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the first thing sam winchester ever gives you is a pen.
it’s not romantic, and it’s not even a particularly good pen. the cap is missing its clip, the ink skips whenever you write too quickly, and a faded motel name runs along the side in blue lettering. you only accept it because your own rolls beneath the lecture hall seat in front of you five minutes before class begins, out of reach unless you are willing to crawl for it.
“thanks,” you whisper when the boy beside you passes the pen across the narrow space between your desks. he nods once, murmurs, “sure,” and turns toward the front before you can say anything else.
that’s all. there’s no immediate certainty that this stranger is going to matter, no strange feeling beneath your ribs or sudden awareness that your life has shifted. he is only a boy sitting beside you in a core biology course at eight thirty on a monday morning, and you are only trying to copy what the professor has written before she erases it.
if anything, your first impression of sam winchester is that he is terrifyingly prepared. he has the textbook despite the bookstore being sold out until wednesday, three different colors of tabs already divide the first seventy pages, and his handwriting is neat enough to make yours look vaguely criminal. he has read the syllabus closely enough to know when the first paper is due without checking, and you decide almost immediately that he is one of those people.
then he drops everything when class ends. the folder slips from beneath his textbook as he stands, scattering printed articles, handwritten notes, and one aggressively detailed copy of the syllabus across the floor. sam closes his eyes for a moment while you look from the sheet beside your shoe to the expression on his face.
“you planned that,” you say, crouching to gather the papers. when his eyes open in confusion, you pass him the syllabus and add, “needed to seem more approachable.”
understanding reaches his face a second before his mouth curves. “yeah,” he says as he lowers beside you. “exactly.”
“it worked,” you tell him, and the smile he tries to hide makes him look younger—less like someone who arrived at stanford already prepared for the bar exam and more like what he actually is. eighteen. the same as you.
you find the pen in your bag that night.
—
the second thing sam gives you is a seat.
three weeks into the semester, you reach the library thirteen minutes later than usual because somebody leaves a bicycle across the dorm entrance and you nearly break your neck trying not to fall over it. every table near the windows is occupied, and you stand beneath the fluorescent lights with two books pressed to your chest, silently considering whether dropping out over inadequate study space would be dramatic.
then a hand rises near the far wall. sam sits at a table meant for four with his laptop open and a stack of books occupying the chair beside him. the moment he catches your attention, he moves them onto the floor.
“you saved me a seat?” you ask when you reach him.
sam glances at the chair as though it has appeared there independently. “you usually sit here.”
“so?” you ask, lowering your books onto the table.
“so i figured you would today.” his fingers hover near the stack on the floor. “i can put the books back.”
“don’t you dare.” you sit before he can make good on the threat, and his mouth moves around a smile.
you study for almost an hour without speaking. sam works through something involving constitutional law while you leave increasingly aggressive notes in the margins of an assigned reading you have decided was written specifically to make students miserable. eventually, a wrapped granola bar nudges your elbow.
you look from it to sam, who keeps reading as if food has not just materialized beside your notebook. “what’s this?”
“food,” he says, turning a page.
“i know what a granola bar is.” when his pen taps against a sentence, you wait until he finally glances over. “why are you giving it to me?”
sam’s brow creases as if the answer should be obvious. “you skipped breakfast.”
your fingers stop against the wrapper. “how do you know?”
“you complained about being hungry during class.” he returns to his notes before adding, “four hours ago.”
you wait for him to explain why he remembers. he doesn’t, so you eat the granola bar and try not to think about the quiet pleasure of being noticed.
after that, whoever reaches the library first saves the chair beside them. neither of you discusses the arrangement.
—
sam doesn’t tell you much about his family, but you learn about dean first.
dean calls on a thursday night while you and sam sit outside your dorm with takeout containers balanced between you. the air has cooled after an unseasonably warm october day, carrying the dry smell of grass and pavement while students cross the campus in scattered groups. when sam’s phone rings against the concrete, he looks at the screen and something in his face changes—not badly, only enough that you notice.
“you can answer it,” you say, reaching for another fry.
sam turns the phone facedown. “it’s fine.”
the ringing continues until you look at him, and he looks back with the resigned expression of someone who already knows he is going to lose. “answer your phone,” you tell him.
“bossy,” he mutters.
