Chapter Text
A lot of things stand out about the second of November.
When he thinks back on it, Sam remembers the darkness most.
The rest is there too --- his shoulders being shaken roughly by his father; the slow sensation of dragging himself out of sleep; the way Dean looked oddly frightened in the flickering lantern light, in a way Sam had never seen his older brother look; the grim haste in John’s every motion --- but it’s the pitch-blackness of the night around them that stands out most. He’s never liked the dark, loathe as he is to admit it, and he can’t tell if that came before that night or if it stems from it.
Dean remembers his brother.
He remembers John waking him up first, a rough jostle to his arm rousing him into pitch darkness. (Thinking back, that should have been his first clue that something was wrong; they usually woke up at dawn, not before it.) He remembers the harsh whisper of “Take care of Sammy, you hear?” in the darkness before his father woke Sammy, too, before grabbing Dean’s wrist and tugging him out of bed. He remembers clutching his younger brother’s shoulders in his hands, herding him after their father and his swiftly-moving lantern in an effort to keep up.
They both remember the clearing.
It was dark there, too, surrounded by the forest trees that Sam had never liked. Sam remembers that night pressing in around them, heavy and black like a muffling blanket, and he remembers their dad slamming shut the lantern window before vanishing back into the shadows. Dean remembers his brother curling into him, shaking with fear or tears before falling asleep and trusting his older brother to protect him.
They both remember the house, too, but that is hard to forget.
Something about a house made of candy doesn’t escape the mind very easily, and especially not one as captivatingly colorful as that one. Dean’s the one who remembers it clearest, though; he could probably name every candy that had made it up and what part of the cottage it had been; Sam remembers being interested in how the candy stuck around, how the wind and the heat didn’t reduce it to oozing, sugary mush.
They both remember going inside. They both remember not being able to get back out.
Dean remembers the door slamming behind them, the way he’d rushed over the second it closed behind them, fingers scrabbling at the sticky surface as he tried (and failed) to get it open. Sam remembers the witch and the way she just seemed to change, her hair darting from blonde to brunette and back again, her eyes a consistent black even as everything else shifted. He remembers the way she grinned as they walked in, so welcoming until the door was shit, so predatory with her, “I’m Ruby.” afterwards.
They both remember the cage, though for different reasons.
Sam remembers being locked inside it, staring out through too-tight grids of lashed-together bars, trying to play along with everything she asked. He remembers wincing every time his lack of follow-through resulted in his brother having a familiarly-sharp dagger-like wand held against his throat; he remembers doing the same every time Dean’s familiar willful resistance got him backhanded across the room, while Sam could only watch. (He still hates how many times in that short-but-too-long stay he’d seen Dean with blood on his teeth or dripping down from his hairline or beading up from his lip or in any of a hundred other too-horrible locations.)
Dean remembers seeing his brother inside of it. He remembers nights spent trying to jimmy the lock until the witch caught on and took to giving him his own set of chains, and then subsequent nights working to get at one of the floorboards’ rusty nails so that he might have something with which to pick his own locks. He remembers going along with what Ruby asked, fetching and carrying cups near-overflowing with a red liquid that looked too much like blood, bringing them to the cage and handing them to his brother to drink. (He still hates that she used him as a bargaining tool to get Sam to drink it all, but Sam wouldn’t stop no matter how much Dean asked him to.)
They both remember the fire. Dean remembers having to bring her wood with which to stoke it; Sam remembers her unlocking the cage and dragging him out, all too ready to throw him inside.
Dean remembers the satisfying click of his manacles finally coming undone, just in time to catch the witch’s attention and keep her from killing his brother.
Sam remembers the fear of seeing her direct a blast of magic at his brother, the blast barreling through the air with a trajectory aimed directly at his chest.
They both remember deflating as the blast diffused harmlessly, no effect produced whatsoever.
Dean remembers the way Ruby looked at the wand like it had failed her as he ran forward and grabbed it.
Sam remembers holding her still as well as he could with his hands still bound with rope.
They both remember the splashes of black blood as her own wand split into her stomach, frenzied stabs that no one should have been able to survive. They both remember the hurried, impatient sawing of the blade against Sam’s ropes, the relief as they finally snapped.
Sam remembers hitting her over the head with a log from the fire; Dean remembers heaving on the oven chain until the door slammed shut, latching behind her.
They both remember the screams. The stench of burning flesh, and the acrid smoke rising into the air. The way she kept battering at the door in the hopes that it would open, and then the slow slackening of her screams as it steadfastly refused. The way their wishes for their parents to be there slowly faded away, replaced by the heady elation of having survived. The way they just knew that, if they were going to survive, they could rely on themselves and only themselves.
And they both remember the lessons they learned that night.
Number one: never to walk into a house made of candy.
And number two: if they’re going to kill a witch, they’re damn well going to set her ass on fire.