Title: pay the price for your paradise

Summary: After five years of silence, Dean shows up in Sam's living room and tells him to get his family and run.

Spoilers: None really; this is an AU that splits off pre-Pilot. John never went missing and Jess never died.

Pairings: Sam/Jess

Warnings: Blood, character death

Category: Gen, AU, deathfic

Word Count: 1,770

Disclaimer: Not mine; not getting paid; I'm just playing with them.

Author's Note: This has character death. Don't say I didn't warn you. (Somebody got pissy about the character death in all alone he turns to stone—which I had mentioned in the warnings—so I figured I'd make it REALLY CLEAR this time.) Title from "A Pain That I'm Used To" by Depeche Mode.

Sam was almost asleep, curled around Jessica, when he heard the noise. It was faint, little more than a whisper of motion, and the average person probably would not have even noticed it. Sam wasn't exactly the average person.

Carefully, he disentangled his legs from Jess's without waking her and crept downstairs, baseball bat firmly in hand. There were many things Sam had hated about his upbringing, but he had to admit that the fighting skills did come in handy. If a burglar had picked Sam Winchester's house as an easy target, that burglar was in for one nasty surprise.

The living room was dim and quiet, faintly lit by the night lights they'd placed along the hall. Sam tightened his grip on the bat, a prickle running down his spine as his hunter's instincts—still sharp, despite seven years of normal—informed him that he was definitely not alone. There was no sound, no movement, but an other presence registered strongly nonetheless.

The faintest motion, a mere disturbance of the air behind him, was all the warning Sam got. He spun, bringing the bat around in a disabling blow—only to have it blocked neatly by the shadowed figure that had appeared from nowhere. Sam's mind spun as he wrenched the bat away, drew it back again. There were only two people in the world who had ever blocked him so effortlessly.

"Sam, it's me," said a voice from the past—a voice he hadn't heard in nearly five years.

"Dean?" Sam lowered the bat and stared in disbelief as his older brother stepped forward, breaking away from shadows into light. Dean's face was drawn and pale, with days' worth of stubble, and even in the poor lighting Sam could see dark circles under his eyes. Dean had filled out since Sam saw him last, gained more muscle, cut his hair shorter. He looked older, but he was still unmistakably Dean—torn jeans, biker boots, layered shirts under a leather jacket. Some repressed part of Sam's heart that had never given up missing his older brother jumped at the sight.

"Sam, listen to me," Dean said, his voice low and hoarser than Sam remembered; there was something flat and inscrutable in Dean's tone that sent a shiver down Sam's spine. "Get your daughter and your wife and get out of the house. Now." For the first time Sam noticed the glint of light off the gun Dean held loosely at his side. It wasn't Dean's usual Colt 1911—this was an older Colt, an antique by the look of it. Sam had never seen it before.

Sam's heartbeat sped up because Dean's voice, his posture, the gun, it all screamed danger in a familiar language Sam had never quite made himself forget. The part of him that had always refused to take orders from his dad wanted to ask why, but if Dean thought Sam's family was in danger, then they were.

So Sam didn't ask or argue—he headed up the stairs at a run, Dean right behind him. "I'll get the baby; you get Jessica," Dean said, and Sam wondered for an instant how Dean knew Jess's name, how he even knew there was a baby.

"Jess, wake up!" Sam shook his wife, ignoring her sleepy mumbles of protest, and said the first thing that jumped into his mind. "The house is on fire. We have to get out."

Jess, instantly wide awake, practically rocketed out of bed and headed for the baby's room with a mother's single-minded determination. Sam trailed after her.

Dean met them in the hall, and Jess gaped in disbelief at the sight of a strange and very dangerous-looking man in her house, at night, holding her baby. Before Jess could react, Dean put baby Lily in her arms and turned his focus on Sam. "Get them out," he said in that same flat, guarded tone, in a voice that permitted no argument.

For the first time Sam hesitated, desperate to know what threat they were facing. "Dean, what—"

"Sam, just go!" Dean drew the antique Colt from the back waistband of his jeans, and Jess staggered back with a startled, frightened gasp, automatically turning her body to shield six-month-old Lily from the perceived threat.

"Come on, Jess." Sam grabbed his wife's arm and dragged her down the stairs, toward the door, his heart thudding loudly in his ears. Whatever was in his house, he hated the thought of Dean facing it alone, but what could he do? He was unarmed, had a family to protect, and had absolutely no idea what they were dealing with.

"Who the hell was that?" Jess demanded a little hysterically as Sam hustled them through the door and out into the front yard.

"That...that was my brother." Sam brought them to a stop on the lawn, his arms wrapped protectively around Jess and Lily both. Aware of Jess's incredulous stare, he kept his eyes fixed on the house, waiting for something...anything...to happen.

He didn't have long to wait.

