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It’s early Sunday, not yet seven o’clock, but Sam is always awake when Dean arrives. Neither of them stay in bed past six after a lifetime on the road. Though he’s mid-fifties and retired, Dean was up and out of bed before the sun breached the horizon. Visiting hours don’t begin until eight, but the staff has never complained that Dean comes early. Too many of the other residents never see their families, passing their remaining years in twelve-foot rooms.
The corridor leading to Sam’s room is long and endlessly white, illuminated by the wall of windows to Dean’s left that spills trapezoids of sunlight onto the polished gray floor. Overhead, four-inch shadow boxes form a grid dotted with recessed lights. Dean’s steps echo like gunshots.
Most residents aren’t out of bed yet, but the few who are have left their doors gaping open and Dean tries not to gawk as he goes past, waving only when he catches movement in his peripheral vision. These are people, not zoo animals. They just need assistance getting through the day, was the way Cas had phrased it when they first checked out the place. Dean hadn’t spoken to him for days after he’d suggested they tour the facility, furious that Cas had researched long-term care without his consent, but the staff was pleasant and the facility clean. Sam seems to like it well enough, which is all that matters.
It’s not a permanent solution—or free—and while it sure as hell isn’t ideal, Dean has to concede that Cas was right: living on top of each other in a two-bedroom apartment wasn’t doing them any favors. It's not fair to put this on mom and the bunker isn’t an option. They need a home, something with a yard and abundant natural light, not an underground hideaway whirring with computers and artifacts from their former life, not a cheap two-bedroom apartment with a mold exhibit in the bedroom closet.
Sam isn’t a danger to anyone, but he forgets what year it is sometimes. He forgets the accident. Probably a result of the head injury, the doctors said. Dean realized something was wrong when Sam began speaking to people who weren’t there. Cas can’t reverse the damage, and since Sam can’t be left alone, the hospital has been a good intermediary. But as soon as they have the house ready, they’re bringing him home. No one can care for his little brother better than Dean.
After the accident ten years ago, a forged college transcript landed Cas an honest-to-God nine-to-five job keeping books for a restaurant in Kansas City. His candid nature and easy way with numbers grew enough of a private client base that, three years ago, he was able to open his own bookkeeping service, so he could set his own hours and be at home more. Dean stayed in the apartment with Sam during the day and felt like a mooch, letting Cas pay all of the bills, but Cas told him to stop being absurd and eventually Dean accepted the arrangement for Sam’s sake.
Dean still jokes that he’s a kept man, but he’s happily kept.
He’s put on extra padding around his middle since retiring. Cas says he doesn’t notice, his affection constant, but mirrors don’t lie. Dean’s looking more like his old man every year: Wrinkles crease the skin around his eyes and mouth, the hair at his temples salt-and-pepper-gray. He can still get his arms in his old leather jacket, but it’s only a good day when he can zip it closed. He opted for just a flannel today.
His shoe catches on the waxed linoleum. The unpleasant sting of disinfectant burns his nostrils and he sobers at his surroundings.
A face appears in the wired glass doors that block the end of the hall: a graying caucasian man with hollow eyes and shaggy hair. He watches Dean approach. It’s not the first time Dean’s seen him lurking through that door. In fact, he’s one of the few faces Dean recalls seeing every visit. The man must work on the next ward, probably one of the nurses, though in a building stained with decades of psychic energy, he could just as easily be a ghost or a wraith come to feed off of the patients. This place has eyes in the walls. Cas says Dean’s paranoid, that his years of hunting that have made him predisposed to assume the paranormal, which is rich coming from a former angel. Dean stops for a drink from the water fountain affixed to the wall and the face in the window ducks out of view.
Sam’s door is closed. Dean fears he’ll push it open someday to find the room abandoned, that Sam has taken off without a word, but he’s always there: in bed or seated at the blocky desk. He’s sitting by the window today. For a middle-aged man, Sam still appears remarkably young, the youngest in his unit. His hair is softly graying at the temples. It curls against his shoulders. Now that he spends the better percentage of his days indoors, he lacks the bulk and muscle tone he’d had in his youth, but his skin has remained smooth, particularly around his eyes, and he’s fit from daily walks. He has full access to the hospital grounds. He’s in good health and good spirits, which is all Dean cares about.
Maybe it’s the temperature of his room that preserves him. It’s like the goddamn Arctic today. Dean shivers without his leather jacket, but Sam appears comfortable in a faded gray t-shirt and loose pants. His feet are bare. He smiles at Dean when he enters, as if he knew Dean would come today, and points to the empty chair beside him.
