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Dean asks, “Where are you gonna go?” and Sam swallows, says, “Stanford, I think,” then, “I got a full ride, Dean. I’m not asking you for anything.”
Dean’s jaw hardens, and he says, “Thanks, figured that out all by myself.”
Sam chokes back “I’m sorry,” and in a week he’s on a Greyhound headed west and he can start forgetting the way Dean wouldn’t say goodbye, wouldn’t even look at him.
(At the bus station:
Dean –
Go on, Sam. Go start your new life.
Words that should have been proud and were instead razor wire binding Sam tight, choking him, and Sam didn’t say I still love you because it’d just make everything worse, and anyway he’s getting good at swallowing words, leaving them to burn in his belly.)
The warmth of the bus and the pale dim blue light and the hushed voices of the other passengers nearly lull Sam to sleep, but then he hears, clear as day, his father’s voice saying what’re you doing Sam keep alert I taught you better’n that, boy and he snaps awake before he remembers he’s not in the Impala on a hunt, dozing through the miles of highway.
So he leans his head back against the window and ends up not getting a single wink of sleep, just watches the road spooling out behind him, neck craned awkwardly, a habit developed when he was little. In the absence of things to do in those endless hours in the car, Sam taught himself to love the sight of trees and cars and houses rushing past. Once, very young, he had asked with great solemnity, “Dad, which goes faster, a tree or a bush?” and Dean had laughed and laughed. And the Greyhound almost feels like the Impala if he keeps his eyes on the road, except that Dean isn’t next to him fidgeting and smirking, twitching his fingers to the beat of the music, and Sam thinks, God, what am I doing?
Those first few weeks at Stanford are terrifying; Sam’s always been the best of his family at the lies, the fake identities. It was only thing he was the best at, his father too intent on getting the truth to be patient, Dean not caring enough to be. But this is another kind of lie, a permanent one. This is him now, forever.
He’s never been normal around anyone for this long and even though he doesn’t even have to lie that much, it feels just as much a costume as the endless fake IDs, the names that rolled off his tongue as he talked to some grieving widow. And yeah, he almost gives in once, more than once, almost calls Dean and says, “I was stupid,” and “I’m so sorry, you were right, I love you, come get me,” half-packs his bag and then tosses everything back into the tiny dresser. At least he doesn’t have a roommate; they’d probably think he was crazy, and he’s not so sure they’d be wrong.
There are a few people that he talks to pretty regularly, just hey-how’s-it-goin’ or what’d you think of the essay, and it doesn’t go further than that, Sam makes sure of it, because these people are children and Sam is more weapon than man. So he blows them off and hides in the library, up on the fourth floor where the pipes bang comfortingly, and doesn’t think about Dean, except when he does.
His self-imposed isolation lasts until he meets Jessica.
“Want to go get some coffee?” she asks after class one day, and he says, “I don’t really, uh, I mean,” and makes a confused sort of gesture.
“You’re dating someone?”
“No,” Sam says, “no. It’s – it’s complicated. Um. Sorry.”
“Okay, then,” she says, and then, “just as friends, then, how about it, Sammy?”
He almost says, “Don’t call me that,” an ache rising in his throat, but instead says, “Alright, sure.”
They go out for coffee and end up staying for hours. The next day, they go out to lunch in the dining hall and quiz each other. They keep doing this, and after a while they end up as friends, somehow. And it takes a month before Jess asks about it, just a delicate so if you don’t mind my asking and Sam panics a little and says, “Um, I,” and then he blanks on reasonable excuses and just says nothing.
“C’mon, Sam. You’ve got all the symptoms of a terrible breakup.”
“Is it that obvious,” he says more than asks.
“Yeah, I’d say so. So talk to me, you don’t have any other friends,” the last said with a crook of a smile that takes the sting out of it, even though it’s true.
“Rude,” he says.
She just arches an eyebrow at him, and he sighs.
“It’s just,” Sam says, and stops.
“My family,” he starts again, after a long awkward moment, voice rough, “isn’t, y’know. The best. Especially about – “ he waves a hand vaguely “– relationship stuff. I mean, we never talked about that stuff. And I didn’t date anyone except those week-long pretend things junior high school kids have. So I guess I just learned from – from bad TV and whatever books happened to be nearest. Which is to say that I don’t know shit about that stuff.”
