Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
The Fourth Year
The leather seats of the Impala give way to accommodate and support his body from years of him sitting in that very passenger spot. It's home, the only one he's had past the age of four, but it doesn't feel like home without Sam there.
The houses lining the street taunt him with their stability and their occupants who don't know about the darkness of the world. The white picket fences and the normal jobs of normal people who have a place to go home to every night that they can call theirs.
He sees into their homes, lights on while they enjoy the night, and he watches them go about their evening routines. Eating dinner as a family as a table that's steady and clean. Dean's dinner came wrapped in a piece of foil that he crinkles into a ball before he tosses it into the backseat and wipes the grease from his hands onto his worn-out, washed out jeans.
If life was fair—if life gave a damn about him—it'd be him and Sam fighting over the remote in a clean and properly furnished living room. They'd be out in the driveway playing basketball. Dean would tease Sam over being a nerd, not knowing what he would do with his own future while Sam seemed to have it all figured out. He'd tease Sam over every little crush, real and imaginary, but be there when Sam needed a bit of advice or a boast of confidence.
Silence has become a regular piece of his life, so much so that he isn't bothered by the lack of conversation over the hours spent in the Impala with his dad. He doesn't have anything to say to his father, and it isn't a stretch to say that the feeling is mutual.
Sitting, staring, and doing nothing at all is exhausting. Dean yawns and rubs at his eyes with the rough, dried skin of his hands balled into fists. The scent of burning wood seeps into the Impala from an unknown source, rounding out the sleepy neighborhood they've been drawn to for a stakeout.
No matter how long they wait and watch, nothing of note happens. If not for the lights turning on and off within the house to display human silhouettes passing through the rooms, Dean would think that no one is home.
Dean yawns and tilts his head back until it rests against the seat. This is torture, to sit around and wait for something that may or may not happen. For an instant, the thought that this is what it must be like to be a spirit creeps into his mind, but he brushes it away as quickly as possible. Sam might be a spirit, and he doesn't want to think of the hell that must be.
He hopes more than anything that Sam is at peace with their mother, getting to know her so that he'll have stories to tell when Dean finally catches up to them.
"It helps to keep your mind on what you're watching and not let it wander," John says.
"How'd you know?"
"It's written all over your face."
"How do you do it? Just keep going after everything?" Dean asks.
"I do what I have to do," John says. "I keep going because it's what I can do. I can't change the past, but I can change the future. I can keep others from feeling the same pain I've felt, and I have to believe that's worth it."
Dean slumps a bit in his seat, feeling that his father's words were meant to make him sit up straighter and hold his head higher. Yet it doesn't. He isn't as strong as his father. He isn't as stubborn as Sam was. His strength was being strong for Sam. His purpose for being revolved around Sam.
But Sam is gone and he's been thrown out of his orbit into unknown territory.
After a lengthy moment of silence, John says, "It takes time."
"Yeah," Dean says. "I guess."
He returns his attention to one house lining the street, appearing as innocuous as all the others, but that may have occupants of another nature. He'll do what he has to in order to keep the innocent humans safe, but he doesn't have the fire or the passion for the hunt anymore.
He's not sure that time can bring those feelings back.
His dad sits down on the edge of his bed, and Sam fights the urge to move away. He hasn't made amends with his parents or come any closer to understanding their reaction to Meg. Since that day, they've barely been on speaking terms. What his father—a concept Sam has a tough time associating with the man beyond words—could possibly want to talk about, well, Sam has no idea.
"I know we've been cold to you lately," Gary says.
Sam doesn't roll his eyes, no matter how much he wants to.
"To see Meg her was shocking, and we didn't handle that shock properly." He has a thin veneer of sincerity coating his words, but it wouldn't take much to chip it away and find the lack of emotion beneath it. It's the silver tongue of a practiced liar, and Sam doesn't know how he knows that each word is a piece of a careful lie, but he does.
Sam nods. There's a lot he wants to say, but he doesn't dare utter a word. Regardless of what he thinks about his parents, he's at their mercy.
"She's a bad kid, Sam," Gary says. "I've seen her records. I've had her in class. I know that nothing good will come from spending time with her. I don't want your future to be dragged down because of her. You deserve better than that. It starts with skipping classes to go to lunch, but where does it end?"
"I'm not sure I'll be returning to classes soon either way," Sam says. "That last migraine took a lot out of me, and I don't think I'm ready to go back yet."
Gary smiles and pats Sam's knee, hidden beneath a mess of blankets, a few times. "You can take all the time you need. We'll talk to your professors and see what can be arranged so that you won't fall too far behind."
Sam musters up a small smile of his own in return, but it feels twisted and wrong on his face. His stomach rolls and his skin crawls at the touch of Gary, the man supposed to be his father.
Shouldn't he feel safe in the presence of his parents? Thinking back, had he ever felt safe in their presence, or had he fooled himself into thinking that he had?
