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Sam keeps a small notebook on the nightstand next to his bed. It’s one of those pocket ones, square and four inches on every side with seventy thin, lined pages on the inside. The cover is fading, the smooth tan color changing into white spots and the pages are folding in on themselves. He’s had this notebook for over ten years now, it’s well-loved and old.
The content on the inside isn’t much to read, only pages upon pages of names. There are hundreds, probably thousands of them he’s accumulated over the past ten years. Jessica Moore is the first name, written in chicken-scratch barely legible even to Sam, but she was the first, he would always remember her. John Winchester is a page later, followed by Madison. Around page fifteen there are four sheets, front to back filled with Dean. Mystery Spot was hell. Sam remembers that the most, he still has nightmares about all those deaths even today. Ellen Harvelle, Jo Harvelle, Adam Milligan, Bobby Singer, Kevin Tran - all gone, all people he couldn’t save.
He has a new name to write tonight. Sam may not have know Kit Verson well, but he knows Kit was still a good man, a war hero who risked his life for his country, who loved his wife more than anything. Kit, like so many others before him, perished at the hands of monsters and those who were supposed to save him, failed.
Sam failed him.
He shouldn’t feel as guilty as he does, but he cannot help it. Lately, he feels like with every step forward, he’s taking two steps back. And every time another innocent person loses their life because he fucks up, their blood is on his hands and the ocean of guilt pooling in his stomach only increases. Sometimes the ocean is calm, other times if he thinks about it too much, it’s placid waters change to white caps, crashing against his fragile skin, ripping him open from the inside out. He doesn’t tell Dean, he bears it as he always does, silently.
On the drive back to the bunker, Sam doesn’t say much. Dean doesn’t either, mostly humming along to Zeppelin while they drive back through the thick fog. Dean’s words from earlier haunt him, constantly replaying over and over in his mind. You know, you can do everything right and even still, sometimes the guy still dies. It should be a comforting statement. Look, you tried your best and it didn’t work, but you tried and that’s what matters. But Sam can’t cling to that hope, not anymore, not when the one person he loves the most in this world is treading on that same edge.
That’s what is really bothering him.
Dean.
Sam has been doing research on the Mark constantly. Literally. He’s not been sleeping, eating or even moving from his spot in the the main room. Any spare moment he has he searches for a cure and after reading over five hundred book and thousands of internet articles the result is always the same. No cure. He’s starting to feel a little more than just hopeless. Distraught is a better word. And Dean? He doesn’t seem to mind. Dean just wants to keep hunting, keep ignoring the inevitable. It’s not that Sam doesn’t think Dean can keep control of himself, no, it’s that the Mark is powerful, probably one of the most powerful forces in the universe and there is nothing stopping it from turning his brother into something Dean doesn’t want to be.
Aside from that Sam doesn’t want to lose his brother again, he can’t lose Dean again. Things were starting to get better after the whole Gadreel fiasco. Their relationship isn’t great, it hardly ever is, but for the first time in a long time, Sam is content, he’s happy. And sometimes, when the Mark isn’t nagging on him, Dean seems happy too.
Sam wants to save that happiness, that glint in Dean’s eye every time Sam brings him his cup of coffee in the morning or cracks a joke. Or when Cas says or does something dorky and so Cas that Dean can’t help but smile. Sam wants to lock up all those smiles, those sparkles in his eyes into a box and show it to his brother whenever Dean has the urge to not care about his own welfare and say: Listen dumb-ass, people care about you and we want you around so please, please don’t give up.
The only problem is Sam thinks Dean has given up already and that scares him to death.
When they pull into the garage in the early morning, Dean’s eyes are haggard, his shoulders slumping, clearly fatigued as he gets out of the car and follows Sam into the house. He claps a hand on Sam’s shoulder with a muffled, “Night Sammy,” then lumbers down the hallway into his room, no doubt to drown himself in whiskey until he passes out for the next fifteen hours.
Sam goes to his room too. He turns on the small lamp near his bed, it glows softly, illuminating the darkness. Sam picks up his pencil and notebook.
Kit Verson.
Sam fans through the previous pages, names flipping in front of his eyes, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
He turns back to Kit’s name, thumb rubbing over the dark graphite and the blank space below it, wondering if Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester will be the next two names to follow.