he's just used to it, like the way you'd get used to having a limp; he's used to the stinging heat on his face and the flare in his eyes and the way it devours everything in its path and then eventually burns itself out after it's had its fun. Like a child throwing a tantrum – better to just get out of the way and let it run its course because sometimes fighting back causes more problems then it solves.

So much of Dean's life has been centered around the chemical reaction; so many matches tossed into salted graves of spirits that hash out their final blaze of glory as he watches on; usually sweaty and exhausted but satisfied. It's so bright sometimes that it nips at his retinas but Dean never blinks. He thinks sometimes that's why he never sleeps with the drapes drawn; like he can't relax if he doesn't have that florescent motel sign flickering behind his eyelids. And of course, there's smoke. Smoke from burning corpses, from collapsing buildings; the muggy smolder of cigarettes in bars that curls around his senses and numbs him as he drinks cheap whiskey and hustles cocky blue-collars out of their money and makes eyes at the pretty girl he can't even make out clearly through the haze.

The earliest memory Dean has of it is from what he assumes was some kind of campfire. The memory is vague, cloudy; Dean has no idea where he was or even how old he was but if he concentrates he can almost recall the feeling of sitting, warm and protected, in his father's lap while yellow and orange light danced in front of them. He can hear something lyrical and fluttery, like the song of a tropical bird but for whatever reason Dean knows it's not – it's the sound of his mother's laughter. But that's the full extent of the memory. It isn't even tangible enough for Dean to remember if he was happy or not in that long-ago moment but he assumes he was, which is a reasonable assumption because he does, at least, know it happened in that brief space he sometimes refers to in his mind as the before – before everything went wrong.

Then there was that night. The night. Dean doesn't remember too much about that either, not really. He remembers heat; hotter than he'd ever felt before, so sweltering it made the air in front of his nose wavy. He remembers somebody shouting; Dad, he assumes, screaming in agony as the love of his life burned to ash on the ceiling. He remembers the smell, acrid and choking; blistering flesh and sizzling hair. And he remembers Sam. The most important part of the memory, of any memory really. The tiny, fragile lump Dad placed in his arms with frantic instructions to go – to run and not to look back. To hold on tight. There are times, even now, when Dean thinks maybe his four year old body took that command a little too literally and never let his mind forget it. There are times, even now, when he feels like everything will work itself out as long as he doesn't let go of Sam.

He carried his baby brother out of a burning, spinning sarcophagus while the walls and their lives crumbled around them. And now they're here again. It feels surreal, like something that's happening to someone else. Like Dean's watching it through a lens from somewhere far away. Because it's not fair. It's not fair that after everything that's happened, through all the million ways their lives have changed and evolved, like a spider after helpless prey time has spun them back here; right back to where they began. For the second time in his life, he pulled Sam kicking and screaming through the shrapnel and for the second time in both their lives they had to stand on the curb in the middle of a chilly night and watch powerlessly as a sweet blonde lost her life to the flames. Except that first time, Dean held baby Sam to his chest as tightly as he could without crushing him, whispering that everything would be okay and this time, he can't do anything. Dean's never felt this helpless before.

There is nothing, nothing he could do or say to make this alright and he knows the harder he tries the more he's just gonna fall flat. Sam's just standing there, not moving. It's what he's been doing all night long. Well, after Dean got him out of the building. At first he fought, tooth and nail, doing his damndest to claw his way back to her, to Jessica; and Dean nearly lost every tooth in his head dragging a hysterical Sam down a flight of stairs and out the door. But once the night air cooled the sting from the smoke, Sam just stopped. He just stood there as the fire devoured the building, he just stood there as Dean frantically called 911, he just stood there as the emergency trucks swarmed and men in yellow uniforms rushed in with axes and giant hoses and stamped the flames out. He just stood there as EMTs grabbed them both and pushed them into the back of an ambulance to check them over even as Dean insisted they were fine, and then he just stood there as Dean BSed his way through a brief conversation with the police chief – 'we were tying one on at a bar in town and when we came home, the place was halfway burnt to the ground'.