There was a gunshot, then another, and Jess let out a small shriek that startled Lily into crying. Blocking them out, Sam took a couple steps forward, torn between helping his brother and protecting his family. There was a thud and a crash upstairs, the sound of something breaking, but still Sam hesitated. Dean could take care of himself—had been, in the seven years since Sam had left for college—and he undoubtedly knew what he was doing.

But then Sam heard it, carrying crystal-clear through the cool night air, turning his world upside down...a short, cut-off scream of agony.

Dean never screamed.

An instant later, the nursery window began to flicker orange.

Sam was running before he had time to think, ignoring Jess' frantic calls to him to stop. Dimly he registered another gunshot from upstairs as he tore through the living room. He remembered the story of Mom's death, Mom pinned above his crib, Mom bleeding and burning and dying, and his whole world narrowed to Dean...

Dean wasn't on the ceiling, he was on the floor, lying far too still, faced turned up toward the spreading fire above. Dean's arms were wrapped protectively around his chest, and Sam could see the blood soaking through his shirts, puddling on the floor, dripping from his mouth. The antique Colt lay abandoned on the floor next to him.

Sam took three quick steps toward his brother, toward the growing inferno, and nearly tripped over a body lying just inside the doorway. It looked like an ordinary human man, dead of a gunshot wound to the chest, but Sam knew better—knew this was what Dean had been hunting. He ignored the body and moved to kneel beside his brother, lifting Dean into his arms, adrenaline making Dean weigh hardly anything. Dean's head fell forward to rest against Sam's collarbone and he let out a short moan.

Heat prickling his skin and singeing his air, Sam lurched out the nursery door just before the room erupted into flames.

He stumbled down the stairs carrying Dean's dead weight; outside, he lowered his burden to the grass, feeling the warmth of Dean's bood sinking into his shirt. Jess made a horrified sound, seeing all the blood, and dimly Sam registered her kneeling at Dean's other side, asking what happened, Sam, what happened, but Sam was too absorbed in his brother to answer.

Dean's hazel eyes were staring blankly upward, reflecting the few stars not washed out by city lights. When Sam started talking—hey, Dean, hey, talk to me, man—Dean's eyes tracked slowly across the sky and came to rest on Sam's face. He took in the worried green-brown eyes, tousled longish hair, familiar angular features. "Sammy," he breathed, the word accompanied by a vague half-smile and a small gush of blood from the corner of his mouth.

Sam went through Dean's pockets until he found his brother's cell phone, handed it to Jess with instructions to call 911. Turning his attention back to his brother, he asked, "Dean, what was it?"

"Demon," Dean replied weakly. "Killed Mom." Another vague smile, which was starting to scare Sam. "S'okay. Dead now." He gave a wet, rattling cough, then whispered, "Safe."

Dean's eyes started to drift from Sam's face, and Sam grabbed his hand, held on for dear life. Dean was fading, the brother Sam hadn't talked to in five years dying right in front of his eyes, and what he wouldn't give to take back every day of that silence.

"Dean. Come on, stay with me," Sam said sharply, knowing he needed to keep Dean talking, keep him awake, keep him alive. "Where's Dad?" Because he couldn't imagine why Dean would have come alone to face the thing that killed Mom, unless...

Dean tried to swallow, coughed, gave a weak cough before answering. "Wisconsin," he whispered. "Hurt. Couldn't...get here. I was...closer." Sam remembered the dark circles under Dean's eyes and wondered how close, how many nights he'd driven through to get here in time. Wondered how many times Dean had tried to call Sam's old, discontinued cell phone number.

Sam heard sirens in the distance, saw Jess come back to kneel beside Dean again, still holding Lily, who had gone back to sleep. Jess, all wide-eyed concern, said something soft and comforting to the brother-in-law she had never met before.

Dean's eyes moved slowly from Sam's face to Jess's, then down to Lily. He watched the baby sleep, her mouth moving slightly as if she was nursing, and for an instant a real smile lit his pale, bloody face. Sam suddenly realized how much he had missed that incandescent smile; the sight of it now solidified the ache in his throat into a lump that made it difficult to breathe.

Eyes still on Lily, Dean whispered "Safe now," mostly to himself, as if confirming an important verdict. There was a tone of frightening finality in his voice, underscored when his head lolled back, open hazel-green eyes staring blankly at the sky.

"No, no, no!" Sam panicked, reached out to touch his brother's face, hand warm against Dean's too-cold cheek. "Dean, please, hold on. Please, Dean, you can't leave now." You can't die for me after I shut you out for five years.

Dean stayed cold, stayed gone, no spark of life in eyes that had always burned bright. Choking on a sob, Sam leaned forward to rest his forehead against his brother's, tears mixing with the blood. Dean, please hold on...but Dean, his job finished, had already let go.

-end-