Sam doesn't think, just drives.
The road sweeps on by with ease, going nowhere in particular, letting everything on the sides beyond the black asphalt vanish. It's the third car he's stolen tonight, running each one until the tank is empty before jumping in another.
A couple times he almost calls Bobby. A few more times he almost calls Dean. Eventually, the constant reach and pull back wearies him and he throws the phone out of the car altogether. He can almost hear it shatter on the blacktop. Maybe he'll regret that later, but he kind of doubts it. There's no one else he would even consider calling.
The gas light comes on with a ping and Sam jerks out of his reverie to check the next road sign. Nothing for forty miles, and then only a rest stop.
He stops the car. Dean is far behind him, all unaware, and he still doesn't even know where he's going.
Going hunting, is the easy answer. He has no tools, though, no resources, nowhere to begin. But he could get all that without too much trouble, couldn't he? And it's not like he's never hunted alone before (four months plus six months, that's over a year, isn't it? His head doesn't feel quite right anymore) and what else is he supposed to do? He won't drag his sorry carcass into Dean's pretty new life, and Bobby's probably doing fine on his own too. He has no life of his own (not really) to waste on hunting. And it's the least he can do, isn't it? After everything?
Sam looks up at the stars. His thoughts are all full of pieces and shards of broken glass that it's easy to cut himself on if he doesn't step carefully. He doesn't have the energy right now to step carefully, and they rip him to shreds with every twitch he makes.
He goes to sleep sprawled on the hood of the car like a dead man.
"Hey, you okay?"
No time has passed, all time has passed when he stares at the young man trying to shake him awake, looking anxious and worried. He frowns and tries to focus. "I'm not bleeding," he says, semi-coherently, "And I'm not dead. So yeah. I'm okay."
"You didn't look okay."
There's a car on the road. Sam glances at the beige Taurus that he's been driving for who knows how long, out of gas and out of life, kind of like the driver. He forces a smile. "My car broke down and I don't have a phone. Must've fallen asleep waiting for someone to drive by. Can I have a lift into the nearest place with - civilization?"
"Sure," says the young man, easy and naïve and friendly as he sticks out his hand to help Sam onto his feet. "Long as you don't mind heading southwest, the closest town's that way. Where are you headed?"
"Nowhere," Sam said, and then laughed breathlessly. "Anywhere. Southwest is good. Southwest is great. Thanks." As an afterthought, because he's almost forgotten that people like to know names, he adds, "I'm Sam. Thanks."
"You're welcome," says the young man, tugging Sam upright, and looking up (and up) at him with a grin. "Glad I could help."
His name is Jackson, Sam learns, and he really is glad he could help. He offers to call ahead, offers a sandwich, talks about his family and how they're driving him crazy. Sam refuses the call and the sandwich, and just listens to the man talk, keeping his eyes dry only because he doesn't blink, not once.
Jackson drops him off in front of the garage, and it's only with difficulty that Sam gets him to leave, mostly because it's hard not to just scream that if the nice young man doesn't leave, he'll probably end up dead. There's a payphone on the street and Sam stares at it. He could call Bobby, just let him know that he's alive. Could call Dean and let him know he's alive.
He steals another car. The black one next to the Volkswagon he ended up taking was nicer, better looking, better condition, but to Sam it looked like the Impala and he would never make it driving alone in a car that looked like the Impala.
After Lucifer, the hunts seem surprisingly easy. The ghosts don't even make him blink anymore. Not much does. Numb, that's what he thinks this state of being is known as, and numb is as good a word as any, probably better than dead.
Cas turns up. "Where's Dean?" Is the first thing he asks.
"Indiana," Sam says, blandly, and is tempted just for a moment to blast Castiel's ass out of here and tell him never to come back. "Same as he has been."
Cas seems taken aback. "Why?"
"He has a family here. Another family." A better family. Ickle Ben's never going to start the Apocalypse, Sam is sure of that. Daddy Dean will never let Ben near what really happened.
"You miss him," Cas says, and he sounds puzzled. "And he misses you, so why-?"
"No," Sam says, and Cas stares at him with an attempted at angelic innocence. "He's retired. I'm not. It's as simple as that."
"He needs you, Sam," Castiel says, and he sounds almost desperate.
"No," said Sam, and got up and left the room. Time to move on. "And if you tell him where I am – just don't. Okay? Leave him alone. Let him have a little peace. Okay?"