“i’m eating your fries. i have leverage.” you hold one up between two fingers, only to realize it came from your own container when he points at the carton. “then i have no leverage,” you admit.
sam smiles as he picks up the phone. “hey.”
you make a deliberate effort not to listen. that becomes difficult when a man’s voice carries through the receiver loudly enough for you to catch, “finally, college boy,” and sam leans away with a grimace.
“i was busy,” he says. another burst of indistinct speech follows, and his gaze flickers toward you. “with a friend.”
you study the ketchup packet beneath your hand while his brother says something else. “shut up,” sam mutters, though there is no real irritation behind it, and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling.
the conversation lasts six minutes. you learn almost nothing from sam’s half except that dean is somewhere in arizona, their dad is apparently fine, and somebody named bobby owns a truck that remains broken no matter how often he repairs it. when the call ends, sam turns the phone over twice before setting it beside his knee.
you nudge his shoe with yours. “older brother?”
“unfortunately,” sam says, but the fondness in his voice makes the answer useless.
“he seems nice.” when he laughs and points out that you heard approximately eight words, you push the remaining fries toward him. “seven of them were making fun of you. that’s how i know.”
his smile lingers, but something behind it doesn’t. students pass along the path ahead of you, a skateboard clicks over seams in the pavement, and a group near the residence hall argues about dinner while sam rubs his thumb along the edge of his phone. you let the campus fill the quiet instead of rushing to cover it.
“he practically raised me,” sam says eventually, his eyes fixed on the lawn.
there are questions available to you. where were your parents? why does your brother call from a different state every few weeks? why did you go to six schools before graduating, and how does a boy from kansas have stories from almost every part of the country? you have known sam for six weeks, so you choose the question that matters.
“do you miss him?” you ask.
sam’s fingers still against the phone. “yeah,” he admits.
you push the fries closer. when he looks down at them, you say, “emotional support potato.”
the laugh that escapes him is surprised, low, and real. he takes one before murmuring, “thanks.”
“anytime,” you say, and you mean the fry. at least, you think you do.
—
by november, sam becomes part of your day in ways neither of you seems to notice. you meet outside your first class because he walks there from the opposite direction and somehow reaches the building thirty seconds after you do. you get lunch on tuesdays and thursdays, and he studies beside you most evenings unless one of you has plans, though the definition of plans gradually starts including the other person by default.
you learn that sam drinks coffee black when he needs it and ruins it with cream and sugar when he actually wants it. he reads ridiculously fast, hates anyone touching the back of his neck without warning, and checks every lock twice without seeming aware of it. sam learns that you can’t study when you’re hot, that a promised twenty-minute nap requires somebody to wake you two hours later, and that you always forget an umbrella.
one rainy afternoon, he appears outside your lecture hall holding one. water runs from the edge of the roof in a silver sheet while students crowd beneath the overhang, waiting for the storm to weaken. sam stands several feet away beneath a large black umbrella, his hair already damp around the edges.
“you brought me an umbrella,” you say.
“i brought an umbrella,” sam corrects, shifting his backpack higher on one shoulder.
you glance toward the library, which is visibly in the opposite direction. “to my building.”
he follows your gaze before conceding, “i was nearby.”
“relatively?” you ask, and the corner of his mouth lifts.
you step beneath the umbrella. sam is tall enough that sharing should be easy, but he keeps angling it toward you until rain darkens the shoulder of his jacket. when you catch the handle and pull it toward the center, your hand closes over his.
“you’re getting wet,” you point out.
“i’m fine,” he says, even as another drop rolls from his hair to the collar of his shirt.
“move it over.” you tug the umbrella between you when he argues that you will get wet instead. “that’s how sharing works.”
“seems inefficient,” sam murmurs, but he lets your hand stay.
his shoulder presses against yours as you start walking. rain drums against the fabric above you, filling the space where conversation usually comes easily, and you can smell wet pavement and the clean scent of his laundry detergent. you could move your hand from the handle. you do not, and neither does he.
you walk all the way back to your dorm like that.
—
your roommate asks whether you are dating sam in december. you are sitting on your bed, wrapping a gift badly enough that the paper has begun tearing near one corner, and you answer too quickly.
“no,” you say. her gaze drops to the stanford sweatshirt hanging from your shoulders, its sleeves extending past your hands and its fabric smelling faintly like sam because it belongs to sam. you refuse to consider why you know that.
“i was cold,” you explain when she only raises an eyebrow.
your roommate returns to painting her nails. “you own clothes.”