“Heya, Sammy.” Dean ruffles his hair even though they’re both middle aged, and Sam shrugs off his hand. Dean settles beside him with a laugh. “Hey, that nurse at reception? She’s not so bad, seems like your type. You make a move yet?”
Sam side-eyes Dean, leveling him with a judgmental expression, as if to remind Dean that one of them is in a long-term relationship and shouldn’t be checking out the staff, but he says nothing. Dean can’t remember the last time he heard Sam’s voice–maybe four, five years ago? They’ve perfected the one-sided conversation and Sam is plenty expressive with his face. If he needs to communicate something long or complicated, he types it on a tablet. Dean pats Sam’s arm and chuckles.
“Ah, don’t look at me like that. I’m a happily married man.” Dean flashes his ring finger, the tungsten band Cas put on him, how many years ago has it been now, twelve? Thirteen? “Cas is sorry he couldn’t make it today. I’ll make sure he comes next time. I think he’s planning to bring mom with him.”
With a contented sigh, Sam directs his attention back out the window. The grounds crew isn’t going to win awards for creativity, but the grass is neatly edged, fringed by fat shrubs and cheerful red annuals. At the center of the courtyard is a fountain in need of repair. Dark water trickles over cracked basins stacked three high.
By contrast, Sam’s room is spare. Dean brings him mementos sometimes, but Sam must put them away, because they’re never on display when Dean arrives to visit. His room consists of a bed with a tan blanket, beige walls, and the chairs they sit on. Against the wall opposite the bed is an unused writing desk and empty bookshelf. Sam’s read enough in his life, Dean supposes. He’s entitled to spend his days enjoying nature. And soon, soon, he’ll have a garden of his own--Cas will see to that--and he can spend every second of every day outdoors.
Dean holds out a framed picture of himself and Cas, taken a couple years ago at a barbecue in Sioux Falls. “In case you want something to brighten up the place. I don’t know why you’d wanna look at my ugly mug, but Cas likes the frame.”
Sam’s eyes track Dean’s hand as he places the frame on the windowsill. His mouth splits into a grin and the fluorescent lights overhead buzz and crackle in their sockets. Dean scratches a creeping sensation in the back of his neck. The walls seem to lean toward him. An unseen clock ticks and ticks and ticks.
Sam’s grin stretches wider, revealing a network of blood between his teeth. At first, Dean thinks Sam must’ve bitten himself, but blood trickles over his lips when he swipes a tongue over them. The right half of his face is ruined, cheekbone crushed from the impact and one purpled eye swollen closed. Blood soaks his hair, plastering it to his scalp. The familiar copper smell makes Dean retch. He fumbles the window latch. It won’t open and the stench of death infuses Sam’s clothes and his hands as he reaches for Dean to soothe him.
Shh, Sam mouths through silent, bloody lips.
Dean squeezes his eyes closed. Sam strokes a hand over Dean’s hair the way their mother used to do. Dean’s heart knocks against his ribs, pounding as fast as his shallow breaths.
After a few moments, the room’s overwhelming cold chases the stench and he tentatively opens his eyes. The floor is clean, no sign of blood beneath Sam’s chair, no injury to his face, no evidence of what Dean witnessed. The lights burn evenly and bright.
With a pitying look, Sam passes his tablet to Dean.
That was a long time ago.
Dean’s laughter hedges on hysteria, but he plays it off as amusement for Sam’s sake. “You think you’re an angel now? Reading minds?”
It’s not hard to guess what you were thinking about.
Dean casts his gaze to the courtyard and scratches through the stubble on his cheek. He saw the pickup fishtail seconds before it veered into their lane. If he’d yelled a moment sooner, insisted on being the one to drive instead of Sam, waited out the storm and let Cas order dessert like he’d wanted, it wouldn’t have happened.
“Guess I never got over seeing you like that,” he says.
Sam nudges his leg with the tablet.
It was no one’s fault. Don’t worry about me.
“Worrying about you is my job.”
When we were kids, maybe. Now it’s time to let someone take care of you.
“I let Cas cook on occasion,” Dean sniffs. “Dude can grill a mean steak.”
Sam chuckles silently. You know that isn’t what I mean.
Dean forces his attention to the gardens. A few people amble about outside. The man, the one Dean often sees in the hallway, stands on the other side of the glass. He’s a patient, Dean realizes, not a staff member, the telltale ID bracelet just visible beyond his flannel sleeve. He stares unwaveringly at Dean, forehead knit in confusion, and licks his lips when Dean does. Unnerved, Dean shudders and pulls his focus back inside the room.
