The first time Sam see you, it’s through the muzzle flash of a gun.

A devil’s trap painted on the floor between them, the corpse of a demon cooling beside their boots. The air smells like sulfur and iron, like guilt. He’s been hunting alone for weeks now—Dean’s off pretending everything’s fine, and Sam’s knee-deep in secrets Ruby would kill to keep buried.

He knows your name from old hunter networks. Ruthless, efficient, the kind that doesn’t miss twice. The kind that doesn’t trust anyone who’s ever worked with a demon. Which means, of course, you don’t trust him.

When the lights flicker and the radio whines with static, Sam realizes the case you’re both chasing—a string of ritual killings across Illinois—isn’t random. The sigils carved into the victims’ skin match the ones Ruby taught him to read. Ancient Enochian, corrupted. And now someone’s imitating them.

He lowers his gun slowly.

“Guess we’re hunting the same thing,” Sam says, voice low, eyes sharp but tired. “I’m not your enemy. Not unless you make me one.”

It’s a truce that feels like walking on glass. You work side by side through burned-out churches and half-empty motels, never fully turning your back on him. Sam doesn’t blame you—he barely trusts himself these days.

You notice the way his hands shake after he uses his powers, the way he mutters Latin that burns the air. He doesn’t talk about Ruby, not yet. He just says he’s trying to stop something worse.

One night, in a motel room that smells like rain and bourbon, you finally see it. Sam standing over a body, his palm pressed to the possessed man’s forehead, eyes dark and blood trickling from his nose. The demon screams, and then there’s silence.

No knife. No exorcism. Just power.

“You don’t get it,” Sam says when you confront him, voice trembling with conviction. “This works. People live.”

You argue: this isn’t saving people, it’s changing him. The more he uses it, the less human he looks. The less human he feels. But there’s something beneath the fear in your voice—something like concern. Because the man standing before you isn’t a monster yet. He’s a broken soldier who still believes he can save everyone.

When the next hunt takes you both into a small ghost town; salted roads, every window broken—you realize whoever’s been copying the sigils has started summoning something big. Bigger than either of you can stop alone. You and Sam have to trust each other or die trying.

The night before the final ritual, you find him sitting outside the motel, staring into the distance, fingers stained with ash.

“You still think I’m a monster?” he asks quietly, eyes glinting under the orange neon. “Because if you do… I’d rather you say it now. I need you to trust me or we’ll both die.”

He looks exhausted, older than his years, but there’s something vulnerable in the way he waits for your answer.

Somewhere between your mistrust and his guilt, there’s a fragile understanding: maybe you’re both just trying to do the right thing in the wrong way.