Story Title: Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Author: thequietestone
Word Count: 337
Pairing/Characters: Sam/Jess, Dean
Summary: Dean comes to Sam and Jess's wedding.
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean may be able to make things exist because they believe in them [1.17 Hell House] but I can't. So, Supernatural does not belong to me and Eric Kripke is a lucky man. Also, the title is not mine - I stole it from Stephen King.

John isn't invited to the wedding.

Dean is, though, because Sam feels bad for neglecting his big brother for four and a half years. He shows up two hours before the thing is due to start, with blood on his leather jacket and bandage around his upper arm, but insists on getting into a suit and standing up with Sammy at the altar.

He can't help collapsing at the reception and Sam rushes him into another room to tend to his wounds and suffer his brother's half-hearted apologies for wrecking the wedding. Sam just laughs it off and tells him Jess will understand.

Jess isn't so understanding later, when Sam returns to the reception for their first dance as a couple, leaving blood stains on her (white) dress that hadn't shown up on his (black) jacket. She almost starts crying and her parents start looking mad but Dean returns to the party then and engages them in good-humoured conversation, inventing anecdotes from Sam's 'happy' childhood.

Dean phones John from the reception, while pleasantly buzzed, watching Sam and Jess drive off in their white wedding car. He'd offered them the Impala (so maybe he'd had more to drink than he'd thought) but they wouldn't take it, despite covetous eyes from Sam and a not-so-subtle stamp on the foot from Jess. John's phone rings eight times before going to voicemail, and Dean sits rambling about how grown-up his baby brother is for five minutes before being offered another glass of champagne by a passing waiter.

He stumbles back to the Impala in the early hours of the morning and curls up on the back seat, waiting for his brother to slide into shotgun and ask where they're headed next, which supernatural freak was next on the Winchester hit list. Then he realises that he's fallen into his biggest nightmare because John's missing and Sam's not coming back to the hunt for a long time (for ever) and Dean's gonna be alone.

He's gonna be alone for a long time.