note: just a short ghost!au set at the same sort of time as s1 starts, so kind-of-not-really-pre-series.

second chances

"Sam?"

The number isn't one he recognises, but that doesn't mean the voice on the other end falls into the same category. Sam hasn't heard from Bobby Singer for at least six years and he frowns as he ducks out of the campus cafe to find somewhere quiet to take the call.

"Sam, you there?"

"Yeah, sorry! Bobby?" There are two reasons Bobby would call him, and neither are to ask him over for Sunday lunch. Sam feels something heavy settle in the pit of his stomach. "What's up?"

There's a pause, Bobby breathing slowly on the other end of the phone. "There's, er, there's been an accident, Sam."

"Is it-"

"It's not your dad." Bobby beats him to it, and Sam closes his eyes in relief until the second, more unpleasant thought kicks him back into motion. Bobby keeps talking, not giving him a chance to blurt his ideas down the line. "No, John's fine. Finishing up a hunt in Topeka and headin' over to my place."

Sam frowns, waving absent-mindedly at a student in one of his lecture groups across the green. "Well, that's good, right? Is... is Dean with him?" It feels strange saying his brother's name out loud; he hasn't said it for almost two years.

There's silence broken only by Bobby's coarse breathing. Sam's gut worms its way into knots. "Bobby? Is Dean with dad?" He asks even though he knows the answer, knows what's Bobby's reluctance to spill the news means. Sam feels sick.

"That's why I'm callin', Sam. Dean... Dean was on a hunt and the- listen, it's not good, Sam. I want you to hear it from me before your dad gets in and botches it up. Dean had a run in with a nasty fuckin' poltergeist over in Arkansas. Hunter friend of mine found him, brought him back, but he was real messed up, Sam. Real bad."

Sam comes face to face with his father for the first time in two years and doesn't know what to say to him. There's very little to be said when your elder brother's lying dead in the basement. John doesn't meet his eye until Bobby snaps at them both and slams a tumbler of whiskey in front of each of them and tells them to get over their differences. Sam drinks first.

John stares into the bottom of his glass, hunched at the table, and Sam hasn't seen his dad look this defeated for years. He gets a twisted sense of satisfaction from it, and pushes that feeling deep down so he doesn't have to think about it. He's done that with a lot of feelings in the last thirty-six hours.

"Your brother wanted me to call you, y'know?" It comes after a long silence filled only by the ticking of an ancient wall clock above Bobby's stove. John looks up from his hands. "He wanted me to call and ask you how college was going. Said driving by every so often wasn't enough. I saw your girl once, you know that?" John smiles. "Dean said she was way out of your league."

Sam can't help the short, strained laugh that comes after that.

The pyre is out in the field behind the salvage yard. John turns his face away as the kindling catches but Sam still catches the shine on his face. Later that evening, Sam sits in the spare room at Bobby's with his fingers knotted in the cord of his brother's amulet and calls Jess. She lets him cry down the phone, hitching breaths and broken words as she murmurs condolences and demands to know the address he's at so she can catch the next bus out. He fends her off with promises of being home soon and I'll be fine I just need to get myself together Jess honestly and then, after, curls in on himself, chest heaving and amulet caught tight in his fist.

The morning dawns an angry red. Sam is out in the yard looking over the Impala before seven, fingers running over the dents and paint nicks in the well-worn metal. Bobby said Dean had demanded to be brought back in the damn thing before choking blood all over the back seat. Sam wonders absently if getting blood out of leather is difficult. It probably is.

The car still looks like Dean might saunter back into it; the glove compartment is open and Sam catches a glimpse of the ID card of an Agent Angus Young sticking out defiantly from a sheaf of newspaper clippings and motel cards.

"It's yours, I guess."

Sam snaps around and finds Bobby standing on the porch, coffee in hand. "What?"

"John don't want it, says he's better off in his truck." Bobby huffs. "Don't want to drive in the car his eldest croaked in, I say. He won't say it, course. You know the man."

"Yeah. I do." Sam rests his palm on the roof of the car and breathes deep. "He expects me to take it?"

