Chapter Text
Sam Winchester could only watch as his world was ripped apart. In front of him, Dick Roman died, and then nothing else went right. Crowley appeared. Dean and Cas and Kevin disappeared.
And that was it.
Sam was, for the first time in his life, well and truly alone.
He wasn’t alone when he was a kid, even though his Dad left him for hunts nine point nine times out of ten. He had Dean then, and when Dean started joining Dad on his hunts (but never without a goodbye, never without an I’ll-see-you-again ), he had Bobby. Then he had Dean and Dad because he was old enough to hunt with them too.
When he grew up a little and ran off to Stanford, he wasn’t alone. He started off thinking he was, but he was instantly bamboozled with university life and work and studies and before he knew it, he had Jess and Brady and Luis and everyone else, too. And, every so often, when he was out of money for the summer, he found wads of cash, and he knew he had Dean, too, because Dean couldn’t help but keep taking care of the brother he’d raised.
When Dean came and Dad disappeared and Jess died… Sam lost Stanford, but as he traveled through the country with Dean, he remembered he still had Dean. In the end, he still had Dad, too.
Then dad died, and though Sam was anguished, he couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of relief that Dean hadn’t because that meant he wasn’t alone. ‘Course, they went on swinging and ended up facing Azazel, and then Dean sold his soul to save Sam, and he had only one year left to live, and he was dying, and Sam would be alone-
But then there was Bobby and Ellen and Jo, and god help him, Ruby, too, and he wasn’t alone, even when Dean did die. Sam ripped apart the hunter scene to try and bring him back but he wasn’t alone even when he did so. He was fighting. He was searching. And Dean was coming back whether he liked it or not.
Truer words… Dean was pulled out of hell, and Sam got yet another person to be not-alone with, even if Castiel did call him an abomination. He figured he had deserved it.
They whipped through the seals, found out they were being played by the angels and the demons, and then, necessarily in that order, killed Lilith and released the bloody devil.
Sam could see the hatred in Dean’s eyes for that one shining moment. But Dean stayed, and that made all the difference. Dean stayed, and Bobby was there, and Ellen and Jo and Cas-
Sam wasn’t alone.
Lucifer was a bit more difficult to deal with, but they weren’t alone, and together, they would take on the world. Sam did take on the world and threw himself into a pit of endless torture and pain to save it.
(Even there, amidst Lucifer’s mocking laughs and Michael’s roars of promise and hate, Sam wasn’t alone. He had enemies, and he had a brother, and Dean was up there, too. Maybe not there with him, and definitely not looking for him (he shouldn’t- he’d promised), but there.)
Sam pulled out, and soulless Sam pressed on. Still, Sam wasn’t alone, the Campbells lining his footsteps.
Dean came back. Sam wasn’t alone.
Cas came back, evil pact with Crowley and all, and he wasn’t alone.
Soullessness, hallucinations, demons, Bobby’s death, monsters, Campbells, Crowley, Leviathan. Sam was never alone.
And then the Leviathan’s head was beheaded, and he really, truly was.
Crowley had taken Dean away. He’d taken Cas away, and Kevin, too, and it was so damned horrifying that for days, with no Crowley in sight to take revenge on, Sam couldn’t move from his place at the edge of the bed in the seedy motel.
Dean’s bed mocked him from the side, empty and unforgiving.
What was he supposed to do without Dean? How could he do anything without Dean? Dean had, for as long as Sam had known him - and that meant his whole damn life, thanks - been his big brother, his support, his helper. He’d been there even when he’d hated him, even when Sam’s life choices had torn them apart.
Dean had been there, even if Sam hadn’t, and now… Now he wasn’t. Now he was somewhere god knew where-
Except.
Except Crowley had snapped his fingers, and if that gave any indication, it was that the bastard king of hell knew where he was. And Crowley wasn’t there, not in sight, but Sam was a fucking hunter. Hunting down monsters was what he did.
Crowley? He was a bloody monster, no doubt about it.
Sam took in a deep breath and got up, pushing aside his tears and his hurt and his pain at being so damn alone. Because he had things to do, and he couldn’t do shit if he was crying.
List? A small voice in his head that was most certainly not Dean whispered.
And because it wasn’t Dean and Sam needed some way to get out of the hole he was digging himself back into, he agreed.
He pulled up a notepad from the desk, where it was lying around, courtesy of the motel, probably, and then grabbed a pen, staring at the faded white of the pages like they could eat him alive.
List.
… What was he supposed to do?
Find Dean, obviously. That was no doubt number one on any list ever because his brother was his brother and Sam couldn’t leave him be, not unless he knew he was safe or- or-
He wrote down Save Dean with trembling fingers and wet eyes.
To save Dean, he’d have to get Crowley.
Hunt Crowley and his demons and get a fucking answer to where Dean and Cas and Kevin are.
And yeah, this was his priority, but the nagging thoughts in his mind reminded him - and quite spectacularly, too, because he seemed to have grown a stupid conscience since the whole wall-down thing happened, and he could never - he couldn’t leave the remaining Leviathans alone, either. Scattered they definitely wouldn’t pose as big of a threat, but they would most definitely be a threat. And hunters everywhere would have to come across them, and he wasn’t sure at all whether or not they knew how to deal with them. Borax, beheading, burning, and throwing their body parts far, far away from each other for a start, especially since there was only one ‘bone of a righteous man in the blood of the three fallen’ available for now. At least he’d had the foresight to pick it up before he left the damn building.
Get rid of Leviathans.
He put down his pen. Okay, deep breaths. Just three things on the list, right? He could do this. He would do this.
He had to.