SEASON: 3 (missing scene from Mystery Spot)

DISCLAIMER: Supernatural, its characters and situations, are copyright Eric Kripke and Warner Bros. Entertainment (The CW). No infringement on, or challenge to, their status is intended. This piece of fiction was written strictly for the entertainment of other fans, and I am gaining no form of compensation for it.
MORE DISCLAIMERS: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual places and locations, is purely coincidental.

NOTES: Beta'd by switch842 and 13chapters

WARNINGS: dark themes, disturbing imagery

PROMPT: A day in the life of Sam Winchester as he hunts down the Trickster in the alternate timeline in "Mystery Spot".

Eyes

Denial and desperation. Anger and hatred. Bargaining and dealing. Depression and pain. These weren't just words. These weren't just stages of grief. These were his thoughts. These were his emotions.

These were his life.

The first two days were the worst. He hadn't believed it was true, not at first. He'd closed his eyes in that parking lot, and a hundred more times, expecting to wake up and find out it wasn't real. But he never woke up. It was never Wednesday morning again. He'd begged, pleaded, demanded, and screamed until he was hoarse. He'd even prayed. He'd called Bobby, convinced that there was a way to fix it, to reverse it, to make everything right again.

None of it had helped.

Then he realized that in order to make right what was wrong, he'd have to accept that it had happened and move forward from there.

Hair

Those first few days were filled with the arrangements for and preparation of Dean's body. Everything had to be perfect, down to the last little detail. Food wasn't scarce, but he didn't eat much of it. Sleep was hard to come by, and harder to hold on to when it did come, but that didn't matter.

Dean deserved nothing less.

Then the loneliness hit. He'd been alone before, when he was in Palo Alto, so it wasn't that being alone scared him. He wasn't a little kid trying to find a way to hold on to a security blanket. But it was normal for him to be lonely, and it wouldn't last forever, so he coped the best way he could. The only way he could. The only way he knew.

It wasn't that he couldn't go on alone; it was that he didn't want to. Lucky for him, he also didn't have to.

Bobby said he was acting crazy, that he was going to get crazier if he didn't dial back the obsession. But what did Bobby really know? Nothing, that was what. He hadn't told Bobby what he really wanted those witchcraft books for, and he hadn't told him about the medical books at all.

The changes to the car had been the hardest. He'd imagined Dean standing over his shoulder yelling at him the whole time. He didn't like anyone messing with his baby, but it had to be done. Things had changed, and the car had to change, too. The first step had been moving the weapons to a new hidden compartment under the back seat.

The rest of the modifications to the trunk hadn't taken long at all. Thick styrofoam was easy enough to come by, and dry ice was cheap if you knew where to get it.

Face

His days were spent in pursuit of the Trickster that had stolen Dean from him. He'd gathered every bit of information about him that he could, every sign, signal and portent that could even potentially point to a location.

It wasn't just anyone who could track a pagan god across the country, but Sam was doing it. If there was one thing that John Winchester had taught his sons, it was to pay attention to the world around them. He wasn't sure if the Trickster was leaving the trail because he didn't know Sam was tracking it, or if he was leaving it intentionally because he did, but it didn't matter. Either way, he was going to get what he was after.

He was going to get his brother back.

Image

Dinner had become a solitary affair, either a quick bite at some little diner or something he made himself in his motel room. He missed the conversations that he and Dean had shared over their burgers and salads, but he knew that one day, he'd have those back. He'd have everything back.

It had been hard, at first, ignoring the regular hunts. He and Dean had spent three years killing things and saving people, and part of him wanted to keep doing it. His focus had been hard to find and harder to redirect, but once he had it, it was impossible to let go of. There was only one thing he wanted to kill, and only one person he wanted to save.

Sleep was still elusive, and he spent the hours after his nightly rituals studying, tracking, hunting. Sometimes he'd go out on a hunt; most nights he didn't. Pagan gods didn't require the cover of darkness to hide their deeds the way spirits and demons liked to do – they struck in the middle of the day. They could be anyone, anywhere, at any time.

He never stopped looking for the signs. He was always looking out for the strawberry syrup. And he never ordered pancakes for breakfast.

All Must

Settling into a new motel room every night was something he'd been used to since he was three years old, even though there were times when they'd stay in one place longer. But he couldn't. His hunts kept him moving, always going.

As long as the Trickster kept moving, so would he.

He carried his bags into the room, arranged everything where he wanted it, and settled down on the bed. It had taken him a few weeks to start sleeping on the one closest to the door, and he still wasn't completely comfortable there. That was Dean's place, always had been, and would be again one day.

But for the time being, it was Sam's.

Darkness was still a few hours away. What he'd left in the trunk would stay there for another few hours. He knew it was safe there, that even the most dedicated car lover wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary about it, but he was still uneasy.

He always was until he got the bag in the room with him.

Be Preserved

The bag was heavy, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.

He'd learned to make sure the parking lot was absolutely empty before he even opened the trunk. He'd learned to check all of the windows to make sure that none of the neighbors were getting nosy. He always took the most secluded room, the one hardest to see from the road, and the one furthest away from the front desk. And he always emptied the trunk long after the sun had set, always under the cover of darkness.

Questions were to be avoided at all costs. The part of him that remembered what normal life was supposed to be like told him that. If anyone saw him pulling that bag out of the trunk, there'd be questions he couldn't answer, screaming strangers, and cops to run from.

He'd barely made it out of Raleigh because of a way-too-curious motel guest. He was never going to come that close to losing everything again.