“We got a deck now. Did I tell you me and Cas finally settled on that place we were looking at?” Dean blows out a proud, relieved breath and digs out his phone. “I got some pictures. It’s ugly as hell, but it was cheap and we’re gonna fix it up. We got a room just for you. Think you’re gonna like it.”
Dean’s fingers are so cold, he has to forcibly tap the screen to advance the photographs. It’s obvious they came from Cas’s phone; he’s never learned to take a picture that isn’t crooked.
The photos are a few months old, from when the house was still empty. Ribbons of dingy white paint peel away from the clapboard siding of a two-story house crouched on an uneven wooded lot. Above a porch framed by tattered screens, broken windows stare between black shutters. They’ll have to scrape the exterior and repaint, or have vinyl siding installed, but she’s built like a fortress and doesn’t so much as creak in the wind.
Sam raises an eyebrow at the vintage water pump in the yard.
“Still works. House was built in the early 1900s.” Dean shows him the crumbling stairs leading down into the damp crawl space under the house, held up by thick support beams. He pauses on a picture of the small bedroom shrouded in dark wall paneling. stained carpet and yellowed lace curtains. “Doesn’t look like much right now, I know, but give us a couple months. This room’s ours; we already painted it. Got a real big closet. Here’s the kitchen. Tile’s gotta go but it’s functional. No garage, but there’s a shed and she’s even got a laundry room. No more midnight trips to the laundromat.”
Sam points to a picture of the back yard, taken through a pair of sliding doors, and Dean nods enthusiastically.
“The yard’s big enough for a dog if you still want one. We could throw up a fence before it snows. I’m gonna get a riding mower, can you believe it?” Dean swipes to a photograph of an overgrown corner of the lot that Cas vows to conquer into a vegetable garden. “See that? You nerds can grow your own rabbit food.”
Sam’s laughter is a ghost only Dean can hear. He’s overjoyed by the memory of it, the merriment in Sam’s eyes. But the longer Dean focuses on him, the stronger the guilty taste of iron, and in his chest the endless throbbing where the seatbelt caught him.
Stop thinking about that, Sam says, too late.
Staggering to the adjoining bathroom, Dean vomits his morning coffee into the sink. It bites his throat and the inside of his nostrils. He coughs wetly, cleaning himself with paper towels, and brings a palm of lukewarm tap water to his lips. It tastes like chlorine. He doesn’t look in the mirror. The water is clear when he spits it out.
Embarrassed by his behavior, he resumes his seat and Sam, ever tactful, changes the subject.
How’s Cas?
Dean stretches out his right leg to massage his bad knee. “He joined a book club, some of the ladies in the neighborhood. He says they’re more interested in gossipping than actually discussing the books, but I think he likes getting out of the house for a couple hours. Makes a mean taco dip.”
Have you thought of going with him?
“Nah. I read the books when he’s finished with them. I can bring a couple for you next time, if you want. Some of ‘em aren’t too bad.” Biting down a smile, he pulls up Cas’s photo stream. For Dean, it’s called.
The most recent picture is of a plain gray sedan Dean doesn’t recognize. It’s parked outside their house in the gravel driveway. It’s followed by a selfie Cas has taken with the car behind him, a temporary license plate affixed to the back window. There’s a pot of sunny orange marigolds beside the front door. A new door mat. The house’s exterior is painted a soft yellow and Cas holds a set of keys, his smile so broad that his eyes are squints.
Dean scowls back at him. “What the hell?”
What’s wrong?
“Apparently my husband bought a car without telling me. I can’t believe him! I’ve only been gone—”
The photo’s timestamp is three days old. Dean concentrates on the tiny black letters in disbelief. They are as constant as Cas’s smile, as the wrinkles around his eyes that Dean knows by touch. Deeper than he recalls.
He strains for memories, fragments of a phone call as tenuous as an echo: A financing deal on last year’s models. Cas’s brakes were going soft, and mom was going with him to the dealership. After the work Dean had spent keeping Cas’s old car on the road, Cas’s decision felt like betrayal despite its logic and Dean remembers begging him to wait. Just wait, Cas. Can’t you wait for me?
Dean isn’t certain how long ago they had the conversation, but Cas must’ve tired of waiting.
His hands quake around the phone. He shoves it into his pocket before he drops it. Sam touches Dean’s arm consolingly.
