Except a Memory of the Smell of Smoke

[ratherastory]

Title: Except a Memory of the Smell of Smoke
Summary: Garden 'verse. Dean has a bad reaction to a fire safety class at school.
Characters: Sam, Dean, Lisa, minor OCs
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,211
Disclaimer: I want a wee!Dean of my own. Can I have one?
Warnings: None.
Neurotic Author's Note #1: This was written for the latest comment-fic meme at hoodie_time for a prompt by lunasky3.
Neurotic Author's Note #2: It's been a while since I wrote something in this 'verse, hasn't it? It was nice to revisit it.
Neurotic Author's Note #3: The title is taken from a Tom Stoppard Quote.

---

"Winchester, you about done with that frame?"

Sam doesn't look up, intent on his work. Screw up this part and he'll have to re-do the whole job, and if he never has to look at this stupid door frame again, it'll be too soon. "Just about. Why, you need me elsewhere?"

"Nope. Finish up, we'll talk."

Cole is a man of few words, which normally is just fine by Sam, as long as it's work-related. The less he has to talk to anyone, much less his job foreman, the happier he is. Right now, though, having Cole standing right behind him and just watching while he finishes up is a little unnerving, if only because whatever he wants to say to Sam is clearly not related to the job at hand. Sam keeps working, trying to keep from going over all the different possibilities—each more disastrous than the last—and drive himself nuts in the process. It's really unlikely Cole is going to fire him, he tries to reassure himself. After all he's been doing a good job in spite of his inexperience, he's getting better with every passing day, and there's been no shortage of work recently. So it has to be something else.

"Ready?" Cole asks after a few minutes, and Sam nods. "Okay, pack up your stuff and come back to the office."

In spite of his earlier internal pep talks, Sam feels himself break into a cold sweat. "Is there a problem?"

"Your kid's school called. Receptionist took a message, but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts you'll be needing the rest of the day, so you may as well pack up now. It'll save time and I can get someone to cover for you faster."

It should be a relief, but instead Sam feels something clench even tighter in his chest. "They say what it was about?"

"Nope."

He forces himself to take a few deep breaths before calling the school. There's no reason to freak out, he tells himself sternly. Dean's been doing fine in school—even thriving, according to his teacher. He's made friends, he's reading at a level that's really advanced for his age (which isn't altogether surprising, but it still counts as good news), and his teacher likes him. This isn't like the calls Dad used to get about him and Dean when they were kids—the disciplinary problems, the missed classes, the unexplained bruising and broken bones. They live completely different lives now, he reminds himself as he wills his hands to stop shaking long enough to hit the school's number on speed dial on his phone. He gets the school receptionist a heartbeat later, her chirpy tone not helping to alleviate his anxiety whatsoever.

"Um, hi. This is Sam Winchester. I'm returning your call?"

"Oh, Mr. Winchester, yes. Thanks for calling back. Ms. Thompson wanted to know if it would be possible for you to come fetch Dean home from school."

"Is he sick? What happened?" Sam nods to Cole, who's been standing off to the side to give him a semblance of privacy, just enough to signal that he will be needing the day off after all.

The receptionist hesitates. "Well, there's been a bit of an incident, and he's very upset. We tried reaching your, uh, wife, but her phone went to voicemail. How soon can you get here?"

"Lisa's in the middle of a class right now." Sam checks his watch and doesn't bother pointing out that he and Lisa aren't married. "Give me twenty minutes."

By the time he gets to Dean's school he's managed to get himself outwardly calm, even though his palms are clammy, his shirt is clinging to his back, and his heart feels like it's doing its best to force its way right through his ribs. To his dismay, the principal is waiting for him close to the receptionist's desk.

"Mr. Winchester, thank you for coming so quickly," she says, extending a hand for him to shake.

"Um, yeah. What's the problem? I was told something happened, but I didn't get any specifics. Where's Dean?"

