Work Text:
John leaves a few days beforehand. Sam’s relieved if he’s being honest, glad that he won’t have to fight through another day with his dad. The two of them had been butting heads almost constantly over the past few years, and Sam’s tired.
He knows that his birthday’s coming up. Even though he doesn’t want to remember, it’s hard to get that message through to your brain so thoroughly that it doesn’t absently supply you with a reminder that your birthday’s coming up every time it hears a date within a week or so of May second. Sam only hopes that nobody else will notice, too wrapped up in their own business of making the world a better place to think about trivial things like a teenager’s birthday. He’s turning fifteen this year, it’s not like he needs a pinata and birthday hat for christ’s sake. Nobody had acknowledged it last year. He prefers it that way.
The day of, he gets up and goes to school like normal. Dean barely even manages to grunt a good morning to him on his way out the door, so he figures he’s in the clear. Sam has always had a tendency to shy away from the spotlight, even when he was younger. Having to introduce himself to a classroom of new faces was an anxiety-inducing battle he had to fight his way through all during his years at elementary school. It’s even worse now that he’s starting to grow. A few months ago his body randomly decided to shoot up a few inches overnight. John had clapped him on the shoulder and Dean had laughed, making a joking comment about finally not being a runt. The thing is, it hadn’t stopped. The laughing had morphed to shock, surprise, and then on to annoyance as Sam continued to grow and grow and grow. All he wants to do is shrink back to how he was before, even if he used to be too tiny, and curl into a small ball of skin. His body hasn’t quite gotten the memo yet.
He hates his birthdays. Loathes them with every fiber of his being. He can’t stand having to spend a whole day focused on celebrating his existence.
Sam gets through the school day off of nothing more than muscle memory. Dad had made him stay up for hours last night researching while Dean had gone to a bar to drink and pick up a girl. Coupled with his self-imposed morning training, he hadn’t gotten more than three hours of sleep if he’s being generous with his estimate. Even his usual cup of caffeine-loaded coffee didn’t seem to do the trick. He walks back to the hotel room with his backpack dangling from the end of his arm, exhausted. He probably won’t even go for a run in the afternoon like he usually does; all he wants to do is curl up under the comforter and go to sleep.
Dean’s gone again when he gets back, probably making a grocery run or messing around in the town. He hadn’t been able to get a job in this city, so there’s not really much for him to do while they wait for John to get back. Dean would usually go along with Dad to help him on the hunt, but their father had been adamant on working alone on this case, despite being perfectly fine with forcing Sam to do the majority of the research. Typical.
He ends up falling asleep without even touching the mountain of homework he was assigned, only waking up a few hours later to a dark motel room and the rustle of plastic bags a few feet to Sam’s left. He slowly uncurls himself from the nest of blankets he had wrapped up in and starts to shiver the second outside air hits his bare skin. He’s not usually this cold, especially in May, when spring finally starts to make itself known, but he’s just been really off all day now.
Dean must notice, too, because he stops poking through whatever he has in the numerous bags on the motel room table and comes over to Sam’s side. “Dude, are you okay?”
Sam mutters a fine to get Dean off his back, but he still feels weird. He’s achy, exhausted, and anxious. Not the best combination.
Dean shrugs, the worry still evident in his eyes. A faint smell of something hits Sam’s nose, and he perks up immediately. “Is that…. pizza?” To a teenager who’s been subsisting off of nothing more than ramen and stale coffee grounds for the better part of the past week, it smells like paradise.
Dean smiles brightly in return.”Yep. Happy birthday, Sammy! It’s not much, but I figured me and you could, you know, relax in front of the tv with pizza. If you don’t want to, that’s fine”
“No, I’d love to, really. Just, how can we afford this?”
“Dad left me some extra cash. Said to enjoy ourselves.”
Sam gasps a little, though he’ll deny the small squeak until the day he dies. Their dad hadn’t acknowledged or even remembered his birthday since he was 10. “Was it, was it for my birthday?” He’s not sure why the last part of the sentence lifts up ever so slightly in hope. Sam doesn’t want them to think about his birthday. Really, he doesn’t. Just, it’s nice to know that they know he’s there every once in a while.
Dean’s face falls a little. A look flits across Dean’s features, like he’s considering telling a lie, but he must think better of it because the look disappears just a few seconds later. “I don’t know, man. He didn’t mention it specifically or anything, but I don’t know why else he would leave it. He’ll probably call later to, you know, wish you a happy birthday and everything.”
Sam nods. It’s not like he had expected (or wanted) anything different. Still, a little flare of hope had been sparked in his chest, igniting the flames in his insides, and it had allowed him to regain the feeling of warmth that comes from feeling accepted and loved. All that’s left now though is a thick smoke that’s infiltrating his lungs and filling them with soot, which is somehow worse than not having the fire of hope there in the first place.
His brother, seeming to sense the drastic nosedive that Sam’s mood is taking, quickly pastes a corny smile on his face. “So what do you wanna watch, birthday boy? I’ll even let you control the remote, just this once.” Sam smiles for his brother’s sake.
They settle on the couch and listen to a random game show droning on in the background, chowing down on pizza and drinking an entire litre of soda between the two of them. Dean calls Sam names, and Sam punches him lightly on the shoulder in retaliation. They end up wrestling on the ground, but it’s different from the sparring they do in training. Instead of it being another lesson to learn and relearn, it’s just the two of them, messing around like normal siblings and having fun. The underside of Sam’s skin doesn’t itch like it normally does when he feels like people are watching him, and his chest is loose and relaxed. Breaths of air come easy to him for once. Even though John never ends up calling, and there’s always something that they have to do, more research and more training and moremoremore everything, somehow, this, the two of them being brothers, is enough for the time being.