Never Again - SPN Fanfic
@febuwhump : Day 6/ Alt 2 - Trapped Under a Collapsed Building
Title: Never Again
Fandom: Supernatural
Words: 3.1k
Setting: Stanford Era, Brotherhood AU, 9/11/2001
Whumpee: Dean
Caretaker: Sid (OC/RP)
Other Characters: Caleb
Ship: None
Ao3 Link
Summary: Dean is working a job with Caleb in NYC trying to distract himself from Sam's departure for college, when the Twin Towers are hit in a terrorist attack.
Trigger Warnings: 9/11, fire, death, explosions, building collapse, injury or death do to disability
Authors Note:
Dean is 22 Sam is 18 Caleb is 30
Disclaimer:
I'm sorry if info dump I spent four days majorly hyperfixating on this, watching 6+ hours of live news and even longer reading news articles on everything from the event to the elevator system in the towers. Also I was not born until a few months after 9/11 so if I mess up or have gathered wrong information I apologize. Also while the story of Stairwell B is true Dean was obviously not there. I know very little about the actual Sid except that he was a firefighter that day so I apologize if he is portrayed accurately. If you want the true events surrounding stairwell B you can read about them here: . /news/19572389.9-11-attack-josephine-harris-miracle-stairwell-b/
Jensen recently said that most scared he's ever been was on 9/11 and tho Jensen and Dean are in very different circumstances, I tried to capture some of that fear.
I know this one is really late (it's not quite midnight here tho so still on time) and it's because I wrote it today lol. Everything else has been prewritten. With that in mind, this was written very fast and I haven't even had time to re-read the whole things so I apologize for any mistakes.
However! I really love this one guys!
I've always wanted to write a 9/11 piece, especially when I realized it would have happened right after Sam left for college. This is nothing like what my original plan was when I first decided to write one a year ago, but I like it still. It moves really fast I know but it was the only way I could make it work.
I'll say more in the end note and let you guys get to reading lol.
Enjoy!
~TH~
There were very few things that scared Dean more than heights. Very few. One of those things had already happened but he was trying very hard to keep his head in New York and away from Stanford. But regardless, Dean hated heights. And he was very high. Yes people paid over ten bucks for a view he was getting for free. He did not care. It was grossly unfair that Caleb had made him come up here to attend this meeting when the older man just as easily could have come himself.
Dean's phone rang and he looked down at the number. Speak of the devil.
He stepped into the hallway and answered. "I hope you're happy."
"Where are you?" Caleb sounded oddly stressed for this early in the morning.
Dean rolled his eyes, "You know where I am."
"I'm serious. I want to know the exact place you are."
"About to go into the meeting with the guy from McLennan. And no I'm not late. The appointment isn't for a few more minutes."
"You need to leave."
"As much as I'd love to, we actually do need to talk to this dude."
"No. Get out of there. Now."
"Dude I just took two elevators ninety-three stories into the air just so you could make me come back down? If I leave I'm not coming back up here. You're on your own."
"Deuce, listen to me. You have to get out of there. Now. Something bad is going to happen."
That caught Dean's attention. "Did you have a vision?"
"More- more of a nightmare but listen to me you have to get out of there. I don't know what's about to happen but it's bad and you need to be as far away from the Trade Center as possible."
"Are you sure you're not just, I don't know, getting everything mixed up? I mean it was a dream not a vision. Maybe you're just feeling protective and remembering 93'-"
"Dean." The use of the Wincther boy's full name stopped him in his tracks. "It's not. I'm telling you something is going to happen. Not has happened. Is going to."
"Fine, fine. It's not that I don't trust you it's just that those elevators are-"
"Take the stairs."
"You're kidding. It's ninety-three floors, Damian."
"You didn't- Listen I can't explain it. I didn't get the whole picture. I just know that if you don't get out of there right now you will die."
"And the elevator?"
"Please."
"Fine but only to seventy-eight." He didn't understand why the civilians got a straight ride to the top while workers had to take to elevators to get to their floor. But he'd play along until he could get to the express elevators.
"Just get moving."
"Fine, I'll call you back when-"
"No! Just- just stay on the line, alright?"
"Dude how bad was it?" He said, opening the door to the B stairwell and beginning his descent.
"Bad dude. I'm really not even sure what happened but it was bad."
"Do we need to call someone?"
