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It felt a bit odd, standing in the shadows like a stalker, spying on his younger, innocent, unsuspecting self, but it was decidedly not the oddest situation Sam Winchester had ever found himself in.
It had likely only been a month or two since the younger him had left Dean and his father for Stanford, judging by the uncomfortable way his eighteen-year-old self was burying himself in copious amounts of coursework. Sam vaguely remembered a few of the textbooks his hoodie-clad double was poring over, but the memories of his college education were as distant as though they were from another life.
A large coffee cup was perched precariously on the edge of the library table, the marker scribbles on the side announcing that it was a double Black Eye coffee from the small coffee stand outside the library.
Sam couldn’t help but admire his younger self’s unabashed enthusiasm- the hunter’s life had grained diligence into him, but the determination to learn and study as much as he possibly could was utterly and completely Sam. Had someone else been in his situation, they would have completed their assignments as quickly as possible in order to get back to whatever leisure task they preferred. Sam, though, preferred to absorb as much knowledge as possible, thoroughly poring over every resource available to him.
Dean had jokingly called him a variety of names for this in the past- ‘nerd’, ‘geek’, and ‘overachiever’ were all near the top of the list. Sam had never considered his thirst for knowledge to be unreasonable, however- growing up hunting, he had always needed to learn and retain as much as he could from every possible source.
The elder Sam still kept traces of his younger counterpart’s trait, although it was not always present in the same way. In college, Sam’s hardworking attitude had been more of a distraction from the past than a pure need for information. That had stuck with him to the present, in that he buried his problems in endless research whenever possible. It was as effective a coping technique as it had been ten years prior, only working on the very surface level of distracting his thoughts by not allowing them to idle.
Idleness had never been kind to Sam Winchester, who forever preferred focusing on something relatively useless to letting his mind wander into the darker thoughts it inevitably settled on.
Sam was startled out of his thoughts when his mirror image looked up, giving him only a passing glance at first before his eyes widened with recognition, if not realization of who was staring at him from across the library.
Sam weaved through desks and bookshelves, sliding into the seat across from his double a few moments later. Suspicion, nervousness, and fear were all clearly painted across his younger self’s features. It was odd, seeing his own features, both familiar and at the same time completely foreign to him.
“What are you? How did you find me?” his younger self’s voice would have sounded threatening to anyone else, but Sam could see through the false shield he had put up- the student was scared, terrified that he had been found, that some terrible creature from his past was going to ruin the only escape from hunting he had ever had.
“I’m not some creature or anything, you don’t have to bother with the-“ Sam didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence before a trickle of water from a small flask was tossed over the exposed skin of his hand and he’d been poked experimentally with a silver spoon. Sam had almost forgotten about that, actually- how even when he was out of the life, when he’d sworn off hunting and spent his days studying, he’d still kept a flask of holy water and some piece of silver on him at all times.
It made him feel almost nostalgic, really, seeing the ways his younger self had feebly tried to protect himself from the world’s endless evils.
“- I’m not a creature. I’m you... Sort of, anyway. Sam Winchester. Nice to meet you.” Sam extended a hand- the one not currently dripping holy water all over textbooks- for a handshake. It was promptly ignored.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s a lot of things that are possible, but time travel’s not one of them.” Sam had realized this might be a problem, of course- there was no good way to tell yourself that you were them from the future without sounding like a character from a shitty sci-fi movie. “So unless you start talking sense, I’m leaving.” It hurt Sam to see himself so young and already so guarded and defensive, even when there was no immediate threat present.
“Okay, listen- I really can’t explain anything. Not in detail, anyway. I don’t know if telling you things you don’t know now will screw up the future, but that’s really not something I want to risk. Basically, I’m you from…. you’re a freshman now?” His mirror image nodded, “Ten years in the future. God, I know that sounds impossible and stupid, but it’s true. I’m just trying to think of how to prove it.”
His younger self didn’t look at all persuaded, but Sam wasn’t surprised- he’d be rather disappointed in his college-aged self if he could he persuaded by something that sounded so ridiculous.
“If you want to prove you’re… me, how about you try thinking of something only I would know?” The younger of the two crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, disapproval and distrust still clearly etched into his expression.
It took only a few moments of thinking before Sam came up with something. “Your first kiss was Tyler Jackson in the seventh grade, but you always told Dean you actually sucked face with his sister Delilah so that he wouldn’t think you were gay.” The younger’s eyes widened, but he didn’t look convinced.
“You could be a satori or strega and have read my thoughts to find that. You’re gonna need stronger evidence. Something concrete.” The older Sam ran a hand through his hair in mild agitation, wracking his thoughts for some even deeper secret.
“You always hated the life. Knew you deserved better. You worked hard every damn day of your life, for dad and for Dean, and never once got anything in return. You want a house with a white picket fence and a wife and a 9-to-5 job and two point five kids because it’s what you deserve, it’s what you’ve earned. You’ve done nothing but give things up and make sacrifices, and for once you want exactly the perfect, happy life you deserve.”
Sam had kept his tone at an even, soft, library tone, but the expression of the young man across from him contorted as though he’d been shouted at. After a long, heavy pause, the student began playing with the strings of his red Stanford hoodie. Finally he answered,
“Okay. Fine, you’re… you’re me. I believe you- for now, anyway. But if you’re really me, you have a lot of explaining to do- how did you get here? And why would you even want to?” The older Sam sighed, trying to think of a way to explain without giving anything away to his younger counterpart.