“none of mine were at the library.” the tape stuck to your thumb becomes fascinating as she makes a thoughtful sound. “don’t do the noise.”
“what noise?” she asks, smiling when you throw a ribbon at her.
the sweatshirt stays on.
—
sam spends christmas at stanford. he tells you almost accidentally while everyone else drags suitcases through hallways and makes elaborate plans for winter break. your flight is not until the twenty-third because changing it would cost more than you have in your checking account, and sam helps carry your laundry upstairs on the twenty-first.
“what time do you leave?” you ask while folding a shirt. sam drops the basket beside your bed and retrieves a sock that escapes onto the floor.
“i don’t,” he says, folding the sock in half before apparently realizing socks do not need to be folded individually. he lets it fall into the basket. “i’m staying here.”
you sit back on your heels. “for christmas?”
sam lifts one shoulder, the movement too practiced to be casual. “it’s not a big deal.”
the answer comes too smoothly. when you ask why, he looks toward the laundry instead of you. “my dad and i aren’t exactly talking, and dean’s working.”
“where?” you ask, though you already recognize the pause that follows.
“around,” sam says.
you have learned that around means stop asking. this time, you do, but you look toward the tiny artificial tree your roommate bought for twelve dollars and abandoned when she went home. three paper ornaments hang from its branches, including a star you made from a discarded coffee sleeve during finals.
“okay,” you say.
sam glances at you. “okay?”
“you’re having christmas with me.” when his eyebrows rise, you stand and reach for your jacket. “we have two days before my flight. that is plenty of time to create a legally distinct holiday.”
“you don’t have to do that.” sam remains beside the basket, hands hanging uncertainly at his sides. “really.”
something about the sentence quiets you. he says things like that often—you don't have to wait, save him a seat, bring him coffee, or stay—as if kindness creates a debt, as if every good thing given to him must eventually be collected. you pull on the other side of your coat and meet his eyes.
“i know,” you tell him. “come on.”
that answer seems to matter more than it should. sam watches you for another moment before reaching for his jacket.
you spend twenty-three dollars at a grocery store and another fifteen at a pharmacy because it is the only place with decorations still in stock. sam criticizes your choice of a tiny plastic reindeer wearing sunglasses until you put it back, then buys it while you are distracted by string lights. when you catch him hiding it beneath a box of cocoa, he insists the room needs something tasteful.
the dorm kitchen smells like burnt sugar for most of the evening. you ruin the first batch of cookies, eat the second despite the suspiciously soft centers, and make hot chocolate in chipped mugs borrowed from the communal cabinet. somebody down the hall lends you a portable cd player after you promise not to touch the scratched christmas album inside.
at eleven thirty, you sit cross-legged on your floor beneath yellow lights that only work if the cord bends around the desk leg. sam unwraps the present you bought him and stares at the planner in his hands until you begin laughing.
“you’re awful,” he says, though his thumb moves carefully over the cover.
“you needed one.” when he points out that he already owns a planner, you remind him it ends in three weeks. “i was young when i mocked your organizational habits. i’ve grown.”
sam looks at you over the edge of it. “that was four months ago.”
“a formative period,” you say, watching him open the cover.
inside the front page, you have written your phone number. sam reads it, then lifts his eyes to you with an expression that makes the joke waiting on your tongue disappear.
“in case you lose it,” you explain.
“your number?” he asks softly.
“the planner,” you say, and his mouth settles into something gentler than a smile.
your flight leaves two days later. sam walks you to the car taking you to the airport even though it is six in the morning and cold enough for your breath to fog between you. before you climb inside, you hug him.
you have hugged sam before, but this one feels different. his arms circle you slowly and then completely, one hand settling between your shoulder blades while the other wraps around your waist. he’s warm despite the morning air, and when you begin to pull away, his hold tightens for half a second before releasing.
“call me when you land,” he says, pushing both hands into his jacket pockets.
“you’ll be asleep.” you study the tired shadows beneath his eyes, but sam only shakes his head.
“probably not,” he says. “call anyway.”
you do, and he answers on the first ring.
