All his life, Dean has dreamed of fire. Not that surprising really when you consider the way his mother died. He should have developed a fear, if not terror of fire, having lost his home, mother and world in one night. Instead, Dean found a great comfort in his dreams of fire that covered everything, was everything.

As he grew older fire became a central to his life, starting with the fire that claimed his mother and family home, to the fires they used in the course of their work. He never thought to closely question that he dreamed of fire. It made sense when he actually thought about it, so it just became one of the corner stones of his life. Like that Dad would always hunt, Sammy was his to guard, and that there was always, always something out there hurting people and needed to be stopped.

After Sam left Dean's dreams, that had tapered off to once every few weeks over the last few years, suddenly came almost every night. Dean's pyromaniac tendencies also started to grow as well. He would often find himself sitting alone and burning old newspapers and magazines just thinking of nothing, his mind wonderfully blank as he stared enthralled at the flickering flames.

He knew Sam knew he was a pyromaniac, having spent so much time together it was impossible to hide. Sam, before he had left, had called it "Dean's meditating", and it was in a way. John... John he honestly didn't know if he had ever noticed that odd habit of his oldest son's. It wasn't like he did it all that often when John was around anyway. He was in no way an arsonist beyond what their hunts called for though.

That was all work and stress and adrenaline. He was still fascinated by the fire, but he didn't find it soothing like when it was just him, a candle or a small fire and himself wonderfully distant from the stresses of his life.

When he brought Sam back to the job his dreams and pyromania continued at the pace they had set while Sam was gone, but again he figured that was to be expected. Jessica's death was... well to be frank, a kick in the teeth.

Dean really should have figured there was something more to it considering that coincidence just doesn't happen in their lives. Winchesters were just not normal by anyone's standards, and they knew that.

Dean was twenty-six years old, in the latest of a depressingly long string of hotel rooms reunited with his brother and father for the first time in years when he was reminded rather forcefully of why you should never ignore reoccurring dreams, especially if you're a hunter.

As he was attacked by the Daeva again and watched as it went after the father he hadn't seen and had been worrying over for months and his brother who was finally getting back into the swing of things. Growling in anger Dean tried to do something, anything to help and was surprised as he felt something spark, then the world was consumed by blue fire. Or at least he thought it was until he heard the Daeva's scream in pain.

Blinking his eyes clear at the sudden light as he sat up was shocked to find them on fire, but seeing an opportunity he grabbed Sam and his Dad and got out of there. They had just made it to the car as he slipped into unfortunately familiar darkness.