i may not be in the fandom anymore but i'll be damned if i don't celebrate sam winchester's birthday.

title from icarus by bastille

Sam leaves the Bunker. After Dean, after the case with Donna, he just - he shoves some clothes in a bag and leaves, not even sparing a glance back. The Bunker hadn't been home, not really, but it had been as close as Sam had ever gotten. Yet, now, he can't stand to be there.

There's something cold about it now, like a tomb, like it had been all those years ago when he and Dean first found it. Let it return to that, he thinks. Let cobwebs grow over the remnants of their life there; let dust gather in every corner. Let someone else find it, or perhaps not; let them wonder who the 'SW' and 'DW' carved into the table were.

Sam doesn't know where he belongs anymore. All he knows is that it's not there.

He drives down back roads and through town centres, looping up and down and left and right, and he doesn't really know where he's going until the Impala is idling outside Eileen's house and he realises there is really no other place he would go.

He waits for a long time, watching through the window. The lights are off, the house bathed in darkness, and it occurs to him that he doesn't even know if she's there. Sam assumes she came back with all the others but what if -

What if -

The front room is illuminated in a soft yellow glow, and she's there. Sam breathes out shakily, his heart thumping painfully in his chest as he tracks her movements, unable to tear his gaze away or leave the car. He's lost so much of late, including her twice over, that seeing her now feels like a miracle. It feels like, if he does anything to disrupt this moment he's created for himself, she'll disappear just like that, and he'll be back in this nightmare his life has been since the day Dean died.

Then, Eileen looks up and their eyes meet, and the spell is broken.

And she doesn't disappear.

Sam blinks once, twice to make sure, then slowly he gets out of the car, making his way up the short pathway to her front door. She meets him there, her face carefully blank as she waits for him to make the first move.

Sam swallows, suddenly nervous. "Hi," he says, hands moving in tandem with his lips.

Eileen nods, a smile, albeit a small one, appearing on her face. "Hi."

A moment more passes, and then Sam collapses into her arms, breaking against the steadiness of her embrace. Eileen holds him, guides him inside to her sofa and listens as his story comes out in broken fragments. She's patient when his gestures stutter and halt, understanding when his words run out, and, above all, she's there.

She's real, a solid presence at his side, leaning on him as much as he leans on her.

Together, in the silence of her home, they keep each other standing.

They fall into a rhythm, eventually. Much as he might want to, Sam can't give up hunting completely, Eileen neither. It's in their blood, both of them having done this for far too long to be able to relinquish the fight so easily.

But, they adapt. It takes time - years, in fact, and Sam does it long before Eileen - but, eventually, they don't go out in the field anymore, instead remaining on the sidelines, acting as advisors to other hunters. New hunters, the ones who need a guiding hand so they don't immediately get themselves killed. Sam even restarts some of the protocols he introduced back when the people from Apocalypse World were around - hunter body-cams, regular check-ins, a buddy system. He wants to reduce harm, wants to, if he can, prevent others from sharing some of the pain he himself went through.

People still die, of course they do. And Sam feels every single one of them like he always has done, mourning each life lost to a cause he's still only half-sure is worth it.

Things are different now, though. Before, he'd always been alone in going through this, even when he'd had Dean. Dean had… Dean had tried, but he was never good with emotions, his or Sam's, the extent of his support the silent passing over of another beer bottle.

Eileen does that too, sometimes, but it's always when Sam needs it. Other times, she lets him talk, most of their conversations not even requiring words anymore, yet it's a quiet that carries more meaning than noise would.

They both have nightmares, both startling awake at odd hours of the night in a cold sweat after dreaming of hellhounds or cages or monsters. Sam learns that Eileen needs touch at these times, reassurance that she's alive, and not a ghost about to disappear into thin air. Eileen learns that Sam is the opposite, touch anathema to him after dreams of Lucifer's hands sliding all over his body invade his mind.

It's a process but, slowly, they unravel each other's secrets, and fall into something as natural as breathing. More natural, sometimes, when breathing becomes a challenge and all they have to rely on is each other.

Sam loves her.

It hits him all at once one day, when he's reading in the front room and Eileen is researching on the opposite couch. Nothing happens, except that he looks up and sees her.

He sees this woman who let him into her home, into her life, when he was totally alone; this woman who learned how to read him with a glance, and who he learned in return.

And he just - he loves her.

Eileen must feel her gaze on him, as she glances up, smiling when their eyes meet. Slowly, Sam raises his hand, his thumb, first, and little finger lifted with the middle two bent down against his palm.

I love you, he's saying, in the language he learnt for her.

Eileen's smile widens, and she mirrors the gesture, both of them sharing the moment before going back to their respective tasks, the silence peaceful and gentle.

It's not the perfect existence Sam had once dreamed up for himself, but it's pretty damn close. And, he thinks, as the years pass and he grows old with her, perhaps he's finally found what he was really looking for all along.

Home.

this is the last fic i'll be posting on this site. if you want to keep up with my work, i am active on ao3 (hollyhobbit101) and on tumblr (morganaspendragonss)