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Sam Winchester had spent a good portion of his adult life hearing voices.
It didn’t happen right away.
At first there was only Sam, staggering off the patch of dirt road that had served as their battlefield, the last survivor, and so numb for it. Not even the Impala, having carried them as far as she could until her tank held nothing but fumes, with windows blown out and tires worn out, was salvageable.
He only went back to the bunker for the essentials. He took a car from the garage. He locked the door behind himself and tucked the key into his bag.
The things he left behind: a box of fake IDs, a well-worn journal. Ghosts.
Dean’s colt on the table.
He wasn’t sure he was strong enough to carry it.
Life fell back together after that in jagged pieces. A place to stay. Motel after motel, gas station after gas station, laying in bed and wondering how long he had to stay there until he turned to dust too, until one morning he woke up to a voice saying, “Dammit, Sammy. I didn’t take the heat just so you could mope your way through life. Get up.”
So he did.
“You’re seriously debating this?”
“Yes. Now shut up about it,” Sam replied under his breath, no real heat to his words.
“No, I’m serious. What even is the difference between whole grain and whole wheat?”
Sam huffed, half in amusement as he returned one of the loaves to the shelf. “They do have different nutritional values. That’s something I like to look out for.”
Sam didn’t care about the sideways looks he got in public. He didn’t care what people thought. They didn’t know that he had stood on the edge of the end of the world and given everything again, and this was all he had come away with.
“Hey Sammy! They have those little toaster buns over here!” Dean called from up ahead.
Sam passed the nosy woman gaping at him farther up the aisle without sparing her a second glance.
His phone rang.
Sam pulled it from his pocket, checked the screen.
Held at as it rang.
Dean’s voice, from beside him. “Who is it?”
“Jody.” Again.
“You gonna answer it?”
“I… haven’t talked to her since… I don’t know what to say,” Sam admitted.
“Tell her the truth,” Dean suggested. “Tell her you quit the life. Tell her I didn’t.”
Is that what happened? Sam wanted to ask.
East, for no particular reason. Through Missouri and Illinois, looking for something. More driving. Through little towns and down long stretches of highway. He watched the last leaves and the first snow fall from a three-star motel called the Crossroads Motel. (It was a mile from the nearest actual crossroads, and had no demonic activity. Sam checked.)
Sam booked a double, because he always booked a double. He stayed for a while, lost in a haze of familiar patterns of take-out meals and bad TV and not enough hot water.
Stayed until, “Come on, Sam. Don’t you think we’ve had enough crossroads for a while?”
Packing took all of a few minutes. He was on the road right after.
There were things the brothers used to do – games they’d play on the road as kids that morphed as they grew up, long silences on the road filled with only old tapes and passing signs and John’s fingers tapping on the steering wheel.
License plate games, where they competed to try to be the first to see plates from every state, and Sam being adamant that Canadian plates should get him bonus points. It was the only way he could win, since Dean always had the better vantage point from the front seat. Or attempting the alphabet game – Sam pointing out signs with the words “Ahead”, “Bakery”, and “Chance” in order - Dean snickering while trying to spell out ‘you stink’.
They were things Sam hadn’t thought of in a long time. Until Dean’s voice broke through the silence of the car and he said, “Hey, do you remember that time…”
Nostalgia tasted a bit burnt around the edges.
It wasn’t the same, in this car. Those memories belonged in the Impala, and inside Sam’s head. They didn’t bring anything now.
He remembered driving the roads while Dean was in Purgatory, how his hands on the wheel had felt. The turn of the tires, the squeak of the door that Dean never quite fixed, the slide of familiar seats.
This car was different. This car wasn’t a home. It was just a means to an end, and they both knew it.
Still, they kept driving.
“Maybe that one,” Dean said, out of the blue.
“That one what?” Sam muttered.
“That one – that house, dumbass. Are you even looking?”
“Looking at the road. While I’m driving,” Sam snarked.
“Sam, slow down. I need you to see this.”
And, well, Sam had never been very good at telling his brother no.
He pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road, because why not. He was in no hurry to get anywhere. He released his seatbelt, popped the door open, and stepped out of the car into the cold air.
“It’s look like it’d be a good fit for you.” Dean said.
