Disclaimer: Don't own the boys.
Author's Note: So I was considering putting this in as part of Under the Sun, but it's not really a tag to S8. More a bit of post-S7 stream-of-consciousness speculation based on stuff we learned in We Need to Talk about Kevin.
Thanks to Cheryl for the beta. :)
Summary: Dick Roman is gone. Dean has vanished. Sam, just like Crowley said, is completely alone for the first time in his life.
Spoilers: Up to 8.01.
Forever in a Day
There's a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, and Sam knows it's his.
He doesn't remember when he was last out of the car for more time than it took to buy a granola bar, fill the tank, and use the gas station rest room. Four days ago, he thinks. The car is all he has left now, the only thing connecting him to the last family member to leave him. The car that still smells of Dean's cheap drugstore cologne.
Sam shivers. He's been in more near-accidents in the last four days than when he was hallucinating and sleep-deprived.
He doesn't know what to do. There's nobody to call. Crowley laughed at him. Castiel's either ignoring his prayers or too far away to hear them. Sam, pushed to desperation, has been driving aimlessly through the streets, slowing down outside bars and strip clubs and other places that look like they might appeal to Dean.
Sam can't count the number of times he's braked in the middle of the street, almost causing an accident, because he saw someone wearing a leather jacket or heard a voice that sounded like his brother's.
He doesn't know how many miles he's driven in the last four days. He's crossed state lines and crossed them back, made his way through towns, honked furiously at pedestrian crossings and toyed with the idea of just plowing the Impala straight into the people who glared at him. What do they know what it's like to lose Dean?
A sob tries to fight its way out of his throat. He pushes it down firmly. He can't – he can't. If he cries, it'll mean he's given up.
If he cries, it'll mean Dean's not coming back.
Sam's out of leads and out of ideas. The phone Dean had on him is now out of service, and all Dean's other phones are in the Impala's glove compartment. Sam spent the first two days after Dean disappeared feverishly checking voicemail, but he can't bear to do it anymore. If he has to hear one more time that he has no messages – or, worse, that he has a message and it turns out to be from another hunting acquaintance asking if he knows the best way to deal with a lamia – he's going to lose the last scrap of sanity he has.
Sam's grip on the wheel loosens and the Impala swerves dangerously. He ignores the flurry of honking and shouted insults. He's past caring.
He has a sudden flash of memory to the last time he felt like this. Dean wasn't missing then, he was in Hell. Just like now, Sam went into a tailspin, unable to think or feel anything other than the gaping emptiness inside him.
And then there was Ruby.
Sam tries not to let himself finish that thought, but it comes insidiously into his mind. He remembers – two centuries of Lucifer didn't make him forget – what it felt like to be high on demon blood. He remembers the power, remembers being able to kill demons just by thinking it, remembers feeling confident that he could defeat the Devil.
If he lets himself get as high as he was when he went to Detroit, he'll be stronger than Crowley. Sam knows that. He'll be able to force Crowley to tell him where Dean is. He'll be able to destroy anything that stands between him and his brother.
Sam swore to himself that he would never let demon blood cross his lips again, but he's willing to break any number of promises for Dean's sake.
He forces himself to pull to a halt on the shoulder before he can turn around and start tracking Crowley.
No demon blood. No demon blood and no demon deals. Dean would never forgive him. Dean wouldn't want to be saved at that price. He won't let himself go down that road again. However tempting it is to think, however much he wants his brother, however hard it is to breathe without Dean sitting next to him humming Ride the Lightning, Sam's not going to do that to himself or his brother.
No demons.
Sam starts driving again. He's at the edge of town – he doesn't know what the town is called; in Sam's head it's now forever going to be called Another Place Where Dean Wasn't – but he knows it's less than half an hour of good highway to the next town.
A woman pushing a stroller steps into the street and he brakes quickly.
She doesn't notice him, doesn't bother to acknowledge him, and Sam feels sudden, irrational fury. The sidewalk isn't big enough for her and her baby? She needs to push it up and down the street and keep Sam from getting –
Getting where?
Where's he going next?
