Supernatural Imagines

Sam x reader--A Practice in Listening

Trigger Warnings: Depression, anger, social anxiety, mental illness, bad memories, self-sabotaging thoughts. It's about two people in a mental institute, it'll be what you expect.

You peep your head into the newly occupied room beside yours. "Hi. They want me to socialize, so here I am. I'm Y/n. Bye."

As you turn your back, a voice calls out. "Wait. I'm Sam!"

Slowly you twist to face the room. A tall man with choppy brown hair is standing by his white bed. His shoulders are hunched and his eyes are red. Healing cuts are scattered along the left side of his forehead. Despite his daunting figure, he seems somehow easily approachable. His eyes are filled with a loneliness you never imagined anyone else having.

"Hi, Sam," you say softly, too worried to say anything more. Crossing your arms, you wait to see if he has anything else to say.

"C-can you stay? Stay here? I want someone to talk to..."

You hesitate, wondering what kind of psychopath this guy could be. One side of your mind pulls you into the room, while the other holds you back. Don't talk to him; It's too much work; Anything you say will just make the situation worse.

"D-don't you have a therapist for that?"

He tries to act casual and calm, but you can see through it all. His insides are splitting apart like wood that is far too old to keep it together any longer.

"I do...but I don't like talking to her. She denies everything I say. You don't even have to understand or care about what I tell you. I just want to talk."

One side of you forces a foot into his room. Your support group said you should try socializing; This is perfect; You don't even have to say anything; Just listen or pretend to; Go in.

With a sigh, you enter his room. A smile lights up on his face and he offers you a seat on his bed.

The other side of your mind pipes in. He could be a serial killer; Even if he isn't, these conversations never go well; You're going to say something awkward or embarrassing; You need an escape path.

"I'll stay here," you mumble, leaning against the wall beside the door.

He gives you a sympathetic side smile and sits on the weak mattress that creases under his weight. You gesture for him to start talking and get it over with.

"Y/n, right?"

You nod.

"OK. I uh don't know where to start. It's hard to just spill all my problems."

You instantly regret agreeing to this. You are not ready to become a replacement for his incompetent shrink. It's too late to back out now without hurting his feelings forever, so you let him continue.

"There's just so much going on in my head... What do you want to know?"

Your eyes widen. You don't want to know anything. "Uh...wh-why are you in here?"

He chuckles as if that was the most complicated spot to start. "That might require a little backstory...Should I start from the beginning?"

"Sure."

"Ok. Please don't automatically assume I'm crazy. Ask my brother. This is all true."

You nod, impatient for him to get on with it already.

"Well when I was a baby—my brother was five—a fire started in my nursery. My brother and dad got me out, but my mom didn't make it."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Yeah. So my dad set out to find what caused the fire and found out that it was a demon."

"A demon?" you cut him off, "No way. Demons aren't real." You slowly back away.

"Wait! But that's just what everyone thinks. One gave me all these scratches." He points to the side of his face. "And there are more than just demons out there. Any monster you can think of, it might be real and I've spent my entire life learning to fight them."

"This is insane. You're insane."

"Wait. Y/n. You said you wouldn't call me crazy."

You pause and watch his pleading eyes. The bags under his eyes have become more prominent with the rise in stress levels. His face has gone pale. His outstretched hand trembles in the air.

"Please stay," he whimpers.

You nod, sitting on the floor. "Ok. Finish your story."

He explains going to college against his father's will only to be visited by his brother with harrowing news of his father's disappearance. Sam and Dean took off and were thrown back into the horrors of monsters under beds. Sam describes the deaths of his friends and an angel named Castiel. He tells you about their adventures in stifling multiple plans to the perfect apocalypse, nearly losing themselves in the process. Each painful memory makes him squeeze his eyes shut as he tells them, as if he were trying to block out the images.

Finally he gets himself together with a sigh, looking you in the eyes. "Although they think I'm in here is because of all that, they're wrong. There's something worse that I couldn't handle..."

You can't tell if he is pausing for effect or fear, but you urge him to continue, invested in his compelling stories.

He laughs quietly, rubbing his forehead. "This is going to sound crazy, but I have the devil in my head. You see when I came up from hell, I was missing my soul. So when I got it back, it came with all the horrible memories from my time down there. Now I'm in hell on earth, literally. Lucifer is sitting over there in the corner, screaming the lyrics to Metallica song my brother used to play."

You let out a snort, transforming it into a cough as a cover-up for your rudeness. "And...?" you prompt.

He doesn't fall for your act. "To you it probably sounds like I'm a lunatic, but it's all real. Just try to believe me. Dean will come to visit soon. Ask him."

Sure enough, his brother joined you hours later and concurred with Sam on all the details. Either the two of them are delusional or ahead of the game.

"We could never have hallucinated about the exact same things our entire lives," Dean says, hoping to prove their truthfulness.

You give in. You sit cross-legged on the floor and listen in awe to all the tales they tell together for hours on end. They talk about the moments Sam had only summarized before and describe each monster in depth. Your mouth drops at the surprises and you gasp at the betrayals almost as if this were a tall tale. But it feels all so real. Maybe even too real.

Before you're ready, visiting hours end, and Dean must leave. You are whisked away for your nightly medications and sent to bed, where you only lie on your back with wide eyes. Absolutely awake.

Can you really believe the farfetched stories of a man in a mental institute? Yes. Should you? No one knows.