"I wouldn't know what to say. It's more of… just a bad feeling mixed with images I can't place. I don't know man, I just want you out of there."
"Yeah, yeah, and you want me to walk down over ninety flights of stairs to do it. Let me use the elevators and I'll be out in five minutes."
Caleb let out a breath of a laugh at that. "Get down to the express elevator and we'll talk about it. The one's near the top aren't near as fast."
"And here I thought you didn't like the business side of New York."
"Architecture, Deuce. It's the tallest building in the U.S. It'd be a sin not to study it."
Dean let out an involuntary shiver, "Don't remind me."
"What floor are you on now?"
Dean glanced up at the marker as he continued the seemingly endless descent. "Eighty-eight."
"Keep going."
"I am. You gonna call the office and cancel my meeting? They don't seem like the type of people to appreciate a no show. Especially before nine. 8:45 Damian. Who sets a meeting that early?"
"They can deal with it." He said with a smile in his voice. Dean was glad to have relieved at least some of the tension. "I'll call them as soon as you're out."
"Yeah yeah, which will be over an hour at this rate."
"Stop complaining, dude. Just think of it as one of Johnny's training exercises."
"The difference being, Dad never sent us an unholy amount in the air! Mountains? Yeah? Skyscrapers? Never again."
"One day you'll thank me for breaking your fear of heights."
"Breaking them? You mean exploiting them?"
"Hey whatever wor-"
A loud explosion shut out any other sound. The building shook and Dean was sure that the stairs were about to fall out from under him. His phone slipped from his hand and fell over the railing as he desperately grabbed for the shaking rail. Chunks of debris began to fall above him. Something hit his head and his knees started to give out. He was going to die. The building was about to collapse and he was going to die. The shaking stopped. Dean kept his hands firmly on the railing, pulling himself up and taking a few deep breaths.
He was okay. He was fine. Whatever had happened up there didn't involve him.
And he'd done a pretty good job at convincing himself of that before the stairwell began to fill with smoke.
Dean didn't know what was going on but he knew that Caleb was right. He needed to get out of there. Now.
His phone was lost to him. Whether it was broken somewhere or had fallen down the flights, he didn't have time to go looking. Caleb would have to deal until he could get out of there or find someone else with a cellphone. He felt like he was being actively chased by the fire. The smoke was coming down the stairwell faster than he could outrun it.
The eighty-second floor had smoke coming from the doorway. Had the fire spread that fast? Dean still had no idea what was happening. It had to have been some sort of bomb. But how had they gotten it up all the way up? The tower wasn't even open to visitors yet. Last time it had been the parking garage and they'd upped the security since then. How-?
It didn't matter. What mattered was that the smoke had caught up with him. It had caught up with him and he couldn't breathe. It didn't matter. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Stop. People needed help. But that wasn't hig job. His job was to get out. But he could hear them. The door was stuck. He should- should he?
Flashes of baby Sammy being pressed into his arms made the decision for him. He turned and ran back up the stairs until he found the door that had stuck in his mind. Someone was pounding on it from the other side.
Dean glanced up, noticing the fire still spreading. They needed to act fast. Some of the debris was blocking the door if he could just-
The debris moved, the door swung open. People started pouring out. Dean was trapped between the flow of people and the wall. He waited, unsure of what else to do. Saving people had always been his job. The fact that there was no supernatural activity involved that he knew of didn't change that fact.
When the last person had rushed past him down the stairs, he went in finding a man in a wheelchair trying to stand up.
Dean gave him a once over. He was smaller. Dean should be able to lift him with relative ease.
"Legs or back?"
The man blinked up at him, falling back in his chair. "What?"
"I need to know how to carry you."
"Back."
Dean couldn't stop the curse. Fireman's carry was out of the question. "Okay, okay, do you think you could hang on if I tried to get you on my back?"
"I think so." The man nodded.
Dean squatted in front of the chair. "Wrap your arms over my shoulders and then lean into me."
The man did as he was told and Dean crossed his arms over his chest, grabbing the man's wrists.
"Do what you can with your legs. I'll get you out of here but I need all the hlp I can get."
The man nodded into his shoulder and Dean stood up. The smoke was really pouring in now. It was nearly impossible to see.
"Grab onto my left arm." He instructed. "I need my right one to feel my way down."