“Dean and I were on a hunt- thought e were after a ghoul, turned out to be a genie. It captured me and I had to make a wish, something that would be purely for my own benefit, in order to have a chance at recapturing it. I wished to se my younger self, figured we had a few things we could talk about. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, really.” Sam realized his mistake only after confusion once again clouded his mirror image’s expression.
“A hunt? But- no way. I left the life. I’m out. I’m here, I’m going to be a la- unless…”
“I can’t tell you more than that. I really can’t.” In all likelihood, Sam telling his younger self about future events wouldn’t change anything. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it- the young man before him still retained some semblance of hopefulness and life, compared to his older self. Sam couldn’t bring himself to say or do anything that would endanger whatever vitality his younger self still retained.
“At least tell me this- I swear I won’t ask more about the future if you really can’t tell me, but… You said you were on a hunt with Dean. After I- you- left to come here, did we, Dean and I, are we on speaking terms again? We get along?” Sam remembered, even so many years later, how much that worry had consumed him, that Dean would never accept him back into his life. For a while he hadn’t wanted him to- severing all ties had seemed the only viable escape from hunting. But then had come the fear- the fear that Dean hated him for leaving, that he had royally screwed up the most important connection in his life.
“Yeah, you- we- Dean and I, we’re… it gets fixed, trust me. You didn’t screw up as badly as you think you did.” The relief was evident on the younger Sam’s face, the expression of happiness foreign even so many years and so many hardships earlier. “But, you have to promise something.” The younger nodded, glancing up to make stronger eye contact than he had throughout the entire conversation so far.
“Appreciate what you have now. Away from hunting, away from everything- make friends, make mistakes, make memories. Do stupid shit, get drunk, go to parties- you have to appreciate the college scene, man. Life’s only going to get rougher from here on out. And yeah, I know how horribly pessimistic that sounds, but just… believe me, okay?”
The younger nodded, and Sam could tell he was only agreeing for lack of any better way to respond. The elder felt as though a weight had been lifted from his chest, though; his younger self didn’t necessarily need to heed his advice, but just knowing that he had at least gotten his words across was enough to grant him some peace of mind.
There were a few moments of silence, neither of them sure quite what to say, until the older of the two said, “Tell me about you. How are you? What classes do you have this semester? Anyone interesting you’ve met lately?”
“Besides you?” It was the closest thing to a joke the younger had attempted, and the smile that momentarily graced his features was a welcome change.
“Yeah, besides me. There’s got to be something interesting going on in the world of Sam.”
“I dunno, going to classes, eating cafeteria food… it still seems surreal. Like any second I’m going to wake up and be in the back of the car with dad barking at me to get up, we’re here, time to be the ghostbusters again.”
Sam remembered that vividly- the sense of detached unreality the first few months, like there was no way he had actually made it out of hunting, and he would be startled back into the Impala’s backseat at any moment.
“On a more positive note, there’s this girl in my Econ class. Jessica Moore. Jess. We’ve been talking more and more lately. I- I think I’m going to ask her out soon. All our friends want me to, and she’s a great girl.” The younger Sam met his older counterpart’s eyes, lingering longer than they had before. “But… you already know all this, right? About me- you-“
“I wanted to hear you talk about it. It’s nice, how you still…” The elder wasn’t sure how to finish his thought without sounding depressingly negative. ‘It’s nice how you still have life in your eyes’? ‘It’s nice how you look so happy and satisfied and full of ambition’? ‘It’s nice how you haven’t given up all hope of happiness for yourself yet’? “- It’s just, you’re happy here. Things get… rough, and you, before everything that happened- happens- whatever, you’re content. And it shows. And I wish things were still like this.” College-age Sam reached a hand across the books and papers on the table and grasped the other man’s, so similar to yet different from his own.
“Look, I don’t know what’s coming for me- and frankly, you look awful, so it’s probably a good thing that I don’t. But you’re still alive, and if you- I- get back into hunting, that’s one hell of an accomplishment. And, Sam?” he paused, waiting for his older self to meet his eyes before continuing, “Good job. You’ve gotten this far, and even though I’m sure you’re not perfectly intact, you’re not broken yet. You… I’ve always worried I wouldn’t amount to anything, that I’d be a disappointment, that I’d let my family down. I don’t know much, but I know for a fact that you haven’t let them down.”
The elder hadn’t come to Stanford in hopes of such words of wisdom from his younger self; he had wanted the opposite actually, wanted to reassure his younger self that Dean didn’t hate him, that his family life wasn’t ruined. The words he received, though, were a vast improvement on whatever pathetic excuse for life advice he could have come up with.
“Thank you.” It was hardly loud enough to be heard, but the younger version of him smiled knowingly. It was only then that Sam realized just how closely the two had leaned together over the table, their faces only inches apart. Their fingers had become loosely intertwined, calluses and scars and stress-picked nails evident to varying degrees on both.
“Hey, you’re-“ The younger’s tone made Sam look down in alarm, to see that his previously solid hand had obtained an odd translucent quality.
“I guess that’s all the time I get here. I think the genie’s pulling me back.” Sam’s own thoughts were becoming fuzzy at the edges, as though he were fading away in mind as well as in body. “But, Sam… thank you. And good luck, man, you’re going to be great. In everything.”
Sam was hardly solid now, fading and flickering. The last thing he registered was his younger self crashing their lips together with reckless abandon, a million words they hadn’t had time to say being conveyed in a fleeting instant.
“Thank you…” the final words swirled around him as all went dark, and Sam returned to the time where he belonged, the feeling of his own mouth still lingering against his lips.