Supernatural Fic: Because He Can
Thanks again to
phantomas who inspires me to fanfic even when she has no idea she's doing it. I wrote this in response to a theatricalmuse prompt phantomas mentioned: Describe a chance encounter that changed your life. Then I realized it would be a great way to start off my "first time for everything" spn_challenges chart ... if I can figure out how to get the dayum chart posted (I'm workin on it, I'm workin on it).
Anyway, here's what I came up with. I figured I'd start off easy and go with a Writer's Choice, for which I chose "First Hero."
Title: Because He Can
Author:
dodger_winslow
Challenge: spn_challenges First Time for Everything: Writer's Choice (First Hero)
Prompt: Describe a chance encounter that changed your life
Character: Dean
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Pilot
Summary: He always wanted to be a fireman when he grew up. This is why ... and why Sam never knew that about him.
Because He Can
He was five when everything changed. He knows what happened now; but then, it was just a confusion of fear and fire and fury.
The house is burning, and he's standing in the yard, and he doesn't know what to do. He holds on to little Sammy for all he's worth, not only because Daddy told him to, but also because he doesn't know what else to do. He doesn't know where to go, or who to ask for help. He doesn't know if anyone can help him. He doesn't even know why he needs help.
All he knows is that his house is burning, and his mommy and daddy are in the house, and he's standing in the yard holding on to Little Sammy, and he doesn't know what to do.
A man puts a hand on his shoulder. Because he thinks it's Daddy, he's crying when he turns. He's been so afraid Daddy was inside with Mommy and maybe they were burning, too, just like the house is burning. And thinking that, he didn't know what to do.
But it isn't Daddy behind him. It's a tall man in a big, black rain coat and a fireman hat and huge boots that look ten times bigger than any feet Dean has ever seen. Behind the man, there's a fire truck with flashing red lights, and men are jumping off it and running toward the house.
Toward his house.
The man is talking to him, but Dean can't hear what he's saying over the sirens and the shouting men and the sound of everything he knows burning in the night. Little Sammy is crying now, too; and he doesn't know what to do about that either, so he just kind of bounces him in his arms like he's seen Daddy do a hundred times. It works a little, but not enough so he can hear the man talk while Sammy cries and the house burns and a hundred thousand billion men yell and run and spray his house with tons and tons and a hundred thousand billion tons of water.
"It's going to be all right."
That's the first thing he hears the man say. He doesn't really believe it, but he hears it. He hears it because the man is carrying him now, carrying him while he carries little Sammy. The man tried to pull him out of the yard for a while, but Dean won't go because Daddy always said meet in the yard if the house is on fire, so Dean is going to wait in the yard until Daddy finds him. The man tried to take Sammy away once, too; but Dean won't let him do that either, because Daddy said protect Sammy so that's what he's going to do: Protect Sammy. Protect him even from the tall man in big, black boots.
So finally, the man just gives up and picks Dean up while Dean is holding Sammy, and he walks them all away from the fire. "It's going to be all right, son," the man is still saying. "You're safe now. Everything is going to be all right."
It's a lie, and Dean knows it's a lie. Nothing is ever going to be all right again. He holds on tighter to little Sammy and does his best not to cry -- Daddy wouldn't want him to cry -- when the man sets them down next to a fire truck.
"You're safe now," the man says. He crouches down and looks Dean right in the eyes the way Daddy does when they talk man-to-man about football and girls and Mommy. "I won't let anything happen to you," the man says. "I promise."
And Dean believes him.
Everything isn't all right. Nothing is ever going to be all right again. But Dean believes the man in the big boots when he says he wouldn't let anything happen to him. Not to him or to Sammy. At least not now. Not right now. They're safe right now, standing with this man, this man who picked them up and carried them to a fire truck, and who put himself between Dean and little Sammy and the house burning huge and hot in the middle of their yard, saying everything is going to be all right and I won't let anything happen to you, I promise.
And for just that moment, it doesn't matter that Dean doesn't know what to do. Because the man knows what to do. And he's doing it. He's doing it even though he doesn't know Dean, and he doesn't know little Sammy, and he doesn't even know Daddy or Mommy or any of Daddy or Mommy's friends, and he doesn't even know or care about any of all the things that are important and cool and special in Dean's house that are burning now, burning like Daddy and Mommy and everything else Dean knows.
He's still doing it. Just because he can.
"Where's my daddy?" Dean asks him.
"I don't know, son," the man says. "But we'll find him, okay? Don't you worry, little man. We'll find him."
It didn't turn out that way. Instead, Daddy found them. He found Dean and little Sammy by the fire truck, and he took them both away from the man in the big boots to hug them so tight it hurt in every way that was good and safe. He was dirty, and he smelled smoky, and he was crying in a way Daddy never cried; but he found them.
Daddy found them.
When the house had burned so much there wasn't anything left to burn, the smoke and the fire and the firemen all packed their stuff and went away. Dean looked for the man in the big boots, but he couldn't find him. He saw another man in the same kind of clothes, the same kind of boots; but it wasn't the man who helped him and little Sammy even though he didn't know them.
Dean never saw that man again.
There are times, however, as the man he is now rather than the five-year-old he was then, that Dean thinks maybe he's become that man. If not a man in big boots, at least someone who knows what to do.
And who will do it, just because he can.
-finis-