Meg had—intentionally or not—done something to clear his mind. She wiped away the submissive fog that kept him from questioning too much and allowed him to see that which he was incapable of seeing for all the years since the moment he woke up in the hospital without a single memory of who he was or how he got there. She threw back the veil and told him to look at all that to which he'd been blind.
So, he did, and what he saw left him scares. What he still sees continues to leave him scared. This room isn't his safe place like he once believed.
"That sounds good," Sam says. "Thank you."
"You don't need to thank me," Gary says. Sam notices the genuine joy in his eyes at the belief that his reuse has been successful in fooling Sam once again. "I'd do anything to help you succeed."
Sam watches Gary stand and leave, keeping a painful plastic smile on his face until the moment the door closes and he lets it fade away. He releases a breath he never realized he was holding and looks out his bedroom window.
What else in this world has he been missing?
It's a spark of curiosity that drives him forward. The thought of his blurry hospital memories and bits of conversations that trail off and fade in his mind. Fragments of words written on walls and signs present themselves, and he grasps onto what he can. The name of the hospital? Not quite.
Part of the name? Well, he doesn't have anything else to go off of, and there's no harm in pretending that he works for Sam Burroughs' new doctor and needs those records transferred to ensure proper treatment.
It wouldn't hurt anybody. Those are his own records, after all.
He punches in the numbers for the hospital he was at after his accident into his phone with a disconnected numbness. If he thinks about what he's doing too in depth, he'll chicken out. He can feel it.
He almost misses the voice on the other line, feminine and clinical, perfect for the medical setting.
"Hello," Sam says. "This is… Jeremy from Lawrence Memorial Hospital. I have a patient who was treated at your facility following a car wreck a few years back, and he claims that the injuries he sustained continue to bother him. I was hoping that I could get his medical records transferred here so we can get him in for a follow-up."
"Sure. the patient's name and birthday?"
"Samuel Burroughs. Born on May 2, 1983."
There's a pause that leaves Sam's stomach in knots. What if she doesn't believe him? What if she's taking so long to reply because she sees through his lie?
"I'm sorry, but there are no records for a patient with that name and birthday on file here."
"What?" Sam asks.
"I suggest contacting Samuel and double-checking his information."
"Yeah. Yeah, I will. Thanks," Sam says.
He hangs up before she can reply, though he's certain that she wouldn't say anything useful to him.
He flops back onto his bed and stares at the ceiling. What the hell is going on? He doesn't have medical records from after he was hit by a car?
It doesn't make sense, but unlike the other small things that don't add up, this one is too big to give the benefit of the doubt. He can't attribute this to an outside force and try to reason through it to convince himself that, under the proper conditions, it could be true.
He picks up his phone and holds it high overhead, sending a message to Meg.
"My parents are lying to me," he says. "I don't know who they are, but they're hiding something, and I know it has to be important."
It doesn't take long for his screen to light up and buzz to alert him to a new message.
Meg tells him that she has a plan, if he doesn't mind staying in his room and pretending everything is okay for a little bit longer.
"I guess not," Sam says back to her. "I've been doing it for so long already, what does it matter if I keep pretending that I believe the lies they tell me."
"Good," she replies. "And don't worry. Your jailbreak is coming soon."
He doesn't know what she means or what she's planning on doing, but he can't bring himself to care.
When faced with the option of lying parents and Meg, he's choosing Meg.
He doesn't have any reason to believe she's lied to him, and he has even less reason to believe that his parents have told the truth about her.
He'll go with the lesser of two evils.
It's after sunset on another mindlessly boring day of their stakeout that Dean feels a shift in his air, enough of a shift to force the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck to stand at attention. He glances at his dad, and the sight of his concentrated face is enough to tell Dean that—whatever it is he feels—his dad is feeling it, too.
He watches a car drive down the street, the intensity of its headlights nearly blinding, until it parks on the street in front of the Burroughs' household. The lights fade away and leave only an impression in Dean's eyes, a bright impression that leaves him blinking to clear it away.
The car doors open and shut, sharp interruptions in the quiet neighborhood they've been watching. The first figure he sees leave the car is the girl whose eyes turned black and who knew him by name. He swears that she looks back at him with a smirk before walking towards the house with an older man in tow.
The streetlights above them flicker with an electric hum.
The man looks over his shoulder at them with a grin.
And his eyes flash yellow.
They walk into the house, and Dean is getting out of the Impala.
"Son of a bitch," John says. "Grab the holy water."
Dean doesn't need the instructions. His body moves of its own accord, knowing what to do in a situation where his mind is frozen at the realization that the bastard who walked into the Burroughs' home is his mother's killer. He never thought this moment would come, but now that it has, he understands how unprepared he is to deal with true demons.
They're halfway across the street when the house lights up in a blaze of flames.