#s!sam

Back then she didn’t even know what it was. All she knew was that one moment she was in Hell, and suddenly she was back. And since being back, she was… different. 

It made sense to her that being in Hell would change her, but something still bothered her about the whole thing. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had left something behind. Like when you’d remember that you forgot something, but couldn’t conjure up what it was. Only knowing that there used to be something that was now lost. 

Whatever it was, Sam knew it was something other people could pick up on. She used to be able to go relatively undetected, but now it felt like every little thing she said and did was just… wrong. People stared at her as if she was the monster she had just risked her life to save them from. 

She tried not to think too much about it, instead busying herself with work and some personal vices. The days had started to blend together in suffocating monotony. The food was bland, the shows couldn’t make her laugh and the sex was clinical. She tried anything to scratch that itch, trying to find something that could make her… feel. No such luck. 

This should’ve bothered her more, but it didn’t. Sam realized that as long as she had succeeded on a hunt and wasn’t dead by the end of the day, she was satisfied. Maybe a little depressing to other people, but it worked for her. 

On that note, Sam was glad to be stuck with Samuel for the year. He wasn’t a huge softie so Sam didn’t have to do as much masking as she had to in front of other people. Hunters were hard men, and Samuel Campbell was the most skilled hunter she’d ever met. Total douchebag, but that came with the job. Not that Sam was a perfect angel either. 

That year Sam had killed innocent people. The look Samuel had on his face when that would happen, the utter shock and fear… it should’ve made her feel ashamed, but she wasn’t. More than anything, she was just annoyed. Samuel should’ve known that this job wasn’t always so cut and dry. Sam hadn’t realized before just how infuriating indecisiveness was. She had the will to make the hard decisions, the ones good hunters were supposed to make. But when she did, Samuel just looked at her as if she’d grown a second head… with the things Sam had seen him do it certainly seemed like the pot calling the kettle black. 

Really, what hunter could say they were completely clean? This was just a part of their lifestyle! People die, people live, people get hurt and people get saved, and it sort of goes on like that until the fucking Sun explodes. The little casualties didn’t matter. She wished they could all see the bigger picture! Change couldn’t happen from playing it safe! They needed to get their hands a little dirty in order to plant the seeds for a better future. 

The pushback she got baffled her. It seemed that most hunters had some past regrets holding them back. People they loved getting hurt, making mistakes, that sort of thing. Hunters were excellent at dwelling on their past choices and not being able to move on from them. Sam was looking ahead while the others were falling behind.

It made her wonder, though. If Sam stopped to weigh the choices she had made that year, what would she conclude?

…

The conclusion would be that she wasn’t doing nearly enough. 

With her current condition, Sam didn’t need sleep. The rest of her team did. Sam wasn’t above spilling a little blood in order to get the job done, but the rest of her team apparently were. Sam didn’t feel the need to go to every poor grieving bastard to offer her condolences or whatever, which her team insisted on. If she wanted answers she would’ve gotten them very easily, even if it required some manhandling. 

Her team often got frustrated with her, reminding her that she could get in real trouble if she pissed off the wrong people. Begrudgingly she held back her tongue and let the others take the lead in the PR side of things. She would take care of the actual hunting, and way better than anyone else. 

When she did have to interact with people, she tried reminding herself of all the bullshit social rules society had beaten into her over the years. It all just felt so fake, like it was a performance she was putting on. She couldn’t believe people actually cared about any of that crap. In her mind it was all very simple. Find the monster and take care of it. Everything else was arbitrary. Sometimes she felt like she was the only one who actually cared about their goal. 

Was it really so bad that she couldn't feel? Fact is, she was a way better hunter than before. For once she wasn't distracted by emotional hangups and instead could focus entirely on the mission. And her mission was good, right? She was saving people! So what did it matter if she didn't care about the people she saved, as long as they were safe and stayed out of her way, wasn't that enough? 

It was strange. She knew what she was supposed to feel but just… couldn't. Like how color-blind people knew what they were supposed to see but still couldn’t make their eyes actually see it. 

But how could anyone understand that? Especially someone as dense as Dean Winchester. 

The plan was for him to stay out of hunting, but here he was, messing up their year long mission! He was just too stubborn to stay away. He was a nuisance, always trying to derail their team’s plans — not to mention all the back talking. 

That wasn’t the worst part about working with Dean, though. 

The worst part was how he would look at Sam. Like she’d murdered someone he loved. In a way, maybe she had. She couldn’t remember doing so, but… who else was there to blame? 

No, this wasn’t her decision, it’s not like she wanted to be this way! Did Dean seriously think she wasn’t trying to be normal? She knew there was something wrong with her, but she just… couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn't as easy as Dean made it out to be. 