The principal looks uncomfortable. "That's just it. Would you come into my office for a moment?"

He nods, more perplexed than worried now, draws up the chair she motions to and does his best to fold himself into it. It feels like, no matter how things change, office furniture is always designed for people a lot smaller than he is. "What's going on? What exactly do you mean by 'incident,' anyway?" He knows he's being a little too aggressive, that this woman isn't on the wrong side of an interrogation table, but he can't quite help it, either.

"Look, I don't want to alarm you," she says, spreading her hands. "Dean just got upset during a presentation by a special guest today. We had some of the men from the fire department come by this morning to talk to the kids, starting with the kindergarten classes. It's a fire safety thing, and the kids usually love to see the fire truck and look at all the equipment and talk to the firemen…" she trails off, and Sam winces.

"Where is he now?"

It's her turn to cringe, almost imperceptibly. "I'm really sorry, but he ran off. We're absolutely sure he's still on the school grounds, which is why we haven't alerted the authorities yet. I thought it would only upset him more when we found him, but of course if you want—"

"No," he interrupts hastily. "No, it's fine, I appreciate your tact. How long ago was this?"

She checks her watch. "It's been just under an hour now. I've never had a child become that upset by the fire safety drill before, it really is a first. If I'd known…"

Sam stands up, nearly knocking over his chair in the process. "You couldn't know. It didn't occur to me that he'd react like that, but… yeah. Our mother died in a fire when Dean was four, so I guess he associates the firemen with that." Of course, it might be something completely different, but it's not like he can explain about Hell to this woman and forty years of unrelenting torture at the hands of demons like Alastair. Sam figures that a dead mother is a good enough explanation, anyway.

Her face crumples with sympathy. "I'm so sorry."

He shrugs away her concern. "You said he ran away from class? And no one saw where he went?"

"No. We have all available staff looking for him, but he seems to have hidden himself quite well." The principal's hands flutter agitatedly, seemingly of their own accord. Not that Sam can blame her. If he didn't know Dean the way he does, he'd be worried too.

"Where's your boiler room?"

She gapes at him. "It's off-limits to the children," she says, as if that would make one whit of difference to a determined Dean Winchester.

Sam smiles ruefully. "Humour me."

Dean is wedged in the furthest corner of the boiler room, behind the furnace. It's dark enough even with the lighting from the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling that Sam can't see him at all at first, the only indication of his presence the sound of very quiet sniffling coming from behind the furnace. Sam motions to the principal to stay where she is, then moves forward quietly to go crouch as close as he can get to his brother.

"Hey, Dean, it's me," he says softly. "You okay?"

There's a small, hitching sob, followed by silence. Then, "Sammy?"

"Yeah, buddy, it's me. You want to come out now? I can't reach you back there."

It's not the first time Dean will have found a dark corner to hide in after he got scared, and it probably won't be the last. There's nothing to do now but coax him out, deal with the fallout later, so he extends his hand as far as he can reach, and hopes to God that Dean isn't too caught up in whatever flashback triggered this latest episode. After a minute or so, though, Dean uncurls a little bit and shuffles forward until Sam feels tiny fingers catch hold of his hand. A second later and he's able to pull Dean right into his arms and clutch at him while his brother cries quietly into his shoulder, tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt. He can tell Dean is trying very hard not to cry, to be quiet and not draw attention to himself, which never fails to break his heart. He brings up a hand to cradle the back of Dean's head.

"You can go ahead and cry," he says softly. "There's nobody here but us. It's okay."

That's apparently all that Dean was waiting for, because he buries his face even further into Sam's shoulder and cries so hard Sam begins to worry he might suffocate from lack of air, his whole body shaking with the force of his sobs. Sam shifts a little on the floor so that his back is propped up against the wall, strokes the soft hair that's just beginning to curl at the back of Dean's neck, and waits for the sobs to stop.

