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Dean is so going to give him crap for this later, but Sam can’t bring himself to care all that much. So when Eileen finally shows signs of letting go, Sam lets her step away, but not too far. With one hand, he threads his fingers through hers, loose enough that she can step back if she wants to. With the other, he signs his best approximation of come on.
It’s not like they don’t have empty rooms in the bunker. Both Mom and Cas’s rooms have been made up for months, barely slept in while their owners stayed AWOL. But he gets the feeling that Eileen doesn’t want to be alone right now, and her hands are still tremoring.
“Here.”
He guides Eileen into his room, suddenly very aware of how little it looks like he’s actually lived there. A lifetime of motel rooms hadn’t made Sam good at holding on to things. He doesn’t have much to show for the nearly five years he’s lived here.
“Thanks.”
Her lower lip wobbles, as do her fingertips when she signs the words.
“I don’t really have a place to—to sit.”
He gestures helplessly around the room. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“It’s fine.”
She sits down on the edge of his bed, head bowed, hands clasped. For her, Sam realizes, it’s a deliberate show of silence. He hesitantly sits down beside her, enough space between them to be platonic if she wants it to be. She lays her head on his shoulder. They sit like that for about a minute and a half.
“Have you—have you ever—?”
Her voice breaks off. Sam leans back on his bed and roots around in the drawer of his bedside table. He’s ninety percent sure he has a tissue box in there somwh—oh. He pulls one out and hands it over. Eileen blows her nose loudly, then crumples the tissue in her fist.
“Yeah.”
God knows how many times. It’s not usually something she talks about, but there are tears in her eyes and she looks like she might need another tissue pretty soon, and there’s a feeling in his chest that hasn’t been there in who knows how long.
“I’ve um—been possessed. A couple of times.”
Even the thought of it makes his skin itch like it doesn’t quite fit properly. Sam does his best to hide it. They only have time for one crisis right now.
Eileen looks at him with something like alarm in her eyes. “So it’s true.”
Something sinks in his chest. She’s heard the same stories as Max and Alicia Barnes, as all the hunters at the wake, hell, as Walt and Roy and Gordon and every other hunter who decided the world would be a better place without him in it. She’s going to bolt out of the bunker and never come back.
“The Lucifer thing? Yeah, it’s true.”
There’s no point lying to her.
“Wow.” She drops her gaze again, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s just—it’s amazing, that you managed to beat him.”
Sam, who had been ready to open the door for her to run out of at top speed, blinks uncomprehendingly at her. Then, a smile spreads across his face. It—it was kind of amazing, even if Sam prefers the latest victory because it hadn’t required anybody jumping into Hell.
He lifts his flat hand to his chin and gestures out in a thank you. Her smile broadens.
“You’ve been learning.”
Sam nods. “I’ve been trying. It’s way harder than I’d thought.”
He’d assumed that he wouldn’t have to learn any grammar or anything like he’d had to for Latin. (And Sumerian. And Greek.) But, as it turned out, ASL had a ton of little rules and conventions just like any other language. And, just like any other language, it was difficult to learn on your own.
“I got a book out of the library, but I’ve found it’s a little easier if I use a couple online resources.”
They lapse into silence, the kind of easy silence between longtime friends, not people who have only seen each other a handful of times. Eileen stays tucked into his side, and the shaking subsides.
“You, uh, you want to try to get some sleep? It’s been a long day.” He realizes the implications of what he’s just said. “I can get you set up in one of the guest rooms. It’s no trouble.”
She brushes some of her hair out of her face. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
Sam can’t blame her. The first time he’d taken out a demon with Ruby’s knife—the first time he’d realized that there was a person beneath the black eyes—he’d been near-silent for almost a week, trying to process.
“Yeah. That—okay. Just let me—”
He has two pillows because he likes to prop himself up when he reads in bed some days. It’s just a matter of fluffing them both up into something more respectable. He’s suddenly painfully aware of the fact that he hasn’t washed his sheets since Dean went through on his mad spring cleaning streak a little over a month ago.
“Do you need water, or..?”
Eileen shakes her head. “I’m good.”
She kicks off her shoes and pulls off her jacket. She doesn’t wait for an invitation before she slips underneath the sheets, which is probably a good thing because Sam isn’t sure he would have been able to make it coherently. He joins her, careful not to touch her. He doesn’t want to take advantage of this situation.
Eileen turns to face him. She signs thank you with a smile and burrows into his side. Sam brushes her hair aside like he did just a few hours ago. It’s soft beneath his fingers. Eileen lets out a long breath.
“I think I might go back to Ireland for a little while,” she confesses, looking up at him as if to gauge his reaction. “The Men of Letters want me dead—where better to hide than in plain sight?”
Sam knows she’s right, but that doesn’t make the thought of her leaving the country so soon with a target on her back any easier.
So instead of protesting, he draws her a little closer. “Get some rest.”
He doesn’t even think about sleeping until her breath evens out and her head drops against his chest.