“No one our age does,” Jess says. “It’s kind of in the job description for being a college student.”
“Yeah. I guess it wouldn’t have mattered really except that the first person I was really in a relationship with, it was – intense. I thought it was gonna be – “
He can’t finish that sentence.
“Anyway,” he says, stops to clear his throat, then goes on, “I thought that love could conquer all, y’know? No matter what happened, as long as we loved each other, it would be okay. And then I, I find out that it doesn’t matter if you love them, it doesn’t matter if they’re your soulmate, because it can still go to shit, and I –“ He shuts up then, afraid of what else is going to fall out of his mouth. “I’m okay now, though. Getting there, at least.” Sam can’t quite meet her eyes, though, so he stares at his hands, laces and interlaces his fingers.
“Oh, Sam, my boy,” Jess says, and slides a hand over his two clenched together, which should feel invasive but doesn’t, and he bows his head down over their three hands and just breathes for a while.
The dorms don’t have phones in them, and the cell phone at the bottom of his underwear drawer is the emergency cell that he just has to call one number on and Dad and Dean will be there in a matter of hours, ready to save him from anything. Dad pressed it into his hand as he left, and Sam thinks now that John was actually sadder to see him go than Dean was, which more than anything proves how bad Sam fucked everything up. So Sam goes on long walks at night, ends up at the payphone on the corner over and over again, picking up the receiver only to hang it up five, ten, twenty times in a row. Plunking quarters in, punching in every number but one, then hanging up fast before be dials the last number, because he wants to hear Dean’s voice but Dean doesn’t want to hear his, not after what Sam did.
(just because you’re not good for anything but this stupid job – )
He picks up the receiver, night after night after night, hangs up, picks it up, dials a few numbers then crashes it down again.
(I should have a chance to do something more with my life, Dean.)
He gets terribly, fantastically drunk at some party, and Jessica is there, saying, “Sam, Sammy, c’mon, please talk to me, and stop doing this shit.”
He says, “I’m not doing anything, Jess, I’m just having a drink.”
Jess just kind of laughs, humorless, and says, “You’re falling off a cliff and I’m trying to pull you back, you could give me a little help.”
“It’s my life to throw away, mother hen,” Sam says, and he meant that as a joke, he really did, but it comes out sharp-edged and mean.
“Jesus, Sam, just shut up, you don’t get to do this to me,” she says, furious, and he’s drunk and she sounds like Dean after a hunt, all adrenaline and exhaustion and love, and he kisses her before he thinks better of it.
“Sam, Sam, no. Stop.”
“Why,” he slurs, “I love you, Jess, why shouldn’t we – “
“You are such an idiot sometimes,” Jess says, not sounding angry anymore, just absolutely dog-tired. “C’mon, let’s go home.”
He thinks of the Impala’s deep rumbling engine, and the feel of leather under his palms, that one summer when Dad kept stopping at roadside fruit stands to buy oranges, how he and Dean ate them in the backseat, how Dean’s hands smelled sweet and tangy for weeks. “Alright,” he says, and follows her, stumbling only a few times, into her dorm. He slumps onto her desk chair, slouching spectacularly so he can actually lean against the hard back.
“You’re just lucky I have a single. Here,” she says, giving him a mug with a stylized picture of Darth Vader on the side. It’s coffee, from the smell.
“Thanks,” he says, taking it. He doesn’t drink from it, though, just lets the heat of it sear his palms.
“We should probably talk about this,” Jess says with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
Sam is silent; she evidently takes that as acquiescence. “You’re not interested in me, not like that.”
“You’re my best friend,” he says, slightly surprised to find that it’s true, “and I love you.”
“Exactly, you love me as a friend, and by the way, who ever said I was interested in a relationship with you?”
Sam smiles at her in an ‘a-ha!’ way. “You asked me out.”
“Before I knew you, Sam. Before you were my friend,” Jess says, the “you idiot” implicit. He just closes his eyes, lets his head roll loosely. He thinks he might be falling asleep a little. He thinks falling asleep during this conversation might be a pretty bad idea.