And now he's just frozen in place, staring at the wet, smoldering wreckage of his life; his coveted normal, as if the lingering swirls of heat and the smell of cinders is hypnotizing him. He doesn't even look sad; just blank, empty. There is still a frenzied crowd of people milling around him, firemen, police officers, other tenants, but it doesn't look to Dean that Sam even notices them. The ever-so-slight rising and falling of his shoulders as he breathes is the only sign that he's even alive. Feeling more and more inadequate with each passing minute, Dean keeps one eye trained on his shell-shocked brother as he takes a card out of Captain Davis' hand (there'll be an arson investigation, make sure you boys don't leave town for a few days, yeah right). When they finally get the okay to take off, Sam wanders over to the parked impala in a trance, like he's drawn to it by some gravitational pull he doesn't quite understand but doesn't have the energy to fight. He wordlessly opens the trunk and starts rummaging through it – picking up knives, weighing them in his hands and then putting them back; reloading guns and running his fingers over them before he drops them back onto the pile.

Dean feels sick. Maybe the worst he's ever felt in his life. This is worse than the time he had to tell Sam about where Dad really went when he left them for weeks at a time, worse then all those birthdays and Christmases Dad promised over and over again he'd make it home for and then didn't, and Dean had to break the bad news to a crushed little boy with hopeful eyes and watch the dimpled grin just melt right off his face. This is worse, because at least when Sam was younger there was always something Dean could do to make him smile, at least for a little while. But there isn't a damn thing he can do to make this better, and it feels like an iron punch straight to the gut. It's been a really long time since he's seen his brother, but even after everything that's changed Dean still has the uncontrollable desire to protect Sammy, to shield him from pain – to fix things, and it's killing Dean to know he can't.

He takes the distance between him and Sam in a few measured strides, and it's not until he gets to his brother's side that he realizes Sam's crying. Slow, silent tears are trailing steadily down his cheeks from haunted, puffy eyes. Dean wants to say something, anything, but the words don't come. A hundred options run through his head in quick succession – 'are you okay', 'how can I help', 'what do you wanna do now' – but nothing seems right, each one seems less useful than the last. So he doesn't say anything. Dean feels like he's the one in a trance now; like everything around him is spinning so fast it's just a blur of color and noise and catastrophe and all he can focus on is Sam's face. He's so devastatingly beautiful in the flickering orange light of the emergency vehicles that it's almost hard to look at but Dean can't tear his eyes away. Sam's always been stunning – smooth caramel skin, soft brown hair falling into soulfully expressive, almond shaped eyes, dimples like trenches framing a bright, white-toothed smile – but there's something indescribable about him right now, with smoke on his clothes and tear-tracks on his face. It's like tragedy suits him.

It makes Dean ache in all kinds of places he never knew he had.

"We've got work to do," is all Sam says, turning away from Dean and pushing the trunk closed. He leans the back of his legs against the bumper, slumping over and wrapping his arms around his chest protectively. He's so much bigger than he was the last time Dean saw him – Sam's taller, more filled out, so much more grown up and yet right now he still looks incredibly small. There's a terrible pit in Dean's stomach at the sight of him, like heartburn only a hundred times more intense. He watches him warily, caught halfway between wanting to give Sam a few minutes to collect himself and needing to wrap his arms around his heartbroken baby brother like he did that night all those years ago, like he has a thousand times since.

But he can't. Not anymore. Because it's Sam, and Dean's never been able to be satisfied with just some of him. If he gives himself an inch he'll end up taking a mile and they … well. They're not like that anymore. Two years is a long time. Sam's exactly the same in some ways but in others he's so very different. For the first time in Dean's life, he doesn't know how to help Sam. When they were growing up, Dean barely even had to be in the same room as his brother to know if he was upset and exactly how to fix it. And now Sam's in the middle of the worst day of his life, and Dean's just standing there, completely stuck. Dean can't remember the last time he felt this handcuffed.

"God, Sammy …" he begins, swallowing thickly when he realizes he still has no idea what to say. "I can't even … is there – anything?"

Sam sniffs and shakes his head shortly.

Dean winces. His arms want so much to hold Sam's deflated form that he has to clench his fists to keep them to himself.

"Can I … is there anybody you want me to call?" he asks tentatively. Living the way he has, it's not exactly the first time he's ever been around someone who's just lost a loved one, but he's never been on this side of it before. It's awful. It's like drowning.

Sam shakes his head again, bangs swaying in front of his eyes. He drags the back of his hand over his mouth before he speaks in a soft, sad voice. "I can come with you, right? When you leave?"

Dean's pretty sure a simple question has never hurt quite so much. "I can't believe you think you'd even have to ask me that."

Sam shrugs. He opens his mouth as if to say something else, but then that indifferent, vacant expression clouds over his face again and he stays silent. He walks around the passenger's side of the car and gets in without another word and Dean's left standing there, in the smog and the din and the bitter stench of disaster, feeling for all the world like he just let his little brother down in more ways than he even knows.