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Losing someone you love will hurt, always. It’s just the way your heart works – it grows and attaches itself to someone and when it loses that someone, it aches.
So when Sam lost Jess, of course it tore him up on the inside. Numbed him from inside and out, and her face chased him from his nightmares to the waking world. Seemed that every street corner he turned she was there, with her face streaked with concern, could swear he could hear her asking if everything was okay, if his dad was okay. Every night he stared up at the ceiling, saw her sprawled across it, watched the blood seep through the satiny material of her pretty white nightgown, watched her mouth open in such an intense state of agony that no sound could escape her lips. Eventually, he'd fall into a fitful sleep where the smell of her burning flesh was so vivid it felt he was reliving the terrorizing moment instead of dreaming it.
Yet still, what hurt most was those times when he was able to find comfort in his brother’s presence. When every time Dean smiled, it threaded another suture through one of the many cracks in his heart. Every time Dean griped about having to be up and at ‘em before the sun, or every time Dean complained about having to listen to soft rock when he switched it to that station to begin with just so Sam could sleep. It was like a healing balm to the gaping hole in his chest.
It’s why Sam felt the gut-clenching guilt he did. He loved Jess, he truly did, and always will. Jess was good for him – was so beautiful that sometimes he felt like he couldn’t breathe just looking at her, and trust, she managed to steal that breath every time they fell in bed together. He caught the fiery crackle of fire in her eyes when she set her mind to something. She cared for and loved Sam. Supported him with each and every decision he made, was there for him when no else was. She gave him the space he needed when his brain was sucked back to the days of living inside of seedy motel rooms and traveling across the country in the backseat (and eventually, when the Impala would become Dean’s, the front seat), but was there to draw him out of his past and back to the real world every time. She was everything he needed, except for one thing.
Dean.
He needed Dean – would always need Dean, and she couldn’t provide that, couldn’t fulfill that need.
That God-forbidden, greedy need for his brother.
Sam loved Jess as much and as best he could. He romanced her, worshipped her for the amazing woman she was, appreciated her for just the way she looked at Sam. But in the end, Dean would always come first without exception. Dean came before Bobby, before John, before Jess, before his own goddamn self – Dean over anyone else. And Sam knew, even before he made that smartass comment with his brother standing across from him, so hopeful and vulnerable, that he’d do whatever Dean asked of him. Dean was his weak spot and he knew exactly how to push Sam’s buttons to get what he wanted out of him.
Not that there was much effort needed.
Sam loved Jess, he did, but that love was limited. There was only so much he could spare for someone other than Dean, and Jess, she was worthy of an incessant love, one that was unconditional. Sam’s love had conditions she was never even aware of.
In a way, he feels like he robbed the last few years of Jess’s life with his greedy little fingers. Greedy for a love that he couldn’t, shouldn’t have, so he went in search of finding it somewhere else when he knew damn well there would never be another person out there that he could love like Dean. He was just Dean, and not even another Dean could ever be Dean.
It’s like Jess knew that she would never see Sam again. It’s like she knew that as Sam walked out that door, he was walking right back into Dean’s arms. Because no matter how much he loved Jess, he would forever be Dean’s. Everyone around him knew it. Everyone who took one look at Sam and Dean together, knew. Been that way since John thrust Baby Sammy into the arms of a four year old and, literally, put his life into those same hands. And with the wary, sad eyes that Jess gave him as they pulled away in the Impala, that lifeless wave of her hand, he felt like she wasn't saying goodbye for the weekend; she was saying goodbye for good.
It was helpless. There was nothing that anyone could do to stop Sam from sooner or later falling back into life on the road with Dean, and inevitably, back in love with Dean too. Not even Sam himself.
Ready, Sammy? Dean says, the soft, gentleness of his voice bringing him back down to Earth. He and Sam were too busy grasping at loose ends to attend Jess’s funeral, and if Sam was honest, the last thing he wanted was to be around a bunch of the people who loved and cared for Jess. Didn’t want to hear about how much they knew he loved Jess – because it wasn’t the love she deserved. Didn’t want to hear about how much Jess loved him – because he didn’t deserve that, either.
His thumb sweeps over the letters of her name one last time. He’s not sure if he’ll ever return, and with the way his heart skips a beat at the strong hand that falls heavy on his shoulder, he decides that if he does, it’ll be a long while.
Hours later when the city of Palo Alto is just a cluster of buildings and trees in their rearview mirrors, and Dean’s got that soft rock music station going to get Sam to sleep, and Sam’s got his hoodie pillowed between the window his head with Dean’s leather jacket draped over his body, well. He knows he’ll be just fine.
Because all he’s ever needed in life, and all he will ever need in life, is Dean.