This story is based on Comic Con Season 6 spoilers so if you want to be totally spoiler free then do not enter! There also be spoilers for 5.22 Swan Song
At night, when it was late, dark and cloying, he would hear the voice in his head.
'I'm in your grapefruit Sam' it says, on repeat, over and over.
Sometimes he sees flashes, he sees his old grade school teacher with his guts on the floor, he sees Rachael with her throat slit, he sees his old friend lying in a pool of blood, eyes blank and unseeing.
He remembers what it felt like to have Lucifer in his head; remembers too well perhaps. That is why he is alone in a strange, damp smelling motel room that is why he hasn't gone back to his brother again. Dean has a normal life and Sam – Sam believes he is anything but normal.
So he lies awake and searches his mind for Lucifer – wondering, wondering – if he is still there, dormant, waiting to take over Sam's brain and wreak havoc on the world.
He recalls falling; he saw his brother's face – beaten to a pulp at his own hand – staring at him in wonder as he fell backwards, grabbed Adam and plunged into the pit.
What he doesn't know is how he got out; when Lucifer – still screaming his distaste and anger – let his body go. Sometimes he wonders if this is all a trick, an illusion to make him talk. He closes his eyes tight, squeezes them shut and prays that it isn't, that he is free and able to go his own way. He prays that his mind is his own and he prays that Dean will never, ever find out that he is surface level again.
He hunts anonymously; he doesn't want anyone to know. There are hunter networks everywhere and he is petrified that Bobby or Rufus will find out that he is topside and that he is killing supernatural things. He tries to be covert, knowing that one big job could alert suspicions and he stays underground, hiding in plain sight.
He does small jobs, hauntings, demon possessions, the odd sprite or ghoul. He stays in pathetically small motels, eats as little as he can manage and barely sleeps. He doesn't talk much, just orders breakfast and coffee and moves on. Waitresses don't hit on him, no one goes near him. He guesses he looks like a down and out, a homeless person and that is ok. He can fly under the radar like this and no one need ever know he is home.
At first he feels as if the dreams are just that; perhaps they are nightmares – he can barely tell the difference these days. He has memories of the pit and he can understand why his brother never wanted to talk about it, never wanted to tell him what he had done. He feels phantom pains in his legs and arms and there are burns on his thighs and the souls of his feet. He can't eat sometimes because of the blisters in his mouth and his hair is streaked with grey, longer and wilder than ever because he doesn't care.
The Yellow Eyed Demon appears nightly; an omen, a nightmare or something else? He laughs, says that he isn't dead, that he was so proud of Sam and then – then Sam let him down, he trapped Lucifer in the pit again and the Yellow Eyed Demon's plans were ruined.
Sam ignores it for so long; he drinks whiskey straight but he can't get drunk. He takes pills but they don't put him to sleep. He tries watching TV or listening to music but nothing works. He still sees the bastard and – on the night in question – the night he threatens Dean and his family – he cracks.
He packs everything up and gets into his wreck of a car. He pushes down his doubts, his fears, his worry and he drives, drives and drives until he is standing beneath a flickering streetlamp watching his brother eat dinner.
He didn't want this, didn't want to be the one who dragged his brother back into this life again. He can remember the day Dean turned up at Stanford as if it were yesterday, he can see Jess in her Smurf shirt, he can smell her perfume as if she is standing next to him. He remembers his heart sinking when Dean pinned him to the floor, he remembers thinking i This is it – it is over – I'm being dragged back into it and I have no fucking choice/i.
Now he is going to do the same to his brother and the cold part of him that is his heart thaws and melts and his eyes burn as he walks down the drive, past the SUV parked there, past the football and basketball hoop, past the little boy's bike and past the newly mown grass.
When Dean opens the door, green eyes wide and brighter than they should be, when he grabs Sam by the collar and yanks him close, voice laced with anger, panic, pain when he says,
"What are you doing here?"
Sam only has one reply.
"I was hoping for a beer…"
End