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Sam leaves in a flutter of no-longer-needed Xeroxed myths and newspaper clippings. The case is done. Sam had stitched up Dean’s cheek. There's still blood on Sam’s fingertips, Dean’s blood. Dean’s blood from the stitches. Dad is nowhere to be found.
Dean would be able to take those out alone.
no problem.
Sam is done with Dean messing up Sam’s computer. With Dean’s smarmy smirky grin as Dean made some disgusting joke about women or about porn. Dean accusing Sam of impossible things, things that Sam would never have done, things that Sam would never want to give up. Sam's done sticking around trying to find a father who doesn''t even want to be found.
Sam's yelling, not listening to what, throat contracting. ‘I’m not sticking around to watch you try to kill yourself - I’m done trying to steal painkillers in advance since you’re gonna throw yourself in front of a truck or some fucked up crap! – I’m done – I’m not -'
“Sammy” Dean rubs a hand over his face, winces as it catches on the new stitches. “Not gonna make it to a ripe old age anyway. Live fast, leave damn good-lookin’ corpse. Or a werewolf-mangled corpse maybe,” Dean adds with a wink.
“That is not funny, Dean”, Sam is yelling so hard it feels like something about him would snap, like the whole world would maybe snap
Sam would not survive going through again – losing -
Not Dean.
“I’m done”.
The papers leave a trail behind him, breadcrumbs or M&Ms to be found, until they peter out around the road’s bend.
_
Sam wakes up the next morning listening, still asleep, for Dean singing out of tune in the shower.
There is a big space in the room, quiet.
Sam breathes in the space, the room, cool and monochrome. Relieved
No one monologues at him in breakfast, the right condiments for hash browns , and the many wrong ones, no one telling Sam to have something more than coffee. You’re a growing boy Sammy. C’mon. Eat up .
Stanford is not for Sam anymore. He probably needs a break . He defers his admission . Maybe everyone who knows him will have moved on by next year ,
Maybe they will have at least moved on from wanting to aks him those questions.
_
Sam goes after a vampire on his own. He can handle it.
And he does.
It’s a nasty one, taking children. Taking little children.
Sam tracks it to its nest. Kills all of them one by one.
When he leaves, blood soaked but alive - he could swear he sees Dad and Dean. Dad and Dean, hunting again together, Dad wielding a large machete and Dean aiming binoculars at the nest.
They seem so real, but they’re not.
everywhere Sa m goes he sees Dean.
Walking into an army surplus outlet
Making eyes at a curvy waitress
Having a beer at a parking lot
Always at the edge of Sam’s vision
Sam’s phone rings – an unknown number.
Sa m dives for it, a slapstick routine that Dean would have reveled in for years, would never have let / Sam live down.
It’s a recorded message – automated --- offering without intonation to enlarge Sam’s personal anatomy .
Sam always gets his phone when it is an unknown number- always.
elected officials, car insurance.
Supporting - our boys in Iraq.
One night, at Hemlock, Michigan,- Sam gets it and it is Bobby. Hadn’t heard from Uncle Bobby in ages. It’s three fifty-three AM.
Dean had accepted some beer from a suspect and gotten himself into a walking dream. Idjit.
Sam hotwires a car and speeds through three states.
Sam walks through Dean’s dreams. A flash of Dean with dream Dad, and dream Sam, having a picnic. Not fishing or grilling, there is a blanket. It’s nice.
Dream Dean walks little dream Sam home after Sam’s first day at a new school, maybe ----Sam’s first day at any school. Dean lightly punches dream Sam’s shoulder and dream Sam cracks a little smile– in spite of himself, face hidden looking at the ground. Sam could still hide his face that way as a kid, was still shorter that Dean then.
Dream-Dean yells Dean that he’s nothing but a burden. Both Dad and Sam want nothing to do with him in their worthwhile lives
Sam beats up dream-Dean and tells real-Dean that it is a dream, to take control of it.
Sam wakes up first. Thanks Bobby - leaves fast – Dean would not want to see him there, would not want to know how Sam had seen him.
He misses you too, boy –- Bobby is still saying, as Sam goes out of the door.
Something fishy is going on at Murder Creek. Sam searches for water monsters in the Atlanta area, and the search autocompletes - wendigo, women’s underwear, water sports, Wagamama Fairy Mirumo de Pon, wboy beebop, wboy bebop sexy
Something fishy is going on in Palo Alto, and Sm hears Dean making the same jokes he would have about Murder Creek.
Something fishy is going on, and it is flames and blooddrops in Sam and Jess’s old house.
“I didn’t deserve this”, Jess says.
“You miss him, Sam – not just me”.
“It’s horrible that this happened. I wanted to do so many things. Intern at the White House . Try those vegetable Ritzs. Say goodbye to the kittens …. Everything’s so big and so small when I don’t get to do it.
“But it happened.
“You get to go live, Sam. I’m angry I don’t. But I want you to go live. be happy with your life, ok, Sam? “
Sam thinks he might never stop crying – but at some point he does.
There is somebody else living in their old house now, and it is clean from soot and clean by salt, it is part of their story on now.
--------------
_
Dean found Dad, Bobby tells Sam on their regular phone call.
Sam flips through radio stations, and pauses on Smoke on the Water.
Orders home fries with his fruit shake. He enjoys the fries’ heavy smell.
There is no one around to call him on that.
-
Sam wakes up looking at himself in a mirror above his motel bed. He looks tired, worn down but hopeful.
He pops a quarter into the bed’s ‘magic fingers’ and immediately regrets it. It’s too early in the morning.
Dean would have laughed for days a t Sam’s expression . Dean would have loved this room
Sam calls him.
_
They drive to help out one of Dean’s haunted old girlfriends, and the wind is poltergeisting around in the car, warm and airy blue. They get on a good highway and it’s all light strong wind , road lift off.
‘Do you think you would ever want to do life, with someone?’ They ask one another – ‘Someone who did know about hunting ?-
Dean looks at him as if he is home – because he is.
_
The scar on Dean’s cheek has already been fading. Blending in with Dean’s skin, but still there, still there when Dean gets flushed, or blanches, stark. ‘It gets me all the ladies’, Dean smirk. ‘Wait till you get one Sammy it will be a game changer’.