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Sam came out of the bathroom with a grateful smile. He’d sworn he was done hunting, and he was done hunting. He wasn’t a hunter, he was a college student. A pre-law student with a future ahead of him, a future that involved safety and living in one place for more than a few weeks at a time and – this part was important – never, ever smelling like burning pig and hair. Brady liked to give him a hard time about the floral shampoo and the emphatically sandalwood-scented soap, but he had no idea why it was really there.
Of course this time there wasn’t really an option was there? There hadn’t just been a witch – Sam didn’t have a problem with witchcraft per se. This witch had been murderous, though, and he’d been sloppy about it. That would have brought hunters to Palo Alto and hunters in Palo Alto ran the risk of his father and brother. No one wanted that. He sometimes suspected he caught a glimpse of a denim jacket or dark hair out of the corner of his eye, but he never made an issue of it. He just made sure that his apartment was extra secure in ways his father and Dean would never understand and kept to heavily populated areas. So the witch had to go. Fortunately for Sam he was able to take the guy out without him ever knowing he was coming so he got out of it with only a few bruises and some very grateful guys on Harleys.
As he strode over to the nightstand he noticed that his phone was blinking. He’d missed one call, from a number near to campus that was still unfamiliar. He sighed. This wasn’t exactly unfamiliar territory lately, unfortunately. He grabbed the phone and called the number back. A woman’s voice answered, young and cheerful. “Hello, is this Sam Winchester?”
For a moment his heart froze. People should not know who he was, especially not if he didn’t know who they were. He forced his nerves to settle. He was a civilian. This was normal. “That’s me,” he made himself say. “I got a call from this number?”
“Yeah, hi. I’m Jess Moore. I called about a handsome blond guy passed out on my bed without a shirt? Someone wrote ‘Property of Sam Winchester, if found please call’ and then your number across his chest in black sharpie.”
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“No, he’s very handsome.” He could hear the smile in her voice.
“I assume you’d like to sleep in your bed,” he sighed. “I’ll be right over, if you’ll give me your address.” She gave the address, an apartment only a couple of blocks away. He sighed and glanced longingly at his desk and its neat and orderly books. Well, he could always study while Brady slept it off. He threw on a pair of jeans and a couple of shirts and walked over to the building she told him.
When he got there he found all the signs of a recent party. The common room still had bowls of chips on the table and red Solo cups on every available surface. A pretty Asian woman in a pink sorority tee shirt proved not to be Jess Moore, but she was more than willing to direct Sam to her housemate’s room and gave him a wink.
Jess turned out to be quite probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. She stood a good six feet tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes and the most delightful little beauty mark right on her forehead. She smiled up at him. “Hello. You must be Sam Winchester.”
He couldn’t speak for a second. Dean would be disgusted. “Yeah. Uh, yeah. That’s me. I guess Brady decided to have a little time out on your bed. I’m sorry about that.” He ran his hand through his hair. She gestured toward the bed, where Sam’s lover lay on his back. His button-down shirt had been opened to reveal that he’d left the undershirt behind, only the words that Jess had read to him between his skin and the open air. He shook his head. “Look, I didn’t write that. I’m not in the habit of declaring people to be property.”
She grinned easily. “No worries. It made it easy to figure out a way to get him home safely. He is yours, though, right?”
He snorted. Brady never slept on his back, nor did he sleep in such a composed manner. The guy was like a cat, taking up every inch of available space. “We’re seeing each other, yeah. Not exclusively or anything,” he added when she bit her lip and looked away, “so if he was getting flirtatious or something you don’t have to worry that he was sneaking around and I’m going to make a scene if I find out or something.” He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”
“So you know he’s into girls too?”
Sam laughed out loud. “We both are. It works out well for us that way.”
Maybe he was imagining how that she brightened up a bit at that. Maybe not. “Oh. That’s great. So you’re a student here too? What’s your major?”
They talked a little bit before he finally pretended to rouse the distinctly not sleeping Brady. There was no need to exchange phone numbers all things considered and Sam was in no way surprised to find his boyfriend perfectly sober once outside the building. He might have been a little bit relieved, considering his behavior after Thanksgiving, but he wasn’t surprised. “What exactly was that supposed to accomplish?” he asked the former pre-med major. “If you were looking for a random hookup you should have hooked up, not pretended to pass out in a corner for however long it took her to find you.”