Bobby shrugs. "I can keep hold of it if you'd rather not." He gives Sam a measured look from under his cap. "Won't let it rust out here with the others, either."

Sam glances down at the car, squinting through the driver's side window. The steering wheel has worn patches and the cassette player still contains a battered home-recorded Metallica tape, the handwritten title scrawled across its edge in biro. Sam smiles softly.

He takes her for a ride around the backroads of Sioux Falls that evening, the window down and the Metallica tape playing loud. The car makes him feel safe, which shouldn't feel as weird to him as it does – he grew up in it, slept in it, learnt to drive in it. It's the earliest home he knows, and yet the feeling of safety is different. It feels like home, sure, but it also feels like company.

The music stops mid track.

Sam frowns, and taps at the cassette player, to no avail. Despite the warmth of late summer the skin on the back of his neck prickles. Sam swallows and concentrates on the slight weight of the amulet against his breastbone, his breath coming in visible wisps in front of his face.

And then his cell rings, and the tape starts up again, and Sam kicks himself for acting like a little kid. He lets the phone ring out. He sighs into the seat, resting his head back and letting his eyes close. The heaves of his chest come almost comically in time with the track, and Sam grips the steering wheel harder. He's glad dad's not around, and he's glad he's in the middle of nowhere, but the small mercies don't alleviate the pressure in his chest. His knuckles bleach white.

"Easy there, tiger. Don't want you marking her up already."

He jolts up sharply, cheeks damp, and instantly reaches for the knife that isn't there – hasn't been there since he was nineteen and running scared half way across the country to get away – and stares wild-eyed around the car.

Dean quirks an eyebrow at him from the passenger seat. "Miss me, Sammy?"

Sam knows what dad would say, and he knows that any hunter worth his salt would say the same thing. You find the spirit's anchor and you burn it, simple as. You take the bones or the doll or the jewellery and you salt and burn them like they're firewood because there's no other way.

Sam studies the Impala and imagines it going up in flames.

"Sammy, you burn my car down and I will find another way to haunt your ass and give you hell for it, understand?" Dean is leaning back against the drivers' side door. Sam refuses to meet his eye.

His voice cracks. "You're dead, Dean."

"You'll be dead if you light my car on fire."

Sam rolls his eyes and finds himself smiling despite himself. It's comforting, in a way. The knot behind his ribcage untwisted itself the slightest bit when Dean showed up, and the anger and the grief has taken a back seat for the time being. "Spirits can't stay in this world, you know that."

"I'm gonna give it a damn good shot." Dean snaps, and flickers briefly.

Sam sighs. He can't burn the car, even if he knows it's the sensible decision. Dad would rattle off the lore about spirits gone bad and poltergeists trapped on earth – he doesn't remind Dean of this, probably a sore point – and hand him the gasoline himself and expect him to do it immediately. He wonders if dad could do it, liberally drown the car in gas and drop a lighter on it.

Sam catches the look Dean's shooting him from under cocked eyebrows and sighs. He can't do it, and he doesn't want to find out if dad could do it, and Dean knows both of these things just by glancing at him. The car's staying, haunted or not.

Graduating isn't quite the big hurrah everyone said it would be – dad doesn't show, Sam's not too surprised – but it's done with and Sam's proud of himself and he got a call from Bobby saying much the same, in the gruff manner the old hunter has. Jess' parents make a fuss over both of them, but Sam makes his excuses and extricates himself early to wait in the car, graduation cap in hand.

He slides into the driver's seat and shuts the door, watching the Moores orbit around their daughter, the pride shining out of them. He fiddles with the iPod jack, smiling, and twists the volume dial up a notch, settling back into his seat. Jess waves at him and motions five minutes and he feels as if everything is finally, finally clicking into place.

Cold air ghosts over his skin and he catches a flicker out of the corner of his eye.

"Sam, I swear to god, you play this shitty indie album again and I'm gonna shove that iPod so far up your ass you'll have fuckin' guitar angst coming out of your mouth for weeks, okay?"

Sam smiles wider, and turns the music up.