—
the first time you realize you might be in love with sam winchester, he is asleep. this feels unfair; there should be witnesses, possibly paperwork. instead, you sit beside him at a library table in february while rain moves against the windows and he sleeps with his cheek pressed to his folded arms.
he lasts until nine fourteen. you know because at nine thirteen, he tells you he’s not tired, and at nine fourteen, his eyes close halfway through a sentence. now his hair falls across his forehead, longer than it was in september, and one hand remains curled near his abandoned pen.
you should wake him because the library closes in forty minutes, but you keep reading. every few minutes, your attention drifts toward him. sam doesn’t sleep deeply; a chair scrapes three tables away and his fingers twitch, then somebody drops a book near the circulation desk and his breathing changes before settling again.
even at rest, some part of him remains watchful. you think about all the details you have collected without permission—the scar near his hairline, the way he checks locks twice, the chair he always chooses because it faces the door, the tension that enters his shoulders when a noise comes from behind him. there are pieces of sam you have never been shown, and perhaps that should frighten you more than it does.
instead, you reach over and move the hair from his eyes.
sam wakes instantly. his hand catches your wrist with enough force to stop your breath, but recognition reaches him almost as quickly, and his fingers loosen. “sorry,” he says, sitting upright and rubbing a palm over his face. “i fell asleep.”
“no,” you tell him, keeping your voice light while your pulse knocks against the place he held. when he squints at you, you add, “you were doing intense research with your eyes closed.”
sam glances toward the clock. “how long?”
“two hours,” you say, allowing his alarm to bloom before you smile. “twenty minutes.”
“you should’ve woken me.” he straightens the paper beneath his hand, eyes avoiding yours. “i was fine.”
you hold his gaze until he sighs and concedes, “right.”
you return to your book, and sam does the same. your heart doesn’t return to anything remotely normal for the rest of the night.
—
your first kiss happens after finals. there is no storm, no string of christmas lights, and no terrible danger forcing either of you to admit something before it is too late. you spend the entire afternoon doing almost nothing, which feels right for a thing that has been building from ordinary days.
the semester is over, and neither of you has anywhere to be until tomorrow. sam sells back two textbooks and becomes personally offended by the amount the bookstore offers him. you eat lunch somewhere off campus, he steals half your fries after claiming he doesn’t want any, and the two of you wander until the paths begin to empty around you.
by the time you return, the evening air is warm and sprinklers click across the lawn in slow rotations. most of the residence hall windows are dark now that students have begun leaving for summer. sam walks you home because he always does.
“you know i’m capable of crossing campus alone,” you say when you reach your building.
“i know.” sam looks toward the door as if it might provide him with a better answer.
you stop on the bottom step and turn to face him. “then why do you always walk me?”
“habit,” he says, hands disappearing into his pockets.
“bad answer.” you glance at his hair moving in the breeze and try not to think about the fact that he leaves tomorrow. “you’re getting sarcastic, too.”
his smile appears. “you’re rubbing off on me.”
you should go inside, but neither of you moves. silence with sam stopped being uncomfortable months ago; it has become another kind of conversation, one made of shoulders touching in libraries, hands sharing an umbrella handle, and the familiar sound of breathing beside you. when you look back from the door, he is watching you.
“what?” you ask.
sam’s gaze shifts from your eyes to your mouth before returning. “nothing.”
“you’re staring.” the words emerge quieter than you intend, and he does not look away.
“i know,” he says.
you become aware of every place your bodies are not touching—the step between his shoes and yours, his hands inside his pockets, the narrow distance between your faces. when you say his name, you have no idea what should follow it. apparently, neither does he.
you step closer, and he kisses you.
the decision exists for half a second before it becomes action. your hand catches in the front of his shirt, his breath stops, and his fingers rise to your jaw. sam kisses you carefully at first, as if he is waiting for you to change your mind, so you slide your hand to the back of his neck and lean closer until the last of his uncertainty disappears.
his other hand settles at your waist. the quiet sound he makes against your mouth nearly destroys every coherent thought you have left. when you finally pull apart, his forehead lowers to yours while the sprinklers keep clicking somewhere behind the building.
you open your eyes and find his already open. “oh,” you whisper.
a breath of laughter leaves him. “yeah.”
you smile, and then you kiss him again.
—
you are both nineteen when sam becomes your boyfriend. technically, it takes another six days to establish that fact, and you spend all six several states apart.
sam calls from somewhere in nebraska when visiting dean while you sit on your childhood bedroom floor, surrounded by half-unpacked laundry. you smile the moment his voice comes through the phone, which has become embarrassing.
“where are you?” you ask, picking at a loose thread in the carpet.