“A random hookup wasn’t the goal, Sam. I wanted you to meet Jess.” He grabbed Sam’s hand. The hunter marveled, as he always did, at the softness in his lover’s touch. This was a hand that had never dug a grave. He wondered if he craved its touch that much more because it lacked that particular experience.
“She seemed…” He trailed off, cheeks warm.
“Beautiful, right? Smart, too. I know her from back in my days in pre-med and let me tell you she ran circles around me in all my classes. I think she wants to go into neurology.” He grinned that slick salesman’s grin that had only shown up since Thanksgiving break. Sam didn’t like that grin so much, it made his spine run cold with goosebumps, but hey. At least he’d gotten Brady away from the drugs, right?
“Okay, yeah. She seems pretty amazing. But I’m not exactly on the market, Brady.” He chuckled. “Or are you bored with me?”
The smaller student stuck a hand in the back pocket of his jeans. “I can’t imagine I’d ever get bored with you, Sam. But you can’t tell me that you didn’t like her too.”
He shrugged and laughed, pulling Brady closer. “Maybe I’ve just got a thing for blonds.”
Brady came back to Sam’s place that night and they tried very hard indeed to scrub the Sharpie off his chest. They tried the next morning too.
He was actually surprised to get a text from Jess inviting him out for coffee on Monday. Brady thought it was a fantastic idea and sent him so many bolstering texts during class that Sam had to turn his phone off until he was done with classes for the day before he could accept. One cup of coffee turned into dinner, and then a study date at the library. Brady showed up sometimes. Jess seemed to enjoy his company almost as much as she enjoyed Sam’s. Sometimes they went out alone, even. Sam had no idea what was going on. He’d been okay with the vaguely open relationship he had with Brady, but this thing with Jess just had his mind in a complete whirl.
Finally, just when they came back from winter break and his mind couldn’t take any more uncertainty, Jess asked them to meet up at her place. Her roommate hadn’t come back yet and she wanted to offer them dinner. Sam agreed and so did Brady. They walked over together, hand in hand. She looked radiant as ever, tall and confident and perfect as she dished out lasagna and salad. “So I wanted to talk to you guys about something,” she began once the small talk about their winter break activities was over. “I, um, I know you two have been together since, what, freshman year? And I know you’re not exclusive.”
Brady smiled, a slow and devilish thing that almost made him look smug. “That’s right.”
“And I really like you. Both. I like you both a lot. But… I’m just not into the whole ‘casual’ thing.” She glanced from face to face. “I’m not judging you for it, it’s just not me.”
“Oh, that’s okay. Sam’s not so good at ‘casual’ himself.” He grinned. “What is it that you want from us, Jess? From either of us?”
“I’d like for us to be in a relationship. You know, together. Just… just the three of us.” She smiled. “It’s a little unconventional, I know. But I think we can make it work if we want to.”
Sam swallowed. “You’re talking about polyamory.”
“I guess I am,” she admitted. “I mean, it won’t work if you’re not comfortable with it, so –“
He caught her hand. “I didn’t say that.” He smiled and risked a glance at Brady. “What do you think, Brady?”
“I think if it makes you happy and it makes Jess happy I’m more than willing to give it a shot.”
Things were by no means easy all of the time. Sometimes Sam got jealous of the time Jess spent with Brady, although he couldn’t precisely say which partner he was more jealous of. He did his best not to let those feelings affect his behavior toward either of his lovers, channeling them toward running and toward his studies. Jess sometimes seemed hesitant about breaking into a pre-existing relationship and changing it. And Brady – well, Brady sometimes had trouble staying within the bounds of their relationship, meaning that Sam and Jess needed to decide the extent to which they were okay with trusting him. For the most part, though, things worked. Sam was able to keep Brady grounded and focused when his proclivities threatened to drag him further down the path of self-destruction he’d started sophomore year, and to keep Jess enthusiastic about her studies. Brady and Jess kept Sam’s obsession with keeping his grades up and his depression from miring him in gloom, especially around birthdays and holidays. When Jess’ roommate decided to move in with her boyfriend it seemed perfectly natural for her to move into Sam’s place, maybe a little soon in their relationship but they were so head over heels in love that it didn’t matter.
When Dean broke into Sam’s apartment his senior year he agreed to go to Jericho with him. He knew that Brady was planning to stop by to spend some time with Jess anyway; she’d be perfectly safe.