He would often chastise her about her lack of empathy, making constant comparisons to the Real Sam Winchester, the one who actually gave a shit, saying how she would never act like this. At some point Sam realized it was because he really missed her. Every time he looked at Sam, all he could probably see was just a hollow imitation of his brother, just this marionette dangling from strings and pretending to be alive. Dean looked at her as if she was an abomination. And she was. 

She wasn’t Sam Winchester. She had all her memories, her thoughts, her body, but… no soul. Without it she wasn’t herself. That was the thing she had felt missing. Knowing what it was didn’t help her though. It didn’t change the fact that it was gone and she was still here. 

Dean didn’t make her existence any easier. It was strange, knowing that there was someone who didn’t want you to be here. Someone who just wanted the old you, the one you didn’t know how to be anymore. It was like being in a piano recital and being asked to play a song you used to know, but had moved on from. What you were playing now wasn’t beautiful, it wasn’t good enough. You played the keys trying to remember how that old song used to go, but you couldn’t get it. It all just sounded so different. It all sounded wrong. And even though you were the one playing, it wasn’t your fault. Of this you couldn’t make anyone else understand. 

In truth, it did bother her.

Sometimes when she would break one of those social rules, her stomach did end up in knots. She wasn’t sure why, but it did feel wrong in some ways. Was it because she knew that the real her, the one with the soul, wouldn’t have approved of it? Or was she simply just afraid of getting in trouble, like going to jail or being told she couldn’t work cases anymore? 

She wondered what this version of her was more afraid of losing — herself, or the respect of others?

She decided to search for answers in Dean, this man who was so committed to bringing back his brother he would go against all things rational. He cared, not just about her but the people they saved. Sometimes he even cared about the damn monsters! It was all a complete mystery to her. Maybe by observing Dean she’d find out his secret. Maybe through him she could learn how to feel again. 

Sam looked at Dean and repeated to herself; this is your brother, this is your brother, this is your brother, this is your brother-

No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t make brother feel like anything more than just a word, or the man in front of her to stop feeling like a stranger. This Dean Winchester, she couldn’t conjure up the emotional bond they must have had. To her he looked just like any other person. It was awkward just how different their levels of affection were, how Sam couldn’t reciprocate the love Dean was feeling. Well, Dean didn’t love her for long, especially after learning what was wrong with her. 

Once they learned the truth, getting her soul back became top priority to Dean. He wanted this other Sam back so badly, it made her uneasy. Was she really that horrible? She thought she was holding herself pretty well, all things considered. She could be so much worse if she let go of all her inhibitions. 

Logistically she had no idea how he could even pull off getting a soul back from the very pits of Hell. For a while there wasn’t any concrete plan, just hapless floundering. It wasn’t a concern to her then. And yet, the idea did make her mind start wandering. 

If they got her soul back, what would happen to her? Would she just… cease to exist? Would the Real Sam remember anything from this year? Would she split in two, or would the Real Sam just decide to cut her off completely? Could she win against someone who had a soul? She wanted to say yes, but she wasn’t sure. She was stronger than Real Sam. She was. And yet she was inferior, the faulty off-model no one wanted to buy. Once they got the original back, she would be gone. There would be no room for her and the other Sam to coexist, she somehow knew. 

If getting her soul back was even possible. It was all purely hypothetical. She shouldn’t get so lost in hypotheticals. 

Whenever it came up she would always absentmindedly agree that she wanted her soul back too, but… she wasn’t so sure anymore. Being soulless did come with its own benefits, like feeling virtually no pain and having endless energy. But, looking at Dean, she realized there was no joy or love left in her. 

She started questioning if those things were really even needed to live. Here she was, surviving a whole year without them, doing just fine! But it would seem that for some people that didn’t count as living, which was a whole other can of worms. For her life to matter, did she really have to feel these things? Not that she didn’t want to feel again, she did, but… 

Wait. Did she actually want to feel or was that something others only wanted for her? Just because they didn’t like how she was currently? Was she really just supposed to sit there and take it while they dragged her name in the mud, treating her like she was some sub-human piece of garbage? After everything she’d done for them? Unbelievable. She was working on the mission, right? She was spending time with her brother and all the other dipshits in her family. She made small-talk with strangers, she did all these meaningless things and she did them every. Single. Day. Wasn’t that enough? 

Wasn’t she enough?

When she heard about Dean’s plan to reinsert her soul, something finally stirred inside of her. Hearing how dangerous the operation would be, the prediction that she wouldn’t make it, it caused her whole body to get all out of whack. Primal fear, the kind that was hard-wired into her system by centuries of evolution, filled that empty cavity in her chest. It was something so instinctual that it couldn’t be erased or forgotten. It gave her a drive, and finally the things she did were fueled by something, and she could feel it. She could finally name that one truth that had kept her going for so long.