The third and final entry in a trilogy of "The Only Gift" one-shots that began with John's POV. It is not necessary that you read the first two, but it would be helpful to capture the mood of this story.
The Only Gift III: Sam
He's not drunk. That's not his way. Usually. Now and then, yes. But not now. Not at this moment.
Not in the wake of: this.
He remembers Stanford, and partying, and beer, but the hard stuff, then, no. He was not his father, or his older brother, to stop so frequently at a bar, or to swing by a liquor store to pick up a six-pack, a bottle. Sam never brought home a new best friend named Jack. But later, for his brother, yes.
He remembers that before the bunker, there were thousands of motels. But once, he's been told, there was a home.
Lawrence. Where a house burned, but also a mother.
He'd never asked Dean, until they did go home again, to the house Sam didn't know and couldn't remember. And then he asked about that night, the night that changed everything: 'What was it like?'
Dean had said: 'Fire. Heat.' But little more than that. Sam thought probably there was a great deal more than that, to keep his motor-mouth of a brother from speaking for some unspecified amount of time. Dean Winchester, mute? Sure, he wasn't open about feelings the way he was about sexual exploits, or cars, or weaponry, or monsters, or bitching out his baby brother, but he was never lacking language.
So, Sam figured there was a lot more to the night of the fire, that Dean had likely seen more, remembered more, than he let on.
In fact, Sam, who had a very clear memory of seeing Jessica burning on the ceiling, thought it very likely Dean had seen their mother in an identical position. Sam at least had been in his 20s, and had a history of hunting behind him, when he saw the Yellow-Eyed Demon's doings. Dean, at four, was nothing more than a normal little kid. A boy who'd become a big brother only six months before.
He had carried his baby brother out of a burning house. But Sam had a feeling, Sam just knew, that Dean had looked back. That Dean saw Mom on the ceiling.
Mom, who was to Dean a person, not a name, nor an abstract concept.
Sam just doesn't remember her. Not from when she was alive. Only from when they returned to the house to fight the poltergeist, and when they ended up in heaven, and when Cas sent them back in time. "Mom" was merely a word, a label, and even when he met her, spoke with her, she wasn't really Mom. And Dad? His memories of John Winchester differ from his brother's.
Now? Now Dad's long gone, and he's got a brother. That's all. Only a brother.
Had a brother.
It occurs to him, at this infinitely painful moment, to wonder what might have happened had Dean gone to Jericho looking for Dad on his own. Would Jess have died?
That, he doesn't know. But himself, out of the life? Probably for good.
And yes, he feels . . . guilty. It isn't his fault; but yes, he feels guilty. Which is a complexity he can't understand, because there is never, was never, anything wrong with wanting to go to college, to make of himself something other than hunter.
He's drinking whiskey. And he hears Dean's voice in his head as he always does, albeit these words are different.
'I'm proud of us.'
He can't lose Dean. He can't.
To invoke Dean's own words, there is nothing, past or present, he will put in front of his brother. Certainly not himself.
'We'll find a way,' Sam had said. 'We'll figure it out.'
He knows he's a stubborn son of a bitch; but he knows, too, that the odds aren't good.
And he doesn't give a damn. Because he is damned, in ways normal people cannot understand.
The bottle. The glass. Himself at the table, with the archivolted ceiling of the bunker rising above his head.
And in his head, a song. Not one of Dean's mullet-rock tunes, all splashy vocals and drums and driving guitars and volume. A quiet melody, a mournful dirge of a song, is Can't Find My Way Home. Steve Winwood, backed by Eric Clapton.
But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time.
That was Dean, when he cold-cocked his brother so he could meet Abaddon, and Metatron, alone. Near the end, lacking time. And it hurt so badly, that Dean would leave him behind. But then—Dean did that, to keep his brother safe.
And I'm wasted, and I can't find my way home.
Sam poured, and drank, whiskey, in memory of his brother.
Come down on your own and leave your body alone.
Somebody must change.
Dean has—had—never changed. Dean was solid, and anchored, and fixed. To depend upon him was to know oneself in safekeeping; or, at the very least, that one would be rescued.
You are the reason I've been waiting all these years.
Somebody holds the key.
He can't lose his brother.
He won't.
'Dean, we'll find a way. We'll figure it out.'
He holds the key.
Sam rises. He walks from the library, from the quietude that is offensive because there is no Dean-noise to break it, to fill it up; and he walks down the corridor to the recesses of the bunker. He tastes whiskey upon his tongue, but he isn't drunk.
He wants to tell him. He wants to explain.
He wants to say he loves him.
But Dean is gone.
He wishes it were otherwise.
He wishes Dad were here, and Mom.
He wishes they were all of them there, in Lawrence.
But they are not. He is alone in this. The sole surviving Winchester.
For now.
He is very still within himself. The heart beats, the blood runs, the breath moves. But he is still.
And certain of his task.
He walks into the dungeon, where the makings lie before him. Candles. Bowl. Sigils. Books. Everything.
It must be enough. It must. Because it's Dean at stake.
The pain rises within his chest. It is difficult to speak, but he manages. "Dammit, Crowley . . . " Breath hitches in his throat. " . . . you got him into this mess."
And he stresses what is needful, in order to survive.
"You will get him out—or so help me God . . . "
But there are no more words. He is bereft of them, and absent a brother.
No. Not again. He knows more now.
But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time.
He strikes the match.
And I'm wasted, and I can't find my way home.
It is the only gift he can think of, to offer his brother.
The means to come back.
To find his way home.
~ end ~