Author's note: All characters belong to Eric Kripke. Slightly OC. thanks to those who reviewed / set up author / story alerts. You guys are awesome. Oh! If anyone would like to be a beta, please contact me. I'd love to know your thoughts. : D Hate to say it, but I only JUST started watching season four. So any mistakes I make in the mean time, feel free to comment on. This probably won't follow that season very closely(considering I have my own plans), but I'll try to follow it as best I can. Sorry if it seems to skip around at points, too. I'm trying to introduce various characters and muddle things up. Jo will be up soon... and SURPRISE! She has a boyfriend!
"You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."
"Yeah? Who is that?"
Dean smirked, "one of us." -- Winchester brothers. Season one, PILOT.
The drive had been boring. Well, let's be honest. It wasn't boring per say, just... quiet. The roads stretched on in an endless expanse, forcing him to remember fragments of all that Sam had experienced in the passenger seat of his brothers car; and all that he would miss in the future. It seemed like he was doomed to endure this endless spiral of grief wherever he went, regardless of whether he was stuck in some crummy matchbox car, or a random motel. Though admittedly, if Bobby would put some damn music on, it might be a little easier. Give him anything but the classics, and Sam seemed sure he could breathe easy for just a few seconds. Hell, maybe he could block out the feel of that unquenchable throb in his chest.
"Oi, kid. You gonna be sick in my car? Your lookin' a bit pale again. I can pull ov-"
"No," he'd mumbled. "Bobby, don't. I- just feeling a little warm. Don't, don't." It was like, Sam didn't even know what to expect anymore. He was clutching onto the handlebar of the door, as if he was prepared to hit the end of the world any second. And Bobby... well, he was beginning to feel as if that may actually be the case, the more he was around Sam. He was too fragile, too vulnerable. Wasn't even fair really, considering all that Dean did to make sure the younger stayed alive. They were almost back to Bobby's house anyway, so if the kid tried anything funny, Ellen could be there within a couple minutes. Less than that maybe. He'd never seen Ellen drive before, so he couldn't really-
"I lost it." Sam's lips tighten and his words are soft, effectively destroying any thought Bobby had. "I... it's my fault."
"Sam?"
"I lost it," and his eyes are tearing up, looking over to the elder as if he could magically fix things.. even though he hadn't the slightest clue of what was going on. "Dean's gonna kill me."
"Is he all you think about?" He hadn't meant to say that. Shit. The words flew from Bobby's mouth before he could stop them, and Sam will never understand how far the elder would go to take them back. To bring Dean home again, so that he might've been able to change the subject before Sam could wallow in his hurt, or sprout a few choice words of his own.
"I lost it," Sam says again, a shaking hand moving to rest at his collar bone. The tall boy is slumped, head tilting downward in his shame. Bobby glances sidelong at him, thinking of what could be so guilt-worthy.. and why the hell it might bother DEAN so much.
"It's okay. We'll find it, kiddo."
"No, we won't. It's gone. I... I lost it!"
x-x-x-x-x
Ellen is pissed.
More than pissed, really. Because Sam hasn't said anything since they got home ten minutes ago, and Bobby won't explain what the hell was going on. She'd spent a solid three months worrying about the last Winchester, and now.. He wasn't talking. At least he'd answered the phone a couple days ago. Now she couldn't even get him to look at her. Friggin' Bobby. This was his fault. Ellen just knew it.
"Sam, sweetheart? It's good to see you again. Jo and I missed ya'."
He visibly shuddered underneath her gaze, as if collecting the memory of Jo had been horrifying. Rather, the last meeting he had was. Sam had never thought he'd get over that.. Even if Meg's possession hadn't been his fault, lest, how many times Dean said she'd forgiven him afterward. Ellen was treading lightly now, trying not to let her worries bubble over into overdrive as she reached out a hesitant hand: wanting to lay it on his shoulder, but afraid to try. He was teetering on the doorstep to the house, as if openly debating to come inside or not. Bobby had already stomped passed, leaving Ellen as the only source of care in his absence.
"Sam?"
He's like a wounded animal, she thinks, ready to bolt at the drop of a pin. She cursed their luck, knowing that as long as Dean was gone.. So would Sam be. You could tell that much from the look in his eyes-- a type of unfathomable emptiness, representing the darkest of woes. Ellen didn't think she'd been this upset about her own husband. Come to think of it, the last time she saw grief in such a paralyzing amount, it had been with…
"You must be tired, hun. Why don't you go lay down?"
Ellen put on the most reassuring smile she could muster, though she didn't think it would matter. Sam was already shuffling toward the stairs without really thinking about the action, stumbling once or twice over the assorted piles of books on Bobby's floor, then trucking upstairs.
Once he was out of sight, Ellen sighed. This was totally Bobby Singer's fault. And that crusty old man was rubbing on her last nerve, already. I mean, seriously. What the hell!
"You son of a bitch." She called, walking briskly toward the den, eyeing a mantle fireplace buried beneath an assortment of devils traps, and paper. One day, Ellen swore to god she'd scrub this place down. Give the hunter a heart attack, for all the trouble he caused. Her eyes leveled to the room around her, an old habit that seemed to die a bit hard lately as she sifted through the wreckage that had once been a marvelous home.