It takes a long time. Sam's willing to wait the whole day if that's what it'll take, but he's still relieved when, finally, Dean stops hyperventilating between sobs and starts breathing more regularly, and eventually goes completely quiet, head resting against Sam's chest while his brother strokes his hair.

"You want to tell me what happened?" Sam nudges him a little. "You don't have to, but sometimes it helps to talk when things are scary, like when you have nightmares, remember?"

Dean is hoarse from crying, but he sniffles and scrubs at one eye with his hand. "He smelled of smoke."

"Did it remind you of a fire?"

Dean shifts in his arms and nods. "I couldn't find you. Daddy said I should take you, but you were gone!"

Sam bites back a sigh. It's already proved impossible to sort out all of Dean's mixed-up memories, and he has no idea how to even begin addressing this particular manifestation of post-traumatic stress. Normally he'd find a way to get Dean a kid's counsellor, someone to help him work through all the horrible things in his head, but it's not like there's anyone out there who'd understand about a six-year-old who's lived two lifetimes, and one of them in Hell itself.

"That was a really long time ago," he reminds Dean. "You remember? I was a baby then. You don't have to worry about keeping me safe anymore, I'm all grown up. Besides, I've got Mama Lisa to help me stay safe now."

Lisa isn't Mommy, she's never going to have the title which belonged to Mary Winchester, but Dean is small enough that calling her 'Mama Lisa' feels more natural than simply using her first name, which is fraught with too many other complicated emotions for all of them. Dean doesn't seem to remember much about the weekend-long fling he had with her nearly twelve years ago now, has only retained a good feeling about Lisa and the deep-rooted conviction that she's someone trustworthy. In a way it's simpler, but it doesn't prevent Sam's gut from twisting with guilt even now, more than a year and a half after he and Dean moved back in with her and Ben, even after he and Lisa started to figure out this tangled-up thing between them that only started up because they were caught up in something so much bigger than themselves and only had each other to turn to.

"You ready to go home?" Sam asks, shoving all these thoughts aside, and not for the first time.

Dean's fist closes around a handful of his shirt. "I don't have to go back to school? They're not mad?"

"No one's mad," Sam assures him. "Everybody was worried, but no one's mad, okay? You don't have to go back to school today. We're going to go home and have a day off together, just you and me. How does that sound?"

Dean wipes at his face some more, so Sam pulls a crumpled tissue out of his pocket and dabs at his cheeks. "Okay."

Sam smiles at him, plants a kiss on the top of his head, grateful that this incarnation of Dean has never shied away from displays of affection from him or Lisa. "Great. Let's get up, shall we?"

His back and leg muscles protest the sudden movement when he gets to his feet—the perils of getting older, he thinks, working out the kinks in his muscles a bit while trying not to dislodge his brother. Dean has a death-grip on his neck, though, so there's little danger of him falling even as they make their way out of the boiler room, where the principal is still waiting.

"I'm going to take Dean home now. Do you need a note, or can we call it good?"

"No, a note isn't necessary, but I do think we should meet and discuss this," she says pointedly, and he nods in agreement.

"Sure. Not today, though. How about I come by at the end of school tomorrow, and we can discuss it then?"

She nods. "That's perfectly acceptable. Will your wife accompany you?"

"I'll have to check to make sure her schedule will allow it, but I'll certainly be here either way. Thanks for your help," he adds, a little insincerely since she didn't help at all, but it seems like the polite thing to say to keep things running smoothly, and he's rewarded with a small smile.

"Of course."

Dean curls up against the door in the back seat of the car, exhausted and half-asleep already, and doesn't put up any resistance at all when Sam lifts him out of the car again, back muscles still twinging, and carries him into the house. When Sam sits him down on the sofa next to the sleeping cat, though, his expression turns anxious.

"Don't you have work? Will you get in trouble?"

"Nope. I have the afternoon off. You don’t have to worry about that, okay?" Sam ruffles his hair gently. "You let me worry about work. Did you have lunch yet?" he asks, glancing at the clock and realising it's nearly one o'clock.