“A good fit for me? How would you know?” Sam hadn’t lived in a house in… too long.
“It’s tall. You’re tall.” Sam could hear the grin in his voice. “It’s got this big, fluffy pile of hair on top–“
“No, it does n-“ Sam cut himself off before he finished, not about to indulge Dean’s antics. “I don’t want to live in a house that looks like me.” Then, because he just couldn’t help himself, “It doesn’t look like me.”
Dean laughed, bright and young.
The house wasn’t really tall, only two floors, but it was narrow, so it did leave that impression. It had a small deck, lots of windows, and a few bare trees in the yard. The paint wasn’t fresh. There was nothing to make it stand out at all.
There was a For Sale sign hinged by the road.
By the time the paperwork was finished (fake documents and fake bank information all passing through scrutiny. But why wouldn’t they? Sam had been doing this his whole life), Sam regretted his choice a hundred times over, debated getting in the car and driving and pretending he didn’t have any ties at all. Dean must have known (Dean always knew), because it was his voice, brimming with a kind of excitement Sam hadn’t heard in weeks and weeks, urging him forward again.
Sam carried all his belongings from the car to the door in one trip. The key was heavy in his pocket.
The door opened easily, though somehow Sam had been expected a herculean effort would be needed. But no, it swung open soundlessly, invitingly.
Home smelled like dust and age, untouched and waiting.
It reminded Sam of turning on the lights in the bunker for the first time.
“Wow, Sam. You’re a real respectable member of the community now! A homeowner!” Dean crowed.
Suddenly the house didn’t feel so empty.
He spent the afternoon buying groceries and linens, beers to celebrate. Scrubbing down the furniture that had been left behind by previous inhabitants, washing the windows so the bright February sun could enter again. Painting patterns on the walls so other creatures could not.
And that first night, after he locked the door, he paused on the threshold, palming the cannister of salt he’d bought. He looked around, hating that he did even as he continued the motion, wishing the action didn’t make him feel ashamed. He had to do this thing, this once.
He knew there was no reasonable explanation for why he hadn’t yet – why it hadn’t mattered before, on the road. A place that was just as much Dean’s as it was Sam’s - something he couldn’t risk taking away from his brother.
Occasionally he wondered what a head doctor would say. It would be all too easy to justify it, after all. Sam just knew his brother so well he could predict every comment he would make in any scenario.
He knew what any hunter would say too – how they’d be looking for whatever might tether Dean’s spirit to this place. But Sam had left his possessions behind in Kansas. Whatever Dean was now, whatever the voice was, if it was tethered to anything it was tethered to Sam himself.
He spoke to the empty room.
“You understand, right? Why I’m doing this? Just… in case.”
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In the morning, when the voice near his ear said happily, “Rise and shine, you big lump,” the thing that choked Sam tasted suspiciously like relief.
Suddenly life had context again. It wasn’t just Sam, placeholding and afraid to grab on again. It was one neighbor who smiled and waved when she saw him outside, and another neighbor who glared at him when she saw him, turning up her nose as if someone occupying the faded dwelling Dean had found him was her worst nightmare.
“Or maybe she just doesn’t like your hair,” Dean teased.
It was Tom at the hardware store who helped him when he needed tools to stop the leak from his sink, and Angie at the café who always made his smoothie a size up for no extra charge.
“She definitely likes the hair,” Dean murmured in his ear, humor keeping his voice light.
Sam shook the newspaper out and laid it beside his plate. Sometimes he and Dean would get a good laugh out of the opinions page, or the classifieds. Sam didn’t make it that far this time, though. The article inside the front page was headlined: Police refuse to comment on rumors of organs missing from murdered couple.
“This sounds like it could be–“
“Werewolves. Yeah, I see it.”
“It’s only 5 or 6 hours away.”
“Sam. Don’t do it.”
Sam stabbed his fork at his eggs restlessly. “It’s my job. I should.”
“It was your job. This is out now. You’re out.”
Sam thought about the box under his bed, the sigils under the wallpaper, the restlessness sometimes in his bones. Was he truly out? Was that what this was?
“When did I stop helping people?” Sam said out loud.
