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The heat was stifling, choking, pressing in from all sides with a malicious intent, forcing the air from Sam’s lungs until they were empty, replaced by smoke and the pure need for oxygen. He gasped and coughed, struggling to force anything useful into those choked lungs, to no avail. With black dots dancing in front of his eyes, he dragged himself forward, inch by painful inch, until he could move no further, the thin silhouette of the barely-opened door still far out of reach. It was hopeless. The fire was all-consuming, omnipresent, and there was no escape.
“Hello?” someone shouted, and Sam tried to respond, but his throat, dry as a desert summer, made no sound. He thumped his hand against the hardwood flooring, hoping to signal for help, but the roar and crackle of flames drowned it out. The other person shouted again. “Hello?”
The door was shoved roughly open, and a man’s shape blocked the light streaming in around the smoke. Sam felt his body go limp, needles dancing down his windpipe every time he struggled to attempt a breath. He didn’t have long, and he knew it.
“I called 911! Is there anybody in—shit. Shit. Oh, shit.” The man ducked inside, covering his mouth and nose with a sleeve. Sam blinked once, vision swimming, the man’s form nearly entirely blacked out by the roiling clouds of thick smoke. His whole body ached, and the heat was painful, a searing burn all along his left side, especially on his legs. All around, the house continued to burn, flames dancing and licking at everything he owned, destroying everything he’d loved, taking with it every last memory of the woman who had never run downstairs after him.
There were hands on his back, and he tried to shout. Agony blossomed from each tough, burned skin protesting at a foreign surface being introduced. There was another string of curses, and then Sam was being dragged, pain lighting his whole body on fire to match his home. The man pulling him didn’t stop cursing once.
Sam passed out by the time he was outside, washed away on waves of agony and grief.
XXXXX
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Sam didn’t want to open his eyes.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
No, scratch that. He couldn’t open his eyes. His eyelids were too heavy, like iron weights were pressing into them, rendering him blind. He could smell antiseptic and disinfectant, and immediately reasoned that he must be in a hospital. Every inch of him hurt, from the obvious burns that must decorate his entire lower half to the bruises on his arms to the scratching in his throat and lungs that the medication hadn’t quite soothed away. He could feel bandages all over, plaster casts and delicate gauze wraps and thick mesh slings. He wanted to look, but he couldn’t open his eyes.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The blips were getting faster, presumably rising as he woke up more, as his heart realized that it was still needed even though his lungs seemed to have given up. There was a tube down his throat, and he wanted to pull it out, but he couldn’t move his arms. He couldn’t move at all.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
They were getting closer together, becoming frantic to match his racing heart. He gasped in a mouthful of air, struggling to breathe past the smoke damage and the rawness of his windpipe and the plastic tube. He still couldn’t open his eyes. With every shrill bleep, he could feel himself leaving, wasting away, gently being pulled from his body.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
They were beginning to slow down, and so were Sam’s thought processes. He couldn’t move, or open his eyes, and it seemed that he was unable to breathe as well. Everything hurt. Thinking, especially, brought fresh waves of grief down on him.
Beep. Beep.
He could remember Jessica, with her pretty smile and blonde hair and bell-like laughter, telling him to rise and shine, and then ten minutes later to get his ass out of bed or he’d be late for the interview. He could remember pressing a delicate kiss to her forehead, breathing in the scent of her shampoo, being ushered out the door and onto the curb with the door playfully slammed in his face. He’d walked away with a smile on his face, and come back in the same manner, collapsing onto the bed with a contented grin. That was when the first drop fell, and the fire started.
Beep.
He could recall each vivid detail, from the moment he laid down to the moment he fell down the stairs. He’d opened his eyes, hand already wiping the water—blood—off his face. Jessica’s pretty face had started down at him, agony and terror stretching it into a horrifying facsimile of the girl he loved. He’d screamed her name, and then the fire started, erupting from her body and licking the ceiling, caressing her blonde curls with a boiling touch, turning her fair skin to black in moments. He’d tried to run, then, feet caught up in the throw rug on her side of the bed, the side closest to the door. The fire was spreading with supernatural speed, quickly overtaking the entire house, turning every precious memory to charcoal. The curtains were gone, and the paintings warped, and the photo of Dean on the mantle—dead for three years, this spring—consumed in the fire’s all-overpowering hatred.
Beep.
Sam gasped, forcing air into his ravaged lungs, chest heaving as he blindly sought air. There were hurried voices, but he still couldn’t open his eyes, not even when they turned over to fright and franticness. Sam convulsed, and he was held down by a pair of strong arms as voice shouted around him, giving directions on how to save a life he no longer wanted to live.
Beep.
Sam. Stay with me.
Beep.
Open your eyes.
Beep.
Please!
Silence. Punctuated by a droning, never-ending monotone bleep, and a nurse’s voice calmly saying, “Call it.”
XXXXX
Sam’s eyes fluttered open, and he took a minute to process what he was seeing. An endless blue sky stretched above him, and long stalks of green grass swayed around him, and he didn’t hurt at all. He could breathe deeply and without struggle, and he could move all of his limbs. The breeze brushed cool fingers across his face and blew his hair into his eyes, gently caressing his skin with the lightest of touches.
“I was going to cut that later today,” a voice mused, and Sam sat straight up.
In front of him was Jessica, hair piled on top of her head in a bun, wearing a flowing white sundress and equally white sandals with daisies on the tops. She grinned at him and brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face, clear eyes intent on his. She giggled, and it was a prefect replica of everything he remembered.
