Work Text:
Sam Wesson was sitting at his desk in the middle of a call when he became Sam Winchester again. In half a second, twenty-six years of memories flooded in.
An endless parade of motel rooms and new schools. Cleaning guns until his hands were calloused. Renting a PO box to use for his college applications.
Stanford. The massive crowd of TAs and professors who were all conspiring against him. Somehow ending up in a counselor’s office. Pills that kept him up all night and made him want to rip his heart out of his chest. Tearing through book after book until he could find something, anything else that worked.
Jessica's body burning on the ceiling. Dad's body on the hospital floor. Dean’s body torn apart by hellhounds.
Dean.
An entire lifetime of trauma, and somehow Sam forgot all of it. His own memories shouldn't be something he could just misplace.
How the hell did he let this happen?
Sam’s brain always played tricks on him, but this was a new low. He came all the way to Ohio, took a tech support job, of all things, then dragged a coworker into a hunt through their cushy office. Sure, Sam did a few strange things back at Stanford, but he didn't uproot his entire life.
There was no way that was actually Dean, was there? Sam hallucinated his brother’s face on some poor civilian and pulled him into the life without even thinking. Hunting was the toughest job Sam could imagine, and he forced some pampered desk jockey into it just because he had the same name as his brother—if the guy was even called Dean at all. Sam probably made that up, too.
This wasn't where Sam belonged. He never worked a desk job in his life. Even at Stanford, he waited tables and tended bar. Sam was supposed to be out in the field, where Dean kept him sane and no one else stuck around long enough to learn he was a verified headcase. White collar jobs were for normal people.
Sam needed to get the hell out of there. It was time to check into a mental hospital. He kept himself functional for seven years, but clearly it was time to get pumped full of every antipsychotic they could find.
Except Sam couldn't move. No matter how many times he told himself to get up, he stayed hunched over at his desk, breathing heavily. It was like being a kid again. Dad and Dean would shout at him to get his stuff packed and out of the hotel room, but Sam froze. In the end, Dean would scoop up all his stuff and drag him out by the arm.
Sam didn’t expect this to get solved the same way.
There was the sound of running, with loud, flat footfalls that were completely out of place in an office, and then came Dean’s voice. “Sammy. Let’s get the hell out of here. The angels left the Impala back in Wyoming.”
Sam somehow managed to turn his head. The guy behind him had Dean’s face, but the same collared shirt and ironed pants that Sam remembered from his coworker.
Fuck. Sam thought he was done being delusional.
“Woah. Hey, Sammy. What’s wrong?”
Great. Sam’s least favorite question. “I’ll handle it. Go back to your job.”
Not-Dean looked pissed. Really pissed. He was the kind of angry that only the real Dean ever managed, not the weird office drone from the last week. “Back to my job? Sam, what the-” He froze. “Did they not explain anything to you?”
“Look, I appreciate you tolerating me the past couple of days, but you should really leave. I don’t need to drag you into this.”
Not-Dean crouched down to Sam’s eye level, grabbed his shoulders, and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Sam. It’s me. Dean. Your brother. The angels put us in this office to teach us a stupid lesson, and now it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.”
Wait. But that meant- “Dean?”
He smiled. “The one and only.” Dean popped back up and turned around before Sam could even begin to process it.
It took a minute for Dean to notice that Sam wasn’t following him and turn back around. By then, Sam came up with his next question. “That was real?”
“I wouldn’t call a bunch of angels playing Barbie Dreamhouse with us real.” Dean smirked. He clearly didn’t get what Sam was asking.
“But was it in my head?”
Dean stopped dead. His face that clearly read “fuck.” “You thought you were doing the thing.”
Sam finally had proof this was the real Dean. He always avoided the word “schizophrenia” like the plague.
“Yeah. I thought you were going to have to check me into a mental hospital.” Sam waited a moment for Dean to sigh and wipe the expression of horror off his face before continuing. “So. That was actually you. You were actually working as a manager in an office.”
Dean nodded. “The angels mind-wiped us and planted us here to teach us a lesson. I’m not allowed to quit hunting. We still have to stop the apocalypse. And they still want you to stop messing around with Ruby.”
Right. Ruby. God, when was the last time Sam even thought about Ruby? He up and left her for at least a week, maybe more. She had to calm him through a couple episodes while Dean was away, so she knew about his deal. She had to think he’d lost it and was running around in some fit of paranoia. She wasn’t exactly wrong, either.
And Sam couldn’t even call her and explain without Dean getting upset. Great.
That was a problem for later. It had to be a problem for later. Right now, Sam needed to focus on the present.
Angels. It wasn’t a delusion; the entire thing was staged by angels. He should have thought of that. Those days, every damn thing was about angels.
“Sam?” Dean asked.
“Yeah?”
“You good? Do you need a minute?”
What Sam needed was a solid week to get his head back on straight. The last thing he ever needed was to discover that his entire reality was a lie. Schizophrenia made the ground fall out from underneath him often enough. He didn't need the angels adding to it.
It would be better once he was out of there. Being stuck in the wrong clothes, the wrong job, and the wrong life wasn't doing anything for his head. The sooner he got out of there, the sooner it would all be over.
He knew who Sam Winchester was. Sam Winchester spent a good 50% of his waking hours sitting in the passenger's seat next to his brother. Getting in the car was a good start, even if it was the wrong one.
“I'll be alright,” Sam said, and finally forced himself to stand up. He would be, sooner or later. He always was.