“I’m willing,” she said, making Sam sit up, fully awake in an instant, “to try it. But you have to tell me what happened with you and Dean.”
He flinches at the name, then says, “If I tell you about – that, will you tell me why you’re actually going along with this?”
She walks over to him, perches herself on the desk in front of him, says, “I need you, that’s all. And I love you, and I think this is a terrible idea but if it works out it might be a pretty damn good idea. So. Tell me.”
There’s a long pause, but Jessica doesn’t press, just waits for him to talk.
“I wanted to go to college,” he says. “And that wasn’t, isn’t the life he wanted, and I told him it didn’t have to, you know, mean the end of us, but. That’s the way he took it. He, Dean, he wanted me to stay with him.”
(I’m not gonna throw my life away for this – this stupid quest!
Like me, you mean.
I didn’t say that.)
“I love him. I loved him then. But it was my whole life he was asking for, every part of it, and I couldn’t do it. It was like I was signing my life away. And that was bad enough, but I was pissed, and I said some shit, I don’t know if he’s ever gonna forgive me for it.”
(I can take a hint.
That’s not what I meant, Dean! God, why d’you always have to twist what I’m saying like this –
All I’ve ever done is try to do right by you.
…Dean, I –
Don’t fucking touch me.)
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
Sam huffs a laugh. “It was my fault.”
She doesn’t say anything, just leans down to him and kisses him slow and sweet.
Nothing’s changed that much between them, except that now they have sex, and junior year they move in together, just a crappy tiny apartment, but it feels more like home than Sam’s felt in two years.
The phone rings one night as they talk in the kitchen, Jess sitting on the counter, Sam slouched low in a rickety chair. Jess goes to pick up the phone, frowns, says, “Guess they hung up. Probably a telemarketer or something.”
But the phone rings again, muffled, and Sam knows, he knows, and he says, “Shit,” and lunges to the next room and grabs his phone from its hiding place.
“You don’t have a cell phone,” Jessica says. “What – “
Sam doesn’t respond, just flips it open. “Hello?”
“Sammy?” the voice comes across, tinny.
“Dean,” Sam breathes, and hears Jessica say, ”Oh, shit,” behind him.
“Sammy. Sam. Sam, I, I…” Dean trails off. “Miss you. So much.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I know that, Sam,” Dean says, sounding almost sober for a second.
“Dean – “Sam says, and finds himself unable to continue.
“Sammy, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For…whatever I did. Whatever m-made you leave. Sam, Sam, Sam, I miss you, I love you, I – ”
Sam makes a noise, raw and hurt, because he feels like his lungs just got ripped out, and somehow doesn’t respond in kind.
“I wanted to tell you,” Dean says, sounding a little steadier. “Anything. I’ll do, do whatever you want, never touch you again, never look at you again if you don’t want, please just come home – “ and his voice absolutely shatters and Sam is shaking.
“You don’t mean that, you’re drunk,” Sam says, voice in pieces, “and that’s not happening, Dean, I.” He stops, swallows.
“Shit,” Dean curses, low and brutal. “I shouldn’t have – “ and he hangs up, leaves Sam gasping.
“Jesus,” Jessica says.
Sam brushes a shaky hand over his mouth. “Yeah.” Then, in a strained attempt at humor, “So, now can we stay home tomorrow?”
“Always milking your problems,” Jess says, which should hurt but doesn’t because it’s Jess. “Alright, Sammy, let’s have a night in. You know, you used to actually like parties.”
“I still do, just not Halloween parties, you know I hate Halloween.”
“Oh my God,” she says, rolling her eyes, “did you not have a childhood or something, Jesus,” and goes to call the friend that invited them.
“All taken care of,” she says, coming back into the kitchen. “And because I’m nice, I won’t even ask about the cell phone. What would you do without me, Winchester?”
“Crash and burn,” he says, which probably shouldn’t be funny but somehow is.