Out of town. Down the highway to the next town. He doesn't know what's happened to Dean. There was no body. Maybe his brother was vaporized by the force of the explosion, but Sam can't – won't – believe that. He has no idea where to go, nobody to turn to, no place to start looking, so Sam's doing the only thing he can. Driving, and hoping that a clue, a lead, maybe even Dean himself will be around the next corner.
The woman's crossed the street now.
Sam drives.
The needle on the gas gauge is hovering over the E, so he pulls up at the next gas station he sees. He gets out of the car, barely noticing how good his legs feel after having been cramped behind the wheel pretty much continuously for the last four days.
Sam stumbles into the little convenience store.
There's an old woman at the counter. She doesn't look up at him, just rings up the candy bars and juice he thrusts in her direction.
"Anything else?" she asks as she puts it in a bag.
"Dean?" Sam asks. His voice is hoarse. He hasn't been speaking to people for the past four days. Who would he talk to? "Where's Dean?"
He's asked that question a hundred times, maybe a thousand. He's got a bunch of different responses. Sometimes people just ignore it. Sometimes they say they don't know. Sometimes they have a friend or cousin called Dean and ask if that's the one Sam's looking for.
The old woman gives him a look full of pity.
"If you don't know," she says, "I think nobody in the world does."
Sam blinks. It's a strange answer.
She puts the bag in his hands and closes his unresponsive fingers around it. "Goodbye, Sam Winchester. I hope you find peace."
Sam stares, but before he can ask her who she is and how she knows his name, she disappears through the swinging door that leads to the back. Sam considers going after her, but then he shakes his head and stumbles outside.
Tears fill his eyes as he passes a rack of peanut M&Ms.
Dean…
Sam doesn't know what he is anymore. He doesn't know who he is. He knows he isn't a hunter, not without Dean. He doesn't dare go down that path.
It isn't that he's afraid he'll be killed without Dean to watch his back. If that were all, he would welcome it.
No, whenever Sam thinks about hunting without Dean his head fills with Ruby and demon blood, with the soulless hunter who thought nothing of killing innocent people to get at the monsters inside them.
Sam gets into the car, the car that still smells of Dean, and pulls out of the gas station. The old woman's words are still ringing in his ears.
Is she right?
Is Dean gone?
Sam sobs.
He's alone. For the first time in his life, he's alone. There's no Dean. He doesn't know where Dean is. He'd happily sell his soul to get his brother back but he doesn't know who he can sell it to. Sam's pretty certain Crowley's telling the truth about not knowing where Dean's gone. If he had any idea at all, he'd be trying to use the knowledge as leverage.
Sam's never felt so desolate. There's nobody he can turn to. Their friends are all dead. There's no Bobby to tell him to get over himself and give him a Latin text to translate to keep his mind off his grief. There's no Dad.
There's no Dean.
Dean's never going to laugh at his taste in music again. Dean's never going to make fun of him for his girly coffee and then turn right around and whisper to the waitress to put in extra cinnamon sprinkles. Dean's never going to sew him up after a hunt gone bad.
Sam's never again going to fall asleep with the comforting presence of his big brother next to him.
He's half-blinded by his tears, and that's why he doesn't see the dog until it steps into the street.
It freezes in the glare of the headlights. Sam stomps on the brake and jerks the steering wheel sharply, but it isn't enough. There's a thump and the cry of an animal in pain.
Sam's out of the car before he can think about it, gathering the dog up, wrapping it in his jacket, and sliding it into the front seat. It whines, and he rubs its head soothingly.
There's an ache in his chest that's never going to go away, a horrible yawning cavern that he knows nothing will ever fill. For the rest of his life he's going to be listening for the sound of a voice that isn't there.
Sam knows that.
He knows that when he finally manages to stop somewhere for the night, whether it's a motel or just in the Impala in a clearing by the road, he's going to want to drop his head on the shoulder that's the earliest pillow he remembers and listen to the heartbeat that was his first lullaby.
He can't. And maybe he never will.
The dog whines again. Sam strokes it, quiets it, and pulls out his cell phone to locate the nearest animal hospital.
At least he can do this.
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