I’m sure he did his research before he bought anything. He’s Cas.
“It’s imported.”
It’s a car. Not everyone feels about them the way that you do.
“She wasn’t just a car, Sammy. She was …”
I know. She was my home too.
“I’m gonna fix her.” Dean pulls up into his shoulders to ease the ache gathering in his lower back. “As soon as we get the house set up. Cas said we can put up a carport.”
Are you sure that’s a good idea?
“Cheaper than a garage and it’ll keep the sun off of me while I work.”
I meant the car. Aren’t you afraid that might stir up bad memories?
“We made it out, right? It’ll be good, seeing her back in one piece.”
Dean jumps as the door to Sam’s room slams open without warning and on instinct, he reaches for the gun he doesn’t carry anymore. The intruder is armed with a mop and bucket and wrinkled white scrubs. The lights reflect off of his bald scalp, rather than pass through it.
“Ever heard of knocking?” Dean snaps, almost certain the man is human. If he isn’t, the chair legs might contain enough iron to vanquish him long enough to get Sam out of the room.
“I’m sorry,” the orderly says, referring to a list he extracts from his pocket. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”
“Well, we are, as you can see.”
The orderly does a quick visual sweep of the room and swallows audibly. “I’ll come back later.”
“You do that.”
He leaves and Sam looks like he just sucked on a lemon, his mouth pinched in disapproval.
You don’t have to be rude. He’s only doing his job.
Dean kneads his leg again. It has a tendency to stiffen up the longer he sits. “I’m fucking restless, Sam. I’ve never gone this long without hunting something. I like this thing we’re doing, me and Cas. I’m happy. I’m real happy, but there’s this itch under my skin and I can’t get to it.”
You want to hunt again.
“You can’t tell me that you don’t think about it. I’m surprised you haven’t been knocking the ghosts out in this place one after another.”
What does Cas say about it?
With a snort, Dean says, “He said we oughta start a neighborhood watch.”
Sam throws his head back and laughs until his eyes water. His breath comes out as a wheeze, the glorious almost-noise causing Dean to laugh heartily in return, laughter that makes his stomach muscles lock. Soon, they’ll laugh like this all the time, the three of them. He’ll wake every morning to the two people he loves most in the world.
Dean wipes his eyes to find the man in the window still watching them. Tolerance quickly turning to irritation, he makes a fist, prepared to knock on the glass in hopes of startling him, bark at the guy to get moving, but the man seems to sense a fight and tenses as well. There has to be someone in the hallway, an employee Dean can flag down to handle the situation. Sam doesn’t appear bothered by the man’s presence, but Dean’s halfway out of his chair when the cloud-cover shifts, and sunlight spills into the courtyard.
The fountain is visible through the man’s midsection and a patch of yellow annuals wink behind his shoulders. Dean can trace the man’s exact outline: the hem of his shirt so like Dean’s own, the dark band on his left ring finger. He once belonged to someone. Eyes, green and lonely. He must be stuck here—what a sad fate to forever roam these halls, one he’ll never let Sam succumb to.
Perhaps the man senses that they were once hunters; perhaps he hopes they can offer help. It’s shame that turns Dean’s head away this time.
He and Sam sit quietly for a while, soaking in the warm sunlight through the window, but he doesn’t lift his head again until someone knocks lightly. The door creaks open.
“Dean, there you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
Dean cranes his head around to see a young nurse stands in the doorway in bright pink scrubs, clipboard held against her chest like armor. She’s almost as tall as he is, with a vaguely familiar smirk. Have they met before? Yes, Louise, that’s her name. The head nurse in this unit. She’s been here ever since Sam moved in.
“Looking for me? What for?”
“Your husband is here.”
“Cas?” He slaps Sam’s leg. “Hey, what d’you know; he must’ve decided to visit after all. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“You’re in here a lot,” she says. “The other nurses tell me they’ve found some of your things in here before. Would you prefer this room?”
“Prefer it?” He squints at a flare of sunlight that catches the edge of his plastic bracelet. “No, I … Tell Cas I’ll be right there.”
Her nod is slow and calculated. “I’ll have him wait in the common room.” She adjusts the thermostat on the wall and the room’s heater crackles on. Thick-soled shoes muffle her footsteps as she walks away.
Once the door closes, Dean shakes his head. “Eyes in the walls, Sammy,” he mutters. “Can’t wait to get you outta here.”
The face at the end of the hall stares back at him from his reflection in the window, and beside him, Sam smiles from the empty chair.
Illustration by grandpamisha