When his arm was free he felt along the wall. It was slower than he would have like but faster than the man would have been able to get down himself. If the man could have at all. Dean thought about asking his name but at this point just breathing was enough effort without the added idea of speaking.
It was around floor seventy when Dean had to take a break. "Sorry, sorry," He muttered slowing down and finally coming to a stop.
"It's okay. Put me on the steps."
Dean didn't have the energy to decline. He knew he needed to keep moving but was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe. His head was pounding and there were far too many memories flooding his mind of smoke and burning and death.
Okay. Okay. He could do this. Don't think about the fact that he was close to a thousand feet in the air in a burning building in the near pitch black. Or that his life was not the only one he was responsible for right now. He felt around until he found the door handle and pulled. It opened and the smoke went into the room. Dean quickly grabbed the other man under the arms and pulled him into the room, moving back away from the fire.
"Just, just give me a minute to catch my breath."
The man nodded. "I'm Samuel by the way." Dean's head jerked up. Of course he was.
"Dean."
Winchester shook his head, clearing the rest of the cobwebs. The floor was beginning to fill with smoke anyway. "Okay. Get on." He instructed.
Dean happened to glance out of the window when he saw it. A plane. And it flew right right into the South Tower.
Debris from the tower was coming towards them and Dean took off a run towards the smoke-filled stairwell.
A plane. It was a plane.
"Did you see that?" Samuel whispered, clutching tighter to Dean's arm.
Dean didn't answer. He hurried down the stairs as quickly as he could.
He wasn't sure of the floor numbers anymore. Just breathe. Step. Breathe. Step. Breathe. Step.
Time seemed to drag on in a never ending world of darkness and smoke. His eyes stung and he wondered if there was even any reason to keep his eyes open. Then his eyes weren't open. Then he was on his knees with someone calling his name. He wasn't sure exactly how long he had been there. Had he lost consciousness or was his head just fuzzy from the smoke?
He felt foolish. He'd been trained to continue to fight in terrible conditions and yet here he was, choking on smoke in a friggin' skyscraper of all things. He really, really hated heights.
"Sir?"
When Dean looked up there was a blur of movement.
"What floor are we on?" he heard Samuel ask.
"thirty-four." An unknown and slightly muffled voice answered.
"He's been carrying me since eighty-three. Collapsed a couple minutes ago."
Dean blinked as hands tilted his face up and something was pressed over his face. "Take a couple of breaths kid." Then to someone above him. "Get him out of here. I'll stay with the kid."
His initial reaction to fight was overridden by the blessing of cool oxygen filling his lungs. "Sam?" Dean muttered, handing the mask back over to who he now realized was a firefighter.
"Someone's got him. Worry about yourself for a minute. I'm Sal."
"Dean," He answered as Sal helped him to his feet. He was barely standing when an earth shattering roar sounded. The building swayed and Dean clutched onto the firefighter, all thoughts of embarrassment long gone. He was going to die. He was going to die in a metal deathtrap higher in the air then he had ever even wanted to be.
The firefighter's radio went off. "South Tower has collapsed. Get out of there now. Over."
"No." the man whispered, an air of disbelief in his voice. Then into his radio, "Coming down."
"What does he mean it collapsed?" Dean asked as Sal started pulling him down the stairs at a much quicker speed than he had been moving before. "How is that even possible?!"
Not that he hadn't thought the building was going to collapse when the initial explosion had happened. But Caleb had always gone on about the structural brilliance of this place. Surely the building couldn't just… fall.
The fireman didn't answer and Dean didn't press. He stumbled down the stairs, the high power flashlight finally allowing him to be able to see where he was going.
The two continued until there was a group of firemen in front of them. One of them was carrying a woman. "What's going on?" Sal shouted.
"We're looking for a chair! It will make it easier to carry her down the rest of the way!" Someone shouted back.
"You good to stand here while I help him look?" Dean nodded, leaning against the wall. He was unsure if he'd ever been this tired in his life.
They weren't sure how long they'd been on the platform, but it couldn't have been too long, when the rumble began. Dean had seen and heard some loud and downright horrific things. But nothing had ever been louder than this moment. A gust of wind stronger than anything Dean had ever felt picked him up and threw him. It was like being attacked by a ghost but with no one to fight back against.
Dean hit the ground. Then there was silence. For a moment Dean thought he was dead. There was no sound. No light. He couldn't breathe. He could taste dust and his eyes burned along with his other senses. For a moment he wondered if he was in Hell.