Cas is gone when he turns around.
The demons are running scared. Sam's found maybe one, two? In his time so far, and who knows how long that's been. Both times he killed them without thinking about the innocent possessed. Once upon a time, that might have bothered him, not trying to save them, but he knows better now: if you don't kill them, they just come back hungrier.
The demons who look at him before he kills them can't seem to decide between fear and awe. Some of them try to say things that for a demon are almost nice – you beat the devil, Sammy, you win, come on, what's one little demon, don't you have better things to do?
He's done with mercy, though, just as much as he's done with living. Even if Dean's number is burning a hole in his heart and Bobby's is burning a hole in his brain, and he stands in front of a pay phone once for almost an hour because he doesn't know if calling or not calling is a better answer.
He runs into some hunters outside of El Paso, Texas and they try to talk to him about the Apocalypse, leaning in close and asking if the stories are true, if the Winchesters killed the devil, and he just stares at them until they back off and leave, though to the one that lingers he manages to say, "Dean. It was Dean."
He hopes that's the story that spreads, that Dean Winchester saved the world.
Sam doesn't drink the way he did when Dean went to Hell. He doesn't have nightmares. He remembers everything about Hell and everything Lucifer did and every moment of his time – but it doesn't matter. The part of him that feels things and needs things like alcohol to fill the holes seems to have been left behind, maybe on the road, maybe in Hell.
Nothing lasts forever.
He knows that, Sam does. All the Winchesters do, or did. (He hopes maybe the other one still alive has forgotten.) And of course this has been coming for a while; there's only so many times the noose can be slipped before it closes.
Stupid, though. Just a ghost; a vicious one, sure, but nothing Sam couldn't handle.
He leans back against the cabinet, trying to conserve his energy. Three long, parallel slashes slice deep into muscle and flesh diagonally across his torso, and his hands can't keep it all in. He's already too weak to move and even the warm blood running down his chest and stomach isn't keeping him from shivering.
Alone in an abandoned house, it could be weeks before anyone found his body.
And then someone else's hands are pressing over the gashes and his body bucks with the sudden reminder of pain. "Sam," someone says, far away. "Sam?"
It strikes Sam as faintly funny that now he feels something. "Dean?" He says, faintly, and can taste blood on the back of his tongue. His brother's hands, trying to stop the bleeding. "Bit – bit late."
"And whose fault is that," Dean says, and his voice is hoarse. Sam reaches out blindly, clutches at Dean's sleeve with weakening fingers. "Come on, Sam. Hold on."
He tugs Dean's sleeve, to show how much he is holding on. "Am. You aren't…in Indiana."
"Came looking for you, you idiot." Sam knows that if Dean's hands weren't busy trying to keep his guts inside then he would have brushed Sam's hair back then, just like he used to. "Look what happens? Couldn't you have waited for me? Didn't you get my message?"
"Threw," Sam coughs, "Threw my cell away. Sorry." His eyes drag closed, too heavy to keep open. "That hurts, Dean. Can you…stop?"
"No," Dean says, and he sounds like he wants to cry. "No, not letting go this time. Not this time. I'm here. I'm not leaving you."
Sam can't remember how to smile, but he tries his best. "Shouldn't have come. I don't… don't feel so great." Dean's hands press harder, and Sam hisses. He doesn't have to look down to see how useless it is.
"Yeah, I know." Dean's voice is taut. "S'okay, though. Ambulance is coming. Need you alive to beat the shit out of you."
"Not much of a reason to work on being alive, Dean-o," Sam says, and knows he's delirious because that's only ever what their dad called his big brother. He blinks, slow, not sure that his eyes will open again. "It's okay."
"No," Dean corrects him, "But it will be."
There are sirens in the distance. Sam swallows and lets his head fall back. He closes his eyes and hears Dean's intake of breath, shuddery, like it hurts his chest to inflate. (It couldn't, Sam muses, hurt half as much as Sam's chest does just now.)
"Hold on," Dean is saying, both hands trying so hard to keep the blood inside Sam's body, and failing with every heartbeat. "Hold on, Sammy. I've got you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to leave you."
Life goes on without me, Sam could have said. Or, Indiana needs you. Or just, thank you. He stares blankly up at the ceiling, unable to find the words, and thinks about the stars whirling ceaselessly overhead, pinpricks of angel's grace in a darkened sky.