A/N: I wrote this one-shot from a tornado shelter. It caused me to miss "Long Distance Call," which I had never missed an episode of Supernatural before. It's also not my usual style of writing. It was just an exercise.

This will probably be the last thing I post for a while. I've pretty much posted all my one-shots. Multi-chapters take time to edit, even if I don't re-write the whole thing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I rent. Oh yeah. I also don't own Supernatural.

Vortex

When Dean was four years old, he discovered death was real. Although it took him much longer to realize that most of the time, people don't come back from very real death.

Some do. And he watched his father go on hunts to make sure that certain people shouldn't come back. As he got older, he was able to help out on these hunts. And he understood a little more.

Still, sometimes at night, even 25 years later, he occasionally felt like that four-year-old, watching the vortex of fire from the lawn outside.

For a long time, after that night, whenever he closed his eyes to go to sleep, he saw the swirling flames and smoke. Swirling around and radiating out from a focus. A pinpoint. A pinpoint that was Mom.

Sometimes his dream would shift. Occasionally, it was Dad who was caught in the middle of the flames. Often it was Sammy, caught in the vortex of fire (the last time Dean had this dream was six months ago).

Sometimes he would be in the middle of the flames. Feeling the intense heat. Choking on the swirling black smoke.

Dean was four years old when he first felt a vortex puling him down. He was four years old when he first felt death.

Dean was nine years old when he first discovered that he could die.

Twenty-five years later, he had long since forgotten the name of the small West Texas town they lived in. But he remembered this day.

The air was so still. So deathly still. The sky behind the clouds turned an unnatural green.

As it started to rain, Dean felt drawn out to stand in the middle of the yard. The rain pelted him as the wind picked up. Hail started beating on him.

He could hear Sammy crying for him over the roar of the wind, but he didn't care at the time. He was drawn by the unnatural sky and clouds.

The funnel touched down about three miles away. Dean could see it clearly and hear its angry roar clearly. Black. Kicking up the dirt. He could see debris, all swirling around the vortex.

He felt drawn into the vortex. Into that power. Into that almost unnatural fury. He felt the fury of the wind, wanting to draw him into that vortex.

And he realized he could die.

He felt Dad grab him and drag him into the house. No sooner than they got into a closet, the house shook, like it was going to tear itself apart.

Sammy cried, hugging Dean's soaked shirt as tightly as he could.

Dean closed his eyes and felt the vortex engulf him. Strangely, understanding what it meant gave him a feeling of connection with the angry storm.

Vortexes meant death. And they didn't frighten him.

Dean was nine years old when he first felt a vortex pulling at him. He was nine years old when he first realized he could die.

Dean was seventeen years old when he got his first taste of death. And he realized it didn't taste so good.

He was helping his father with a spirit who was causing people to drown. This ghost wasn't particularly angry. It was confused.

Unfortunately, the ghost's family had buried their child along the banks of the river that she loved. Which was why she kept haunting the river.

Dean had waded out to where the water was knee deep, hoping to catch sight of the ghost to make sure she was gone after Dad and Sammy salted and burned her body.

She wasn't. They had missed something. To this day, Dean wasn't sure what they missed. He knew his Dad took care of it, though.

The ghost retaliated by grabbing Dean in a water spout, dragging him down with her.

As he was caught in the vortex, he couldn't surface to get air. His lungs screamed at him that they wanted air. Air he desperately craved.

The last thing he remembered was looking into the face of the ghost girl. The next thing he knew, he was on the banks of the river, coughing up half of the water that was previously in the river.

He had no idea how long he had been under. He was never able to get a definitive answer from either his father or Sammy. Although he was able to piece together how he got out of the vortex later when he remembered that Dad was soaked as well.

But he had no idea how long he was without oxygen. And he decided right then that he didn't really want to know that information. Because death wasn't all that great.

Dean was seventeen years old when he felt a vortex pull him under. He was seventeen years old when he first tasted death.

Dean was twenty-two years old when he first wanted to die.

Dad and Sam were fighting so much lately. And they were always putting Dean in the middle of their arguing. Although Dean hated being in the middle, due to the fact that it was tearing him apart, knew if he wasn't there to play peacekeeper, Dad and Sam would probably kill each other.

Plus, he could see both sides of the argument. Sam wanted to go to college, have a normal life. Dad knew that there was no such thing as a normal life. Not after everything they had witnessed.

But this argument was the worst one yet. And Dean started feeling that vortex, swirling around in his mind and in his thoughts.

It was then he realized that the vortex wanted him. And at the time, he was willing to go along with it.

Sam's slamming of the door made the vortex disappear. Dean ran after him and caught up to him halfway down the block.

Silently, Dean drove Sam to the bus station.

Sam walked into the bus station without even a look back at Dean.

And Dean wanted to fall into that vortex that had been after him since he was four years old. Everything he was centered around Sam.

At that moment, he knew that Sam was his own vortex. Sam was the center, the force that kept him spinning around. After all, Dean was Sam's protector, the one who kept him safe. The one who showed him how to do things.

His whole life had spun around Sam. He realized that he had very few memories before Sam came and became the center.

And at that moment, he wanted to end it. Everything came crashing down. He was nothing without Sam. Sam might be the center, but Dean understood that he himself was the empty vacuum.

He whispered goodbye and drove back home.

Dean was twenty-two when he felt the vortex engulf him. He was twenty-two when he first wanted to die.

Dean was twenty-nine when he knew beyond a shadow of any doubt that he was dead. And he knew he couldn't escape the vortex.

He had been close to death before. Hell, he had even died once before. Before Dad sacrificed himself to save him.

Somehow those were different. Probably because he didn't feel the vortex.

He felt it now. Engulfing him. Keeping him off balance.

The vortex was Hell. And he couldn't escape.

Only thing left to do. What he did when he was nine years old.

Give in to it. Accept it. Because he's not going to change anything.

He stood at the crossroads and watched the swirling flames grow closer.

He closed his eyes and waited for the vortex to engulf him.

Fin