“Jess,” he breathed in disbelief, and her grin stretched impossibly wider, her face struggling to convey her sheer amount of pleasure and happiness.
“Yeah,” she laughed. “We’re in Heaven, Sam.”
“What?” he asked in wonder, looking around. They were in a clearing, tall grass laced with delicate wildflowers. Daisies and violets and heather swayed with the gentle breeze, all under a crystal sky without a single cloud marring its deep, peaceful blue. It certainly looked like Heaven.
“The fire, remember?” she asked, and he nodded, rubbing absently at his lower legs. They’d caught the worst of it, when he tripped over the throw rug and brought the burning blankets down on him. His skin was completely unblemished, not even by the scars he’d had for years. “I died in it. Don’t make that face at me; we’re both fine now.”
“I was in a hospital?” he said, though it was more of a question.
Jess nodded, eyes sad and haunted for a brief second before she smiled softly at him. “You lasted about an hour before the smoke inhalation and burns got you. I’m sorry.”
He nodded sadly, eyes downcast, but quickly looked back up. “It was a demon that killed you.”
“I know. Or, I know now. Thanks for the heads-up on that one, by the way,” she said, voice playful and full of laughter. He smiled at her sheepishly, blushing a deep red. Jess only laughed harder. “Trust me, it’s fine. I don’t think I would have liked knowing exactly what was out there that could kill me. It was better not knowing.”
“That’s what I thought. Dean didn’t agree.” Suddenly, a thought struck him, and his head snapped up. Jess looked momentarily startled. “Is Dean…?”
Understanding bloomed in Jess’s eyes, and she nodded rapidly. “He’s here. He was planning on meeting you, actually, but he got caught up in some other business with his boyfriend.” She rolled her eyes and brushed the hair out away from her face again.
“Boyfriend?” Sam asked, disbelieving. Dean had been far too emotionally screwed up—thanks, Dad—to handle a relationship lasting longer than a week, let alone to the point that it progressed to terms of “___friend.”
Jess nodded again. “Yeah, his boyfriend. Technically, he’s an angel. His name is Castiel. They said they’d meet us here, actually.”
Sam glanced around quickly, and was promptly started by a voice right behind his head.
“Hiya, Sammy!” Dean crowed, flopping into the grass next to his brother. Sam stared in utter astonishment. Dean looked exactly like he had three years ago, minus the ever-present pain and hollowness in his eyes. He looked… happy, fulfilled, and completely unlike the Dean Sam could remember. “So, a fire. Neat way to go, I suppose.”
“Sure beats a vampire,” Sam shot back without thinking, and Dean stared at him unblinkingly for an entire thirty seconds before he was lunging at his younger brother, wrapping his arms around his neck in a grip tight enough to choke the life from a living man, shaking with half-hysterical laughter. Sam reciprocated, falling back in the grass with Dean on top of him.
“You’re a bitch,” Dean laughed, falling away. He lay in the grass, panting, and Sam hit him lightly in the shoulder.
“You’re a jerk,” he returned, and was greeted with Dean’s breathless laughter in place of a reply.
“Dean?” a fourth voice asked, and Sam looked up to see another man standing awkwardly next to a grinning Jessica. Dean sat up and gestured for the man to come sit next to him.
“This is Cas,” Dean said, pointing to the man. Cas sat next to Dean somewhat awkwardly, a small smile wearing around the edges of his mouth. He was wearing a trench coat over what appeared to be one of Dean’s faded band shirts, jeans a little bit too loose around his hips. He wasn’t wearing shoes.
“Castiel,” Cas corrected, sounding as though he’d repeated that a thousand times but Dean never seemed to get it. He gave Dean a fond look before turning to Sam. “And you’re Dean’s brother, I presume?”
“Yeah, Sam,” Sam offered, holding out a hand. Cas stared at it a moment before shaking it gently, as though he was afraid of doing something wrong.
“Sorry if Cas seems a little bit out of it. He’s only actually had me to base his people skills on, and we all know I’m not the best,” Dean explained.
Cas fixed him with a Look, one Sam was all too familiar with; Jess gave it to him when he was being insufferable, or purposely obtuse. “I’ve been watching over mankind for centuries, Dean. I think I can handle myself.”
Dean laughed, loud and happy. Cas’ answering grin was wide enough that it made the corners of his eyes crinkle, and it warmed Sam’s heart to see his brother so bright and full of energy.
“So, you’re an angel?” Sam asked.
Cas nodded. “Dean’s guardian angel, to be exact. He was my last living ward on Earth, so when he died, I came to Heaven with him.”
Dean’s mutter of damn vampires went mostly unnoticed, but Jess snorted slightly and Cas glared at him fondly. Could you even glare fondly? Apparently.
“I had no other duties, so I started visiting Dean. Eventually he got fed up with my constant presence, and demanded that we at least be friends. The rest would be too much information,” Cas finished, and Dean made a choked sound.
“Thanks for stopping there, Cas,” he mumbled, face bright and red as a sunburn.
Sam laughed, and felt truly at peace for the first time in a very long time.
XXXXX
In a hard plastic chair, in a dimly lit Emergency Room waiting room, and short man was clutching his head with in both hands, bent doubled over with elbows on his knees, wondering exactly what he was going to do now that his only reason for being on Earth was gone. Sam had died exactly thirty minutes earlier, and the man hadn’t moved from his spot since. In fact, he hadn’t moved from his spot since he dragged Sam to the ambulance and appeared there two hours ago.
“Sir, can I help you?” a nurse asked, voice soft and calm, gentle and concerned.
Gabriel looked up, hoping the tears weren’t spilling over yet. “Not anymore.”