Dean scoffed. “You didn’t stop helping people. You carried that guys order to his truck yesterday when you were at the hardware store. And you shoveled the driveways of both neighbors – even though I keep telling you that Mrs. Thomas thinks you’re a devil worshipper, and I don’t know why you bother.”
“It’s hard. Sitting here, knowing, but not doing anything,” Sam whispered. He thought perhaps he was only able to voice the thought because he couldn’t see Dean’s face.
“I know. But I can’t help you anymore.”
“I could save those people. Before any more end up dead.”
“Yeah, but I’m trying to keep you alive, Sammy.” And for the first time, Dean sounded… tired. “Can’t you just let me this time?”
The house was tense for the next few days, but Sam didn’t go.
“Hey, Sam. Thanks for the message about the werewolves. Claire took care of it, so I just wanted to update you. Haven’t heard from you or Dean lately. Give me a call back. It’d be great to see you again – Claire won’t admit it, but she misses you too!”
Jody’s voice was as upbeat as always.
The message ended, Sam’s phone asking him in a grainy voice if he wanted to play it back or save it for later. He deleted it, hand clenched tight against the table top.
Sam had already replaced the weathered boards that made up the front steps, as well as completed a half dozen other small projects that had given him something to do.
He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Dean had picked this house for him. He always seemed to know Sam better than he knew himself. Knew that this house needed a strong back and a set of hands, and Sam couldn’t sit idle. Not yet.
When he stepped up on the deck, he bypassed the door, walking farther down the wooden porch, running his hand quickly across the railing, testing it’s worth. He shook it briefly and it didn’t budge. He nodded to himself, satisfied.
Sam glanced up, and his eyes were drawn to the large trees in front of him in the small yard. He wondered how much shade the deck would get. It was a large enough space for a few chairs and a table, and he stepped back to eyeball a few measurements for future reference.
One of the boards sagged noticeably under his foot, so he took another step back to avoid it, but the board he stepped on next gave way unexpectedly, sending him sideways with a curse and a twist.
Sam landed hard on his ass, grunting another curse at the abrupt impact, and it took a moment after the shock receded for him to feel the throb of his ankle where was it was stuck between two halves of a rotten board.
He was no stranger to injury, and he pulled his ankle out with minimal scrapping. A quick check with his hands led him to believe it wasn’t too serious.
“Sam? You okay down there?” Dean asked, his voice thick with worry.
Sam had to resist the impulse to ask for a hand up, like he would have done once. “Yeah, yeah, no big deal.”
“Sam?” Came a high-pitched, worry-laced voice, and he realized that his neighbor had witnessed his fall. “Sam? Are you alright?” She hurried across the short distance between their houses, coming up his stairs and Sam instinctively held out a hand to stop her.
“Woah, hey, don’t come up here! It was a bad board, there could be more,” Sam warned her.
She startled to a stop, clearly not having thought of that. “But… do you need help?”
“I think I’m okay. Really.” Sam huffed, a bit embarrassed now. “Thanks…”
“Lauren,” Dean’s voice supplied.
“Thanks, Lauren,” Sam continued. He pulled himself up easily, eyes on the deck as if it would betray him again at any moment.
“Your ankle,” Lauren said, reaching out.
“Just a bit bruised, I think.” Sam laughed a bit to set her at ease. “I’ve had worse.”
She hesitated, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll be fine.”
Except instead of reassuring her, that made Lauren frown. “We? I thought you lived alone.”
It took Sam a ridiculously long moment to realize what she was saying. To remember he did live alone. That Dean… well, that Dean was here but he wasn’t. Huh… he was surprised by his slip of the tongue. He knew, after all. He wasn’t confused about it.
“Nice going, dummy. Now the cute neighbor thinks you’re crazy.”
“It’s kind of your fault,” Sam muttered out of reflex.
Lauren face crinkled. “Hey,” she protested, confused.
“Well, not your fault.” Sam laughed briefly “Obviously.”
“Look, if you’re fine, then I’m going to go,” she said, retreating down the steps.
Sam watched her go.
Lauren looked back over her shoulder at him before she went in her house.
Sam waved awkwardly.
“Wow.” Dean laughed. “I am one hundred percent embarrassed for you, little brother.”
“Shut up,” Sam said, as he hobbled into the house.