He kicked the door shut behind him, crossed to the furthest bed, and laid the bag down on it. He had just a few seconds to himself, just enough time to take a deep breath and blow it out. He felt the presence in the room before he announced himself. He smiled without turning around.

"Hey, Sam."

Still Life

The conversations were inevitable; he should have known that when he started down that road. The first one had surprised him, but that was just because he was talking to someone he couldn't see. His life was all about adapting and overcoming, changing and surviving, and so he had.

The weeks went by, and his brother got stronger, just as he'd known he would. Sam was still the only one who could see him, but he was fine with that. He was the one who needed him to stay. No one else needed to know he was there. Dean was his brother, after all, and he belonged with him.

Wasn't that what had started it all in the first place?

"You have to stop this, Sam."

Those were the first words he'd heard at every motel he'd checked into for more than a month. They'd become as much a part of Sam's day as the hunt for the Trickster, the cold baths, and the dry ice runs had. They were familiar, comfortable.

"I can't," he said, just like he always did. "You know that."

Displayed

He went about his nighttime ritual without pausing – he started the cold water running in the tub, pulled the lavender and sandalwood oils out of his bag, laid a fresh change of clothes on the bed. He knew that the conversation would continue with or without his undivided attention, and he'd learned to multitask.

"But I really want you to."

"No." The word was automatic, a denial that he'd made every day for so many weeks. "I need to find him."

"What about what I need? All this time, all this … this! Have you stopped to think about what I need, Sam? What I want?"

Sam stopped his preparations and looked back across the room. Dean was standing there, next to the bed, staring down at the black bag. He looked so real, so solid, so … Dean. He was just Dean. But there was something else there, something Sam hadn't been paying attention to, a sadness that he couldn't explain.

"It'll be okay, Dean," he promised. "I'll find him, and I'll make him fix this."

"This can't be fixed," Dean said softly. "It can only be ended."

Forever

They had the same conversation every night, but this one was different. Those words were different. Dean was different. Something had happened; something had changed.

"No," Sam said. His internal clock was screaming at him that he had to get going, that he was going to mess up the schedule and lose everything. He walked past Dean without looking at him and unzipped the black bag. "This is the only way. He can't say he can't undo it this way. No excuses from him. No lies."

The silence was heavy, and it stretched out much longer than it ever did. Sam's hands hovered above the bag, above the collar of the battered leather coat. This was always the worst part, and he hated it. If it wasn't absolutely necessary, he wouldn't have been doing it. Dean had to know that. He had to see that everything Sam was doing was for him.

Dean had given up everything for him. How could he do any less?

"I'm changing, Sam." Sam closed his eyes at the words, wanting to deny them even as he admitted that they were as inevitable as the conversations. "Going vengeful. I'm having a damn hard time not throwing you across the room."

Sam didn't open his eyes, didn't move, barely breathed.

"What else can I do?"

"Let me go," Dean said. "Stop this. Now. Before it kills you like it did me."

No Less

Sam hadn't felt anything since the end of the second week. No pain, no grief, no emotion at all except for his appetite for revenge. His hatred. His need to force the Trickster to make it be Wednesday morning again. His desire to kill the bastard god that had taken Dean away.

Dean's plea hit him like a knife to the gut, and every word drove it deeper.

"But you're here," he whispered. "You're with me, and you're safe, and you're not in Hell."

"Ya think?" Dean had moved, blinked back into existence on the opposite side of the bed. Sam looked up into the green eyes that he knew so well and tried to convince himself that they weren't darker, that they weren't losing their color as the weeks went by, that the lines in Dean's face weren't sinking deeper, that his skin wasn't turning paler.

"Watching you do this, watching what you're turning into, knowing what I'm turning into and that one day I'm not gonna be able to stop myself from hurting you? You really think this isn't Hell, Sam?"

Than He

He took a deep breath and blew it out, then smiled at his brother. This was just a minor bump in the road, that was all. He'd come too far, done too much, and he couldn't just stop.

Dean would adjust to whatever was going on with him. He was too strong to let himself go vengeful. This was his big brother, after all. The brother that could do anything. If there was anyone on the planet that could fight off the evil that eventually ate away at every human soul, it was Dean. It wouldn't get him.

Besides, it wouldn't be much longer. Bobby'd called him that morning and told him that he had a lead on the Trickster, a good strong lead that would take Sam right to him. Dean would be back where he belonged before the week was out; all Sam had to do was make sure that Dean still had a body to go back into when that time came.

"You're staying," he said. "We're not giving him any excuses. He's going to fix you."

He reached into the black body bag, wrapped his arms around Dean's shoulders, and lifted him out of it. It always amazed him, how alive Dean's body still looked after six weeks. Those old books he'd found at Bobby's had come in more than handy. It didn't matter if he'd done the embalming himself, or how badly his hands had shook while he did it, or how crooked the stitches were because of it.

With enough spells, oils and dry ice, Sam could keep him like that forever. He would always look as he did at that moment, always be young and handsome, and always be at Sam's side.

"It's time for your bath," he said. That edge to his voice wasn't madness; that smile on his face belonged there. Anyone in his position would have done the same. "You know you always feel better after a nice cold bath."

"Sam, please."

"Clean clothes, some fresh ice, and some oils. That's all you need." He wasn't talking to the Dean across the bed anymore. He was talking to the Dean in his arms, the one that never argued, the one whose eyes would never turn black and whose skin would never age.

They'd be one in the same again. Soon. And if Bobby's lead didn't pan out, it didn't matter. He'd find the Trickster one day, and even if he didn't, he could keep it up forever. He could keep Dean with him forever.

Deserved

That was all that mattered.