Dean shakes his head. "The firemen came before."

"You hungry?" he asks, but that gets him only a shrug in return. "Okay, then. How about I make us some soup and sandwiches, and you eat what you feel like. We'll make tuna, so Tom can have some too."

Sam isn't surprised when Dean opts not to stay in the living room, but trails after him into the kitchen, with Tom close on his heels. The scruffy yellow cat never strays very far from Dean when he's at home, though he sleeps the rest of the time when Dean is at school or out playing with friends. Sam dumps the contents of a can of tomato soup into a pot on the stove, stirs it briskly before waiting for it to heat. Tom noses interestedly at Sam's ankles when he cracks open the first can of tuna, and lets out his usual rusty-sounding purr when Sam puts a generous amount of tuna into his dish before starting to make the sandwiches. Dean perches on a chair, resting his head on his arms at the table and watches Sam work.

"Milk or juice?"

Dean worries at his lip with his teeth, and Sam can almost see the internal struggle in his head. In hindsight he remembers all the times Dean drank water with their meals—milk being reserved for the 'baby' in the family who was still growing, and juice being an untold luxury that no one in their right mind would buy unless there was some sort of special on juice boxes.

"We've got plenty of both," Sam tries to reassure him. "We've got apple and orange and some sort of red tropical stuff. You want to try that?" Dean shakes his head, always a little leery of new things. "Orange?" That gets him a nod. "Orange it is, then."

He pours the soup into two bowls, sets one in front of Dean along with a sandwich and some cut-up carrots because otherwise Lisa will have his head for not including vegetables with the meal. Tom jumps up onto the table to settle next to Dean's elbow while he eats, one eye on Sam the whole time, and Sam doesn't have it in him to banish the cat to the floor where Lisa insists he belongs. It's not like it's a secret that Tom has Sam wrapped around the feline equivalent of his little finger, anyway.

Sam polishes off his lunch in record time, and is pretty impressed when Dean finishes his soup and half his sandwich, petting Tom with one hand as he eats so that the whole meal is accompanied by the cat's rusty-engine purr. He's drooping in his chair, though, plainly exhausted, and he doesn't make so much as a peep when Sam suggests they go back to the living room and watch a movie. Dean won't want to be far from him, he knows this from past experience, so he settles them both on the sofa, Dean's head in his lap, and puts in Finding Nemo again, which has become Dean's all-time favourite movie. Not that Sam can blame him—it's oddly soothing. Tom curls up on Dean's feet, and within minutes Dean is asleep, breathing congestedly through a nose that's still a little stuffed up from crying.

Lisa gets home before Ben, her last class finishing long before Ben's after school activities let out. Sam puts a finger to his lips at her questioning look, carries Dean up, pulls off his shoes without waking him, and tucks him into his bed. Seconds later Tom has draped himself over Dean's shoulders and closes his eyes, purring and kneading his paws against Dean's back. Lisa follows them up the stairs, comes to stand next to Sam in the doorway, her arm snaking around his waist.

"Something happen at school?"

"The fire department did a safety demonstration. Set off some bad memories, I guess," he answers. "I don't know how to make this better for him," he adds a little bitterly. He's spent his whole life failing his brother, and now seems to be no exception.

Lisa rubs his shoulder. "I don't think there's an easy fix, but you're doing a pretty great job from where I stand. We can look into some stuff. Maybe art therapy, or music. He's creative, and he does love going to school. I know you don't see it, but he's doing so much better now than when you first got here. He talks now." She stops, huffs a laugh. "You both talk, now. It's nice to hear your voices again."

He leans over to kiss her cheek. "You're great for putting up with me."

She snorts quietly. "One day, maybe, you'll figure out that you're selling yourself short," she says, then turns her head to return the kiss properly. "Dean will be fine," she assures him.

"We'll all be fine."