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English
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Published:
2025-07-12
Updated:
2025-10-06
Words:
21,923
Chapters:
8/12
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80
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Entry Wounds

Summary:

The pages are stained with blood, tears, and years of silence. Since 2012, Sam’s journal has held his broken heart, his quiet confessions.

After Jack dies in the spring of 2019, Dean finds him scribbling something Sam won’t share. It's not a case file. It's not lore. It’s the only way Sam can speak the truth – through pages no one else reads. Because there are things Sam can’t say out loud.

Things like: "I’m not okay."

Things like: "I want to disappear."

 

______

Chapter 1: I'm Not Okay (I Promise)

Chapter Text

The bunker was too quiet now. Even with the hum of the lights and the occasional creak in the pipes, the stillness pressed in like the weight of a collapsed ceiling.

Sam sat in his room, at the table, the low desk lamp casting a golden glow on the pages before him. He didn’t even realize his hand was shaking until the ink bled into a curve of a word he wasn’t paying attention to.

It didn’t matter. None of it really mattered anymore.

The words in his head came in a steady stream: heavy, splintered things trying to crawl out. He pressed the pen harder to the paper, trying to capture the thoughts before they slipped away again.

Then–

A knock.

“Sammy?”

His breath caught, posture straightening. Sam yanked the journal shut and slid it under the pile of papers, like a teenager caught with a secret.

Dean opened the door a second later, eyes scanning the room. “You okay?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. Just… writing something.”

Dean glanced at the desk, then back at Sam. He didn’t press. He never did, not after everything that's happened.

“Was thinking I’d come check on you,” Dean said, stepping inside. “You’ve been holed up here since Gabriel and… y’know.”

“Yeah.” Sam folded his hands in his lap.

Jack.

That was the word neither of them wanted to say. Dean sat on the edge of the bed and spoke up, voice soft. “He looked up to you. You know that, right?”

Sam didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He stared at the floor, wishing to disappear, wanting it to swallow him whole.

“I keep thinking,” Dean went on, “about the way he smiled whenever you talked to him about lore. You made the weird crap sound cool. You were the one to believe in him even when I didn't. You gave him… I dunno. Something to hold on to. Taught him to be good.”

“Dean,” Sam said softly, voice barely holding. “Please don’t. I can’t…”

Dean sighed, rubbed a hand over his face. “Right. Sorry. I just–”

“I’ll be fine,” Sam interrupted, and his voice was sharper than he meant it to be. “Eventually. I’ll be fine.”

Dean stared at him for a long moment, like he wanted to say something else. Like he could see past the tight lines around Sam’s mouth, the exhaustion behind his eyes. But instead, he gave a quiet nod and stood.

“Okay. Just… let me know if you need anything. I’m here, okay?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

The door closed behind Dean with a soft click. Once the footsteps faded down the hall, Sam exhaled like he’d been underwater. He reached under the papers and pulled out the journal.

The page was still damp in the corner, from his hand or from his eyes, he wasn’t sure. He turned to the next page. Clean. Blank. Waiting.

And then, slowly, he kept writing more.

 

 

Journal Entry 1

April 11, 2012

Amelia says I should try this. The therapy thing was her idea, too. She said talking helped. That I had too much packed inside me, like a trunk that hadn’t been opened in years. I told her it was fine, that I could handle it.

She didn’t believe me.

My doctor says journaling might help. So. Here I am. Writing in a notebook like I’m back in high school.

I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say.

The last few months have felt like someone scraped the marrow out of my bones. I gave up hunting, the only real job I've ever had. That’s supposed to mean I’m healing, right?

But the truth is, I stopped because I had nothing left to fight for.

Dean’s gone. Castiel’s gone. Bobby’s gone.

Dick Roman’s dead, too – but so what? It didn’t bring anyone back.

I saw Dean disappear into nothingness. I heard Cas’ last words echo in that office room. I listened to Bobby’s voice fade away like dust in the wind in that hospital. And I just… kept going.

I am now living in a house that doesn't belong to me. Sleeping in a bed that isn't really mine. But Amelia’s good. She’s kind. She loves Dog, and Dog loves her.

But I can’t feel it. Not the way I used to feel things.

It’s like I’m playing a part. Like this version of me is something I made up. Some pale imitation of a person who used to be Sam Winchester.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think Dean’s in the next room. I reach out and expect to hear his voice, some sarcastic comment, some comfort masked as teasing.

But it’s never there. And I miss him.

God, I miss him.

I don’t know how to exist without Dean. Without any of them. Amelia says I have to find my own way. That I have to build something for myself.

But what if I was never meant to be anything on my own?

What if I’m just the leftover piece? The one that only makes sense in someone else’s shadow?