"Sound off!" Came a shout from somewhere. Names began being called out. He heard Sal call out his name and felt relieved that the other man had survived.
Dean called out after it seemed that no one else was alive to speak. There were fifteen of them. Twelve firefighters, a police officer, the women that they were helping down, and him. A radio went off somewhere. People calling in their locations and asking for help. Dean knew he should get up, try to help. But the idea of just letting the darkness claim him was far more appealing. There was so much smoke. Was there even a hope of them getting out of this alive? Probably not. He was so tired.
"Kid, is that you? You with us?"
An arm shook him slightly and Dean grunted. "Wh-what happened?"
"Not sure. The stairwell is blocked below us. A Lt. Warchola radioed in. Said he's on the twelfth floor. We were heading up to check on him. How are you? Anything broken? Bleeding?"
Dean hummed lightly, finally taking stock of his aching body. His shoulder ached but wasn't broken. There was a cut on his leg but it wasn't life threatening. His head was pounding but it had been since the initial explosion. He might have hit it again but supposed at the moment it didn't really matter.
"I'm fine." Dean finally answered. "Help me up." Some debris had caught him, keeping him from being able to get up himself. The railing had twisted in such a way that squeezing out from it would have been near impossible without the fireman's help.
He followed Sal up the stairs, limping slightly. They went up as high as they could, meeting several other firemen, but there was no use. Everything had caved in. It was nothing but twisted metal above and below them. They were trapped.
The smoke was too much to see. After the failed rescue attempt, the fifteen survivors made their way as far down as they could go and sat together on the debris covered floor. Those who had oxygen, would periodically hand it off to one of the others. Dean was unsure of how long they sat there. Time held no real meaning. His head ached and he wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to stay awake.
"Hey," Sal nudged him slightly, handing off the mask.
Dean blinked a couple times before taking it.
"Hang in there kid, we're getting out of here."
A grunt was the answer. Dean had always had a complicated relationship with talking. He had no problem chattering on if necessary, but also found no reason to force out words when what he really wanted was to remain silent. So he just leaned his head back against the wall and breathed.
After a time, the smoke cleared enough for them to be able to catch glimpses of light. The firemen broke away to look around. Dean stayed with the woman, Josephine Harris. They didn't talk. She cried. Dean stared blankly into the darkness.
A commotion above him had him jerking up from a not quite sleep.
"Sunlight!" Someone called, "I think there's a hole big enough to get through!"
Sal appeared a few moments later with a fireman Dean vaguely remembered being named Butler. "You hear that? We're getting out of here. Told you we would."
Dean was pulled to his feet while Butler lifted the quietly sobbing women. They made their way up to the fourth floor.
It wasn't a constant stream, but every once in a while the smoke would clear enough to see sunlight. Dean followed Sal through the hole. The sun was bright. Too bright. But then Dean got a good look around him.
There was nothing.
He supposed nothing was a bad word for it. There was never ending rubble and flames and smoke. But what there wasn't was towers. The twin towers were gone. Dean glanced towards where they had come from and looked up. The tower was gone. The tower had literally collapsed around them.
"Come on kid, let's find someone to get you looked at."
Dean allowed himself to be led forward, ignoring the shouts of rescue personnel, ignoring the hands on him. He felt disjointed. Unreal. He couldn't stop glancing back at where the World Trade Center had once stood. The sky, so full of smoke and debris and who knew what else looked so… empty.
"But it-it's gone."
The guiding hand around him tightened. "I know kid, I know."
(To be continued in Day 16)
~TH~
9/11/01 was an extremely tragic day in America and it had worldwide effects. I hope I dealt with it respectfully. As I mentioned in a pervious note, I was not even born when 9/11 took place, but I EXTENSIVLEY researched the event (I had over 30 tabs open and the floor plan for the building. Not to mention watching hours of survivor footage) and did my best to make them reasonably accurate. Of course I have taken creative liberties. Sid was a real person. I know little to nothing about him except he was part of Station 6 and was assisting a disabled women named Josephine Harris in Stairwell B when the building collapsed and survived.
We'll be seeing Caleb's side of this story on day 16. It has not yet been written so feel free to throw out ideas lol.
I live and breathe comments so let me know what you think!
God bless,
Jamie