r u n n i n g . b u r n e d . a n d . b l i n d

Running Burned and Blind
[by victoria p.]

Rating: pg-13

Summary: "Fuck the FBI, man. I think you're a goddamn hero."

Spoilers: None

Notes: Thanks Luzdeestrellas for betaing. All remaining errors are mine. Written for innie_darling and tenaciousmetoo on their birthday.

Word count: 1,225 words

Date: October 18, 2007

There are lights in the distance, skyline rising on the horizon like a mirage in the darkness. Dean aims the car at it like a heat-seeking missile, driving as instinctive as breathing after so many years, in the futile hope that speed and distance will do the job when they don't have the time to spend shedding the past and starting fresh. His foot is heavy on the gas and he thinks about turning the radio on, letting the wail of Robert Plant's voice and Jimmy Page's guitar drown out the thoughts circling in his head, but he can't seem to take his hands, knuckles scraped and bloody, off the wheel.

Sam is staring out the window, wind whipping through his hair, jaw clenched tighter than a steel trap. Dean wishes he knew what to say, wishes he knew what Sam was thinking. Wishes he could hit rewind and erase the last two hours from their memories.

They fly past an eighteen-wheeler, belching smoke like it's expelling the demons that escaped them earlier; the smell of diesel coats Dean's tongue and the roof of his mouth when he breathes.

The truck is a speck in the rearview when Sam says, "They were just kids." Dean glances over; Sam's staring down at his hands, palms up on his knees, like they don't belong to him. "They were human."

"That's debatable," Dean mutters.

The whole thing had been a clusterfuck from the word go--he and Sam had stumbled in half-assed, guns drawn, lacking some really fucking pertinent information about the situation. They'd known about the two possessed high school boys. They hadn't counted on the kegger, and the demons' ability to wreak large amounts of havoc in small spaces. He should have known it wouldn't end well.

God, he needs a drink. Not beer, though. He can still smell stale beer from the keg, split open like a ripe melon, beer soaking into the already damp ground. The malty scent of it lingers in his nose, overlaying the scent of vomit and gunfire and sulfur, mingled with the wet scent of dead leaves and fresh rain and a teenage girl's cheap drugstore perfume. She'd had leaves in her hair, red and gold like some kind of fairy princess, and bruises all over her pale skin, black and blue like spoiled fruit, when they'd helped her off the ground. Her skirt was torn and muddy, and all the buttons on her blouse were gone. He'd wrapped her in the plaid blanket from the trunk that smelled of sage and motor oil, and tried not to take her flinch away from him personally.

"Dean--"

"He was gonna--" He has to stop, take a breath to keep his voice from cracking. "Hell, Sam, he had his pants around his ankles and his dick in his hand. He was gonna rape that girl, and his friends were gonna cheer him on." Dean has to swallow hard to keep the bile down; he'd brushed Sam's hair off his forehead while he'd puked, and only years of on-the-job practice allowed him to keep from following suit. The evil shit people did to each other was always somehow worse than what the demons did. "Probably take their turns with her when he was done. You did the only thing there was to do." He shakes his head, tightens his hands on the wheel, letting the feel of the road rumbling up through the tires soothe him.

"If we'd just--"

"Just what, Sam? Boned up on the local high school social calendar? We went in there unprepared for the unexpected, and we fucked up. Is that what you wanna hear?" Sam doesn't say anything; another glance shows his jaw working like he wants to, but can't find the words. Dean finds them for him. "We didn't get the demons, but at least we saved that girl." He lifts a hand off the wheel, and it feels like it weighs a ton, but he does it, drops it like an anchor onto Sam's knee and holds hard. "I wish I could've done it myself, Sam. I'd have spared you that, man. But you had the clear shot and you took it. And you saved that girl." Maybe if he keeps repeating it, it'll sink in. "You have nothing to be sorry about."

"The kid was human when I shot him."

Dean can think of half a dozen smart remarks that won't make Sam feel any better; if he's being honest, right now, they don't make him feel any better either. So he just says, "I know."

Sam shakes his head. "It felt good, Dean. It felt," he pauses, looking for the right word, "righteous."

"It was righteous." Dean doesn't even hesitate.

"When I pulled the trigger--What if this is where it starts, Dean?"

Oh, fuck. Not this again. "Where what starts?"

"Me, being evil. Becoming whatever it is the yellow-eyed demon thought I was going to become."

"Yellow-eyes is dead, Sam, remember? His whole plan was blown to hell. Heh. Blown to hell." He amuses himself sometimes. "You're not gonna become evil. You're gonna stay the same annoying, geeky freak you've always been." He pushes away the demon's insinuations that the Sam he brought back isn't the same Sam he lost. That was typical demonic bullshit, meant to throw him off his game, and he's not going to give it more attention than that kind of bullshit deserves.

Sam swallows hard and looks away. "How can you be so sure?"

"'Cause I'm the oldest." Dean scrubs a hand over his jaw, tries to hide his huge yawn. He's already saved Sam from this, will keep saving him if that's what it takes, right up until the time he's not around to save him anymore. He can't think about that, though. He shakes his head, wishes he had a bottle of water to wash away the taste of exhaust in his mouth.

Sam shoots him another odd glance, but what he says is, "The FBI is gonna think we were responsible for the whole mess."

There were at least two other kids killed, aside from the rapist Sam had shot, and a few more had been injured in the melee before the demons had vacated the premises. Dean knows better than to hope the kids will tell the truth and explain that he and Sam were the ones trying to end the chaos; he's pretty sure this is going to end up with his and Sam's faces splashed across the news again. He still hasn't figured out a way to get the feds off their backs for good, and it's the one thing he has to do--the one thing he wants to make sure Sam has--before his expiration date comes due.

Still, he latches onto the topic change gratefully. "Fuck the FBI, man. I think you're a goddamn hero." He means it, too, squeezes Sam's knee to show his sincerity.

That wrings a small smile out of Sam, his mouth quirking at the corners even if his eyes are still too bright and full of shadows.

Sam's going to be all right, and that's all Dean really cares about. He flicks on the stereo, lets the relentless beat of "Kashmir" wash over him, and keeps driving, heading for the city lights, just out of reach.

end

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Note: Title from Bruce Springsteen's "Something in the Night."

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