Chapter Text
Jess’ family was huge, and loud, but kind. Nine kinds of one-upmanship going on in the first ten minutes after the whole group sat down at the big wooden table that had been expanded by placing a plastic one – for the kids or so it seemed – next to it. standing like that the table stretched nearly the length of the room, creaking under the weight of a mismatched feast—store-bought pies next to homemade casseroles, roasted vegetables scattered among plates of cookies and candies that the kids had clearly gotten to first. A centerpiece of twinkling lights and pinecones crowned the chaos, the battery pack for the lights sticking out awkwardly to one side.
The family Moore – consistent of grandma Betty, the mother of Jess’ mom, grandparents from Jess’ father’s side, two uncles, one aunt and her wife, and roughly four Moore siblings (where Sam wasn’t sure of if the fifth was a sibling or a nephew) and their children – had welcomed Sam warmly, some shaking his hand, others joyfully commenting on the colorful tie Sam choose to wear, the young children just staring at him like they were wondering if someone with Sam’s length counted as ‘stranger danger’ or a tree before they returned to playing with the toy cars they were pushing over the wooden floorboards. They didn’t seem to care too much about etiquette, which made Sam stand out even more with the formal vest he choose to wear on Jess’ insistence.
Dinner started easy, no one directly engaging with Sam, or Jessica who held her eyes on him for close to the entire time, sometimes politely smiling when a member of her family made some remark or another, mostly agreeing with whatever they said without really giving the impression of completely having heard them anyway. It felt safe, possible, until of course someone had to demand their attention.
“So, Sam,” Jess’s mom said from across the table, her voice cutting cleanly through the din, pulling Sam back from focussing on the world and the busyness around himself and onto herself, her updone hair, her festive dress. Her gaze was sharp but not unfriendly, in all honesty she looked exactly like Sam imagined a mom would look, how he hoped a mom would look. She had a certain charm about her, though one Jess – like that of her grandmother – didn’t seem particularly fooled by. “Jess tells us you’re from Kansas?”
Sam set down his fork, offering a small smile. “Originally, yeah.” He answered “We moved around a lot after that, though.”
Jess’s mom nodded, tilting her head slightly. “I can imagine. That must have been… an experience.”
Sam chuckled softly, the familiar question giving him a chance to fall back on a practiced response. “that’s one word for it.” He agreed “You get good at packing, that’s for sure.”
“parents not home a lot?”
“Father, and no”
“your mother?”
Sam hesitated, seeing – more like feeling – Jessica ready herself to butt in but deciding on an answer before she could, the topic of where he grew up had clearly been more in the front of her mind than to mention to her mother that he had never known his and if anything that was so so typically Jess, to deem one detail a little more important than the other. she had never given him the impression that she really minded his family being different than others but having it proven in this blatant way still made him smile.
“It was always mostly me and my brother at home.”
The woman appeared to get the hint, swallowing her question about him not missing his family during Christmas, and nodding instead.
“And you’re settled now? In California?” she tried, her tone pleasant but probing, perhaps deliberately so to get them both away from a can of worms she herself opened.
Under the table, Jess’s hand found Sam’s knee, her fingers squeezing gently. He didn’t look at her but let out a breath, the small gesture anchoring him in the noise.
“Yeah,” he replied, keeping his voice steady, thankful for the topic change. “Stanford, like Jess. law school, well, pre-law still but I don’t doubt I will get there eventually.”
The teen beside him snorted under his breath, muttering something like “nerd” into his plate. Sam ignored it, but Jess shot the kid a sharp look, only getting an eye-roll in return as the kid quickly forked some more of his fries into his mouth to have an excuse not to respond to his aunt.
“Well, isn’t that impressive,” Jess’s mom said, her eyes flicking toward Jess, who smiled tightly. “I suppose you’ve got your hands full. Must be a nice change of pace for Jess—dating a future lawyer instead of a… what was it before, honey? Carol, Karl? What was it? The one with the muscles.”
Jess’s cheeks reddened, her grip on Sam’s knee tightening. “Mom,” she said, her voice low but warning.
“he was going to be a park ranger wasn’t he?” the woman’s eyes passed over Sam’s physique “You sure have a type love.”
“mom-”
“Karl?” Betty chimed in “The one she found on the internet?”
“Grandma!”
“what?” the woman asked, face a pretentious kind of puzzled “this young man deserves to know, doesn’t he? I thought that boy was handsome too, kind, tall, though less so than this one, but he had that look about him, perhaps a bit more into-”
“well I am not a park ranger,” Sam corrected lightly, a hint of humor in his tone as he cut her off as politely as possible. “Though I do get that a lot.”
The tension broke with a ripple of laughter from a few of the adults. Jess’s mom smiled, satisfied, and Sam felt Jess’s hand relax just slightly.
From the other end of the table, a booming voice cut through the conversation. “So, Sam! Stanford hm? That must mean you’re a big reader?”
Sam glanced down the table to see one of Jess’s uncles—tall, broad-shouldered, with a Santa-like laugh—grinning at him. He nodded. “I am. Mostly legal texts these days, though I try to sneak in the occasional novel when I can.”
“Ah, a smart one!” the uncle declared, raising a glass. “Don’t let the kids hear you. You’ll ruin your cool factor believe me.”
Sam chuckled, holding up his hands. “I think my cool factor went out the window when I put on this vest.”
That earned another round of laughter, and even Jess leaned into his shoulder, smiling. For the first time that night, Sam felt himself start to relax.
“you are all from the area?” he dared to ask, taking initiative in the conversation for the first time that night
“most of us are, Beth moved when she got her dream residency”
Beth, Sam remembered Jessica having mentioned her sister before, med-school-Beth, can-do-no-wrong-Beth, apparently-got-engaged-Beth. It doesn’t seem like anyone else knows yet, the way this girl leans into her fiancé, the way they exchange glances seemingly escaping everyone but Sam, Sam himself trying to keep the conversation light and his tone and mood unstressed, something he only managed to do by first trying to read everyone around him as if he’s reading the situation like a textbook – an old habit but one that comes in useful now to kill his nerves
“good for her” he smiles, accepting a tray of fresh vegetables one of Jessica’s other family members that sat on the other side next to him - the one with the nerd comment from earlier, now lost in their own conversation - was passing around.
Their mother nods, pride visible, audible “you must have heard”
Something – someone – squeezes Sam’s knee again below the table, and Sam doesn’t have to look to his right to know who it was, nor how his girlfriend feels about this whole martyrization of her sister over her. he moves his hand, putting it on top of hers and squeezing is softly before turning his attention back to the woman he had been chatting with. The night would continue pleasantly, Beth would indeed announce her engagement, her mother would squeal, Sam would praise the cooking, then praise Jess, talking about the part-time job she managed to land, about how amazing she was, he knew she wasn’t very into him pressing her qualities like that but at this table it felt like a game everyone was participating in, to be someone, to do something, though in a much friendlier way than that same game had always been played at his home table. These people actually appeared to care about each other no matter what anyone did, despite their way of verbalizing it. that last realization might have been the second and last time Sam thought about Dean that night, the wonder about what his brother would think if he saw him now quickly fading from his mind as one of the kids yelled loudly about wanting dessert.
“That I have.”