His ankle wasn’t too bad – at least, only twisted and not sprained. The bruising and scrapes were tender, but he had endured worse.
He made it upstairs that night without too much trouble (“Always so stubborn, huh?”), tired and achy but wanting his own bed. He could have sworn before he closed his eyes he heard Dean mumbling the same thing he used to say when Sam was a kid and got punched on the playground or fell off his bike and bloodied his knees.
“Don’t worry, Sammy. I gotcha.”
In the morning when Sam forced his eyes open, his ankle ached, and he sighed as he shuffled around under the covers, wondering at the merits of just staying in bed for the day. He reached over for his phone to check the time, and his hand bumped against a small bottle he didn’t remember setting there.
He picked it up and the Ibuprofen stared back at him. Sam squinted at the bottle for a second, surprised but grateful that he must have thought to bring it up with him the night before.
When spring finally came, it came in suddenly, riding on half a storm. Snow that became sad puddles in an afternoon, and the sun that caught on the porch and stayed, strong and beaming, prompting Sam to pull a chair from the kitchen out onto the deck.
Then a second chair.
Just… just because.
Sam propped his feet on a crate and took a gulp of his beer then rested it on the rail, blinking against the sun’s rays.
“Almost like summers at Bobby’s when we were kids,” Dean commented. “’Cept he’d have never let you into the beer.”
Sam chuckled, fondness swelling in his chest. It pushed against the pain Bobby’s death left now. Maybe one day that fondness would be stronger. “I always imagined a deck for us.” He realized what he said a half-second after it left his mouth, but he didn’t correct himself.
“Retirement looks good on you, Sam,” Dean murmured. “I’m glad.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I wish things had of been different.”
“Nah, don’t think that. As far as outcomes go, this is pretty damn good.”
“Dean…” Sam’s voice broke.
“I’m serious Sam. I couldn’t get out, you know that. Me… Cas… we were in it for the long haul. It’s all I knew. You? You had this future ahead of you. Still do. No, don’t make that face. Hunting was my life, I knew…” His voice died out.
Sam’s face twisted, eyes wet. “It’s not what I wanted.”
“No.” Dean paused, and for a few moments Sam thought he might finally voice some dissatisfaction at their situation, might finally blame Sam like Sam often blamed himself, might give life to the thoughts that circled in his head on quiet days. “No, but it’s still good.”
Weeks passed. Sam found a job, almost by accident. And he realized that he didn’t hear Dean’s voice until he was putting on his pressed shirt for his first Monday on the job.
“Looking sharp, little brother.”
Then there was a Saturday night at the bar, when a pretty dark-haired woman smiled at him and asked him to dance, and he said yes without Dean’s voice ghosting around his head, prompting him.
His free days in the month of July were spent stripping paint and applying a bright new coat, with Lauren popping over if she was out in her yard at the same time, talking about her bushes and offering him recipes and taking his advice on trapping the rodents that had been chewing things in her shed.
And Sam realized these times – these entire conversations were no one mentioned demons or angels or ghosts – it was only their two voices. He wondered if Dean was listening. He wondered if perhaps Dean just had nothing to say.
“Dean…” Sam whispered into the dark. “I don’t want to lose this too.”
“But…. Maybe there’s nothing here to hold on to,” Dean said.
“It took all this for you to get philosophical on me, huh?” Sam joked weakly.
“You might be the genius, but I still have my moments.” Dean defended lightly.
A few beats of silence passed, and Sam finally told him the thing that had been weighing on his mind,
“I’m not ready to be alone.”
“Sam.” His brother’s voice corrected him. “You’ve never been alone. Why would you think that would change now?”
Jody answered the door, her smile instantaneous when she saw him. “Sam! I wasn’t expecting you!” She tilted her head and held out her arms. “It’s so good to see you!”
Sam stepped forward and leaned into the first physical contact he’d had in… too long. “Jody. Hey.”
Jody pulled back. “Come on in!” She said, leaning around his broad shoulders to scan the driveway. “Is Dean here too?” She asked, as if it wasn’t really a question at all but a given.
Sam’s heart seized for a second, but he managed to get the words out. “No. It’s just me.”
Sam Winchester's life went on.