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The Impala was the only home the boys ever knew. The seats were molded to them, every inch of it was worked into their memory, as familiar as each other, and far more comforting. The Impala was home. Warm in the winter and cold in the summer. The Impala taught them about engines, about how to keep going even when the world was falling apart.
There was something special about that car.
John always drove, unless he was teaching the boys how to handle her. Dean sat in the front unless Sam was navigating, and Adam, well Adam sat in the back, keeping their spirits up, reminding them why they were fighting.
Sam taught him how to read in the back of that car, and Adam was soon devouring books. He'd read out loud sometimes, and there would be comfortable, companionable quiet as they took in his words. Adam's memories of Sam would always be of his brother's face turned to the window, a pensive stare into the darkness all around them, and a haunted, shadowy look that he couldn't identify until it was far, far too late.
He was too young, when it happened, to understand what was going on. He was angry at Sam for leaving at first. He was hurt, and confused. Dean just didn't talk to him, and John wouldn't explain exactly what Adam had caught a glimpse of in that motel.
So his imagination would make up the rest, until he realized, kind of out of the blue what had happened, what nobody was saying.
Sam had shot himself.
The images that came with that were garbled and confused. Adam had an impression of blood, and white, gleaming floors. He knew he had seen… whatever it was, but every time he tried to remember the details, it all kind of blurred together and his mind glossed over it like he was trying to force two magnets to touch.
It was in Literature, while they were watching "Watership Down," that the pieces clicked together. The family tragedy finally revealed. Like the rabbits, home had been lost in a tide of blood with the stench of death. He could barely face Dean when he came to pick him up after school.
The door creaked, a familiar, comforting complaint, and he closed it firmly, settling his backpack by his feet.
"How was your day?" Dean asked.
"Fine." Adam said.
His Dean was the first to move. He shoved past John, ignoring his father's warning, and pulled Sam out of the tub, away from old Adam and old Dean. "What is this?" he asked, feeling up the side of Sam's neck, searching for the source of all the blood. His anger, his fear was palpable.
"It was just an—an accident Dean. I didn't—"
I didn't mean to slip. I should be gone. I fucked it up again. Put everyone in danger. Again.
"Slipped into the tub, and blew your brains out, huh Sammy?" old Dean asked, his voice hoarse. "Well that's comforting."
"Sam?" It was John, his face was pale. He looked so much older already, as if he too was from this impossible future. "Sam, were you…?"
Sam tried to fumble out a lie, but the words got stuck. His mind was blank. It had seemed so simple when he had left the room, like a math equation. He would die, and then it would all just… stop. He wouldn't have to lie any more. The relief had been physical, a lifting of weight, but it was all crashing down around his ears.
I should be dead. Why? Why am I not dead?
The answer was standing a few feet away in the form of two much older brothers. They had hunched together, observing the scene cautiously. Young Dean shook the back of his head until Sam made eye contact. "What—" he started, but stopped abruptly.
"Sam?" he asked urgently.
What? Sam wanted to ask, What is it? What do you want? Was this not enough? But the words weren't coming. He couldn't really breathe. His lungs were paralyzed, his ribs crushing against his hammering heart. Please, he prayed, let this be a dream. I can't… I can't. I can't. I can't. I just can't do it anymore.
Darkness rushed against him like a wave against the shore.
Sam was thirteen. Death was so much a part of this life, that thinking about it constantly seemed almost normal. But it wasn't. Everyone knew that.
He instinctively hid his obsession, as it was growing to be, a little ashamed about his mind going to such dark places in the moments between hunts and school and family. It was hard not to feel guilty when he was curled up next to Adam, thinking about leaving him.
It would have been so easy. They had almost every method within arm's reach. Let me count the ways… The major pain drugs that had numbed Sam when Dean had stitched him up after his first clawing. They could rock him to sleep under some nearby bridge. The knives that could slice and dice anything, they could open up the veins in his arms, or in his neck. Poison. There were dozens in the back of the Impala, ranging from slow and painful to quick and painless.
Of course the guns, a sudden, violent exit, gone in a flash.
Temple? Chin? Heart? Swallow the barrel?
Rope? You could never have enough rope when you were a hunter. A noose around the neck? He could hang himself from a tree, none of the fixtures in the motel could be trusted to hold, and the ceiling was too low anyway.
He could jump from a roof, as long as they weren't in the extreme southern states where the buildings were too low and the land too flat.
Adam breathed against his back, his baby breaths deep and fast, on the edge of a snore. Sam let the thoughts ebb away in the wash of that noise. He wasn't serious about it. It was just a fantasy, just something to pass the time.
But that ticklish feeling, that pleasurable thrill of freedom stayed in his chest. Death was freedom, and it was just close enough to touch.
"Sam killed himself?" Dean asked shakily.
"In that bathroom, with that gun, half an hour ago," his future told him grimly.
They had grouped around the bed, and were looking at the unconscious Sam, as though at any moment he might wake up and explain what was going on.
"We'll take care of it," John said, sitting next to Sam and feeling his forehead. "We'll get him help. We can… I can fix this."
"But why don't we remember this? I still remember…" Adam swallowed and looked at himself, all eleven years old. "I remember him being gone."
"Okay," Dean sat down on the bed, "Okay. We just need to think."
Young Dean gathered Adam into his arms, and kept one eye on Sam, the other on their strange visitors. Adam had turned out alright, handsome, cool, confident, and almost serene. But that Dean looked haggard, he looked old and worn out, like Dad did when Dean knew to stay away.
He wasn't sure he would like to know what his future held.
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