I’m tired... I'm okay. I’m still here. Guess that counts for something.

 

 

The kitchen smelled like burnt toast.

Dean muttered a curse under his breath as he stabbed at the toaster with a butter knife, trying to unjam the bread he’d shoved in. Castiel hovered by the coffee pot, fingers curled tightly around a chipped mug.

No one said a word about Jack. Or about Gabriel leaving them hanging. All of them hoped the archangel could still find a way to bring the boy back. So they waited.

And not a single one of them dared touch the name, thinking it might crumble between their teeth.

Sam watched them for a moment from the doorway. Dean's flannel shirt was wrinkled. Cas looked like he hadn’t slept. And maybe they hadn’t. Maybe none of them had. He stepped into the room, bare feet padding softly on the floor.

“Morning,” he said, voice rough.

Dean gave a half-hearted grunt of acknowledgment as he finally retrieved the mangled toast and tossed it into the trash. “Stupid toaster’s possessed,” he grumbled.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Cas replied dryly, sipping his coffee. “It’s just broken.”

Dean looked like he wanted to argue, but Sam raised an eyebrow and that was enough to shut him up. Then, Sam busied himself with the kettle, pouring hot coffee into his mug. The silence wrapped around them again, too soft, too heavy. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t tense. It was grief-shaped, and none of them knew how to sit inside it at the time.

“I’m glad you’re both here,” Sam said suddenly, voice barely louder than the quiet whistle of the kettle.

Dean blinked. “Uh. Yeah, I mean... We live here, Sammy.”

Cas turned toward him, frowning slightly. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah.” Sam stirred his tea slowly. “I just mean… I’m glad you’re both still here. Alive. Together.”

Dean and Cas shared a look. Sam shrugged, eyes fixed on his mug. “We’ve lost a lot of people. I just wanted to say it, I guess. I’m grateful.”

Dean’s face softened. Cas stepped a little closer, as if unsure whether Sam needed comfort or space.

“You mean that?” Dean asked, voice going soft. After all the fights they've been through in recent years, this had been... surprising. Somehow, Dean thought Sam might still be mad at him.

Sam looked up and smiled, tired and genuine. “Yeah. I do.”

Cas nodded slowly, as if accepting a mission, or a blessing. “We’re glad you’re here too, Sam.”

Dean reached out and gave Sam’s shoulder a brief, brotherly squeeze. It didn’t say everything, but it said enough.

 

 

Journal Entry 2

April 26, 2012

 

It happened at the store today.

I was standing in line, staring blankly at the freezer section – when I saw him. Just out of the corner of my eye. Tall, broad-shouldered, that same leather jacket. The same posture. The way he adjusted his stance, the same way Dean always did when he was bored or pretending he wasn’t hurting.

For half a second – less, maybe I thought it was him.

My heart jumped. Stopped. I turned around so fast I nearly dropped the basket.

But it wasn’t Dean. Of course it wasn’t. The guy had brown eyes, not hazel. He looked younger. And his voice when he spoke to the cashier... God, it wasn’t even close.

But it didn’t matter. Because for those few milliseconds, the world made sense again.

And then it shattered. Again.

It keeps happening quite often. I’ll be walking Dog, and I’ll hear a car engine that sounds like the Impala. Or smell cheap motel soap. Or hear someone say “bitch” in just the right cadence, and I swear I hear “jerk” in the back of my mind.

I’m not okay. I keep pretending I am, because that’s easier than explaining how broken I really feel.

How even now, all this time later, I still wake up thinking I’ll see Dean in the kitchen making eggs and complaining about the lack of pie.

How I sometimes talk out loud when no one’s around, just to feel like I’m still in conversation with someone who isn’t here.

I know how it sounds. I also know the only real thing I saved lately is a damn dog. And even then, just barely.

But I held on to him. I wrapped him in a towel and I whispered, “It’s gonna be okay, buddy,” even though I didn’t believe it myself. I sat on the floor with blood all over my hands, and I told a shaking dog he was going to live.

I couldn’t say that to Dean. Or Cas. Or Bobby.

I couldn’t save them.

Just a dog. And I was the one to hurt him in the first place.

I don’t cry anymore. Amelia thinks I’m getting better. She calls it progress. Says I’m more “present.” But I know the truth. I’ve just buried it deeper. I tell myself I have to move on. That I don’t get to live in the past.

But how do you move forward when everything that made you who you were is dead?

How do you breathe in a world that doesn’t have your brother in it?

How do you feel joy without feeling guilt for it?

I don’t have answers.

Just a freezer aisle, a stranger’s voice, and another reminder that ghosts don’t always rattle chains. Sometimes they wear leather jackets and live in the back of your mind.