The next night, after a lazy evening of pizza and watching incredibly bad reality TV, Sam hears it, a movement in the next room, and he knows someone’s there. But it’s Dean in their apartment, and not a burglar or any kind of monster, and Sam may be a soldier in more ways than one but he has no way to defend himself from this. Dean pins him, and Sam flips them without a thought, ends up on top of Dean.
“Fuckin’ hell, get off of me, you yeti,” Dean says, and Sam backs off in a hurry. “You’re lucky I’m hungover, man, or I’d’ve had your ass for sure.”
“Hungover,” Sam says, not meeting Dean’s eyes because he might actually die if he does that. “It’s the middle of the night, Dean.”
“Yeah, I was drunk last night. And most of today. I don’t even know where I was last night, I was so smashed.”
Sam feels dizzy for a second because Dean doesn’t remember, which is really for the best, but still makes Sam’s chest ache, just for a moment. “Classy,” he says.
“Yeah, whatever. Listen, dude, we need to talk.”
Jessica comes into the room, and Sam is more grateful for her existence than he has ever been before, and that’s saying something, considering.
“Alone,” Dean adds, giving Sam a significant look.
Sam says, “Anything you have to say you can say in front of Jess,” meaning “if she leaves I don’t know how I’ll hold it together.”
“Fine,” Dean says. “D – John’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in, well, a while.”
“How long?”
“Few weeks,” Dean says, and Sam doesn’t even have to think.
“Okay,” Sam says, “okay. Jess, listen, I have to go.”
“The hell you do, Sammy, think about this for a second.”
“I will explain,” Sam says, “everything. I promise. But when I get back.” He means it, too, no matter what protests Dean will inevitably have.
They leave in the Impala, and Sam breathes the scent of it in, deep, imagining burrowing into the engine and falling asleep there. Dean drives, of course, and Sam half-turns to watch the road run out behind them, and they don’t talk.
Eventually, though, they do talk, but not about the right things. Dean says things like “you walked out” and “doesn’t family mean anything to you?” and Sam can’t find the courage to bring up the real problem, just leaves the tension shimmering between them.
It almost breaks, that night on the bridge, Sam pressed up against a strut. He knows, too, that he provoked Dean to this, wanted some kind of closeness from him even only from anger. But Sam doesn’t have it in him to go there and Dean probably doesn’t trust Sam not to push him away again, so it comes to nothing.
And, too soon, Sam is back home. He can go with Dean if he wants to, and, God, he wants to, wants to drive for hours with just Dean and the road for company, kiss him every morning and every night (if that’s even an option anymore). But instead he goes home, because he loves Jess only second to Dean and he can’t, he can’t leave behind his life when he lost everything to get it. Even if he has to watch the taillights of the Impala disappear, again.
Sam goes inside, and, yeah, there’s a Dean-shaped hole in his chest, but this place smells like home too. There’s a plate of cookies out, because Jess cooks when she’s anxious. The way Sam left her, he bets the fridge is jam-packed with leftovers.
He flops on the bed, lets the kinks from being in the car for however long work their way out. But there’s this tickling feeling on his face, and Sam opens his eyes and she’s there, Jesus, on the ceiling, and she doesn’t even scream, just stares at him with stricken eyes, and there is a long moment when Sam is completely useless, just stares, mouth open, thinking, not here, not Jess, please, no. Then he has some semblance of control again, is roaring, “Jess! Jess, Jess, no.”
Flames burst out of nowhere and he can’t move, he can’t –
“Jess, oh Jesus, fuck,” he moans, stares into the fire as her face becomes unrecognizable – and then Dean is there, dragging him outside.
“Dean, oh God, Jess. She’s just – “
“Sam, shh, hey, Sammy. It’s gonna be okay,” Dean says, and Sam says, “But I love her, she can’t – “and then he’s sobbing helplessly into Dean’s shoulder.
He calms down, eventually, and Dean is looking at him, eyes huge and bright and luminously green. Dean dragged him over to the Impala at some point during while he was crying, and Sam stands straight from where he was leaning against Dean, walks around to the back of the car. He opens the trunk and picks up a shotgun, the cold solidity of it grounding him, if only for a moment. He loads it, drops it in the trunk. Then, in a voice he can barely recognize as his own –
“We’ve got work to do,” Sam says, and falls a little further.