"I didn't do anything," Bobby answered, leaning back in an armchair placed dangerously close to the fireplace. His legs were stretched toward the flames, probably trying to warm up. Secretly, Ellen hoped he'd catch on fire. A couple days ago Bobby's heater had busted, but instead of letting Ellen or Jo fix it like a sensible person.. He chose to avoid the situation and run off to get Sam in that hunk of junk he called a car. Making them promise(of course), not to touch any of his shit. "Dunno what you want. I brought him home, just like you asked."
"That," she emphasized, suddenly feeling her jaw clench as she tossed a hand in the direction of the stairs, "Is not getting Sam back. What's wrong with him?"
"Dunno."
Ellen stomped her foot, growing tired of this. She cared about Bobby as much as she did her own daughter; but there wasn't a chance in hell she was gonna let him get away with him avoiding her questions. She arched a delicate brow in his direction; a trademark Jo had long ago nicknamed 'the eyebrow of doom'. It was more of a joke than anything, but Bobby better be ready for the friggin' apocalypse if he keeps this up.
"You better start explainin', before I make you."
"There ain't nothin' for me to say, dammit, woman! So retract your claws." He spoke bitterly, considering Ellen as if she might have grown three heads. Maybe stupid. She didn't know. "He's just grieving."
"That's bull and you know it, Singer! What happened?"
He sighed, raising a hand to rub at his temples. Images of Dean and Sam came flooding to him, searching for any time that Dean may have expressed his undying anger toward something that Sam should NOT do. And unfortunately, aside from Ruby, nothing really came to mind.
"He lost something." He admits, looking back to the mother-figure before him. His lips are chapped and his hair is a brighter shade of gray, but only Ellen seemed to notice. "And isn't ever going to get 'im back."
x-x-x-x-x-x
Sam rolled over, groaning. His joints protested the movement, but he paid them no heed. If anything, he lived for the moments when he felt pain. Proved that he was still real. That any of it was still real. The pillow beneath his head was frumpy and uncomfortable, but for now, Sam didn't bother to give it much thought. He was too consumed by the image plastered against his old bedroom wall; a college print of Stanford. He blinked at the pasture green lawn and academic walls comforted by fringe hedging and parlor white fences, while the memory of college in its entirety slowly began to settle in his stomach. Sam reached out to slowly span his palm across the brochure, his eyes flicking away in disgust. He remembered the first time Dean came looking for him after he left, and how he had...
No.
Sam shook his head, disrupting the memory. He couldn't go back to the beginning. Too many mistakes. Too many regrets. And he knew for a fact that Dean wouldn't want him to do that. So, instead, Sam silently chorused the understanding that Dean was approximatly six feet and seven centimeters under a patch of loose gravel with a makeshift coffin to kep him sane, because in the end, he knew that even if he had to give up his life for the search, Sam would find a way to have his brother dig himself up again.
He rolled over, turning his back to the wall and squeezing his eyes shut. He mapped out the layout of the old cabin his brother rested at, his fingertips idly tracing a distinct path on invisible land. 256 steps from the the back door. A twenty-nine degree turn to the right. Pass a twisted willow tree, walk 52 more feet, and stop. The old cross came to his mind, made more for a mock standard if anything. Sam hadn't put too much consideration in the cross, knowing they wouldn't need it for forever. Just for a short while. Sam imagined the trees circling Dean's grave, and the dull flowers that rested in patches. There were exactly seven yellow, four white, and two pink. Sam knew that one day, his brother was going to jest about Sam's obsessivness over how many flowers there were, complaining how he prefered hell over hearing about that. It was all he had to hold onto now, in the dark of night. All he needed. His hand clung to the pillow beneath his head, pushing pain onto the one object he could. Anything he felt, and everything he did feel, was nothing. Sam made sure he remembered that. It was all nothing... compared to what Dean must be going through. He swallowed thickly, feeling his tounge swell. His brother was in hell. Dean, was in hell. Still. Even the thought of this, made him shudder. His eyes, which flicked beneath closed lids, tried their hardest to blur it away. It worked for the most part, but at a terrible price. The shorter Winchester took over the center of his mind in a smog of white, drawing a memory of the last time they'd eaten together; before any of the yellow-eyed demon's work had come into affect.
"You have got to be kidding me," Sam huffed, glaring daggers at his brother.
"What?" Dean looked over, those green eyes of his alite, donning a mask of confusion. Either that.. or the utmost innocence. Dean pulled both off flawlessly. "Sammy, I always order extra onions."
The younger scoffed.
"Yeah, and I have to ride with you." Sam complained. "The car's not big enough for the three of us, Dean." When the other man shrugged in nonchalance, Sam elaborated. "Me, you, and the onions."
It hurt to think that now, he would do anything to smell his brother's onion breath, or see him fake nonchalance. Back then, it had seemed so frivilous, so childish, Sam disliked the oldest for everything.. if only so he could feel superior in some way. Sam replayed the image of his brother again and again, hoping to prevent the cross from fading into view. The words were spoken in a toneless monologue, drifting into a tone unlike his brothers and utterly foreign.. yet so familiar at the same time.
It's only then, that he sleeps.