“lincoln.” when you ask why, road noise fills the pause before sam answers, “family thing.”
it means around. you recognize the boundary without needing the word, so you ask whether he is okay instead. another pause follows, softer this time.
“yeah,” he says, and then his breath crackles through the speaker. “i miss you.”
your fingers tighten around the phone. “you saw me six days ago.”
“i know.” sam sounds as though he already regrets saying it, so you call him clingy until he tells you to forget the entire conversation.
you lie back against the carpet and smile at the ceiling. “i miss you too.”
the silence on his end lasts long enough that you hear somebody—probably dean—speaking farther away. then sam laughs under his breath. “okay.”
“excellent conversation,” you tell him. when he admits he wasn’t prepared for you to say it back, the answer settles somewhere tender. sam has spent almost a year giving you pieces of himself and acting surprised whenever you keep them.
“sam?” you say. “are you my boyfriend?”
he makes a choking sound. you sit up and ask whether he has died, which earns you a strained, “you can’t just ask that.”
“why not?” you ask. somebody on his end speaks again, and sam turns away from the phone to tell dean to shut up. your smile widens. “are you?”
this time, his answer comes without delay. “if you want me to be.”
there it is again. if you want. never assuming there is a place for him, always waiting to be invited into it.
“i do,” you say.
sam goes quiet before his voice returns, warmed by a smile. “then, yeah. i’m your boyfriend.”
“good.” when dean says something that makes sam groan, you demand to know what it was.
“he said he knew it,” sam admits.
you laugh. “i like him.”
“you haven’t met him,” he says.
“still,” you insist.
“give it time,” sam warns, but you hear the smile in his voice.
—
you and sam have been together for six months when he tells you the truth, though the truth about him never arrives all at once. it comes in pieces: a nightmare that leaves him sitting upright in your bed with one hand searching beneath the pillow for a weapon that isn’t there, a scar along his ribs he admits did not come from a car accident, and a call from dean that makes him disappear for twenty-four hours in the middle of sophomore year.
when he returns, he looks exhausted enough that anger can only hold you for a minute. sam sits on the floor of your apartment with his back against the couch while you take the place opposite him, and the pasta you made goes cold on the stove. then he tells you about a world you spend the first ten minutes assuming is metaphorical.
ghosts. demons. creatures that wear human faces without being human. salt beneath motel room doors, his father, the weapons hidden in the trunk of dean’s car, and the fire that took his mother before he was old enough to remember her.
sam finishes speaking and watches your face. the apartment becomes impossibly quiet around the hum of the refrigerator.
“say something,” he asks.
you study the shadows beneath his eyes and the way his hands have locked together between his knees. “your dad made you hunt ghosts when you were a child?”
sam’s jaw tightens. “among other things.” when you ask how his father could think that was acceptable, confusion loosens something in his expression. “that’s your question?”
“i have several.” you shift closer, careful not to crowd him. “i’m still deciding whether you’re crazy, but you have a scar from something you called a rawhead, dean once asked if you packed silver bullets while i was standing three feet away, and you know twelve ways to kill things that supposedly don’t exist.”
his eyebrows lift. “you heard that?”
“your brother is not quiet.” you reach for sam’s hand, but he hesitates before letting you take it. his palm is cold. “why are you telling me now?”
his thumb presses against the side of your finger. “because i love you.”
everything in the room seems to stop. sam does too, his face emptying as soon as he hears himself. “i didn’t—”
“you love me?” you ask.
sam closes his eyes. “that wasn’t how i meant to say it.”
“there was a plan?” the corner of your mouth lifts when he admits there was, sort of. “did the plan involve ghosts?”
“no,” he says, opening his eyes to find you smiling.
you move until your knees touch his. “good. weird choice.”
sam stares at you as though he cannot decide which part of this moment to believe. you squeeze his hand and say the thing that makes hope flicker carefully across his face. “i love you too.”
he kisses you before you can say anything else. one hand cups your cheek while the other pulls you close, and relief moves through him so plainly that your chest aches with it. when you separate, his eyes remain closed until your thumb brushes over his cheek.
“i’m still going to need much more information about the ghosts,” you tell him.
a laugh breaks out of sam, startling both of you. he draws you in for another kiss, and neither of you notices the pasta burning until the smoke alarm starts.
—
at twenty, you live together. this happens mostly because pretending otherwise becomes ridiculous: your lease ends, sam’s roommate graduates early, and you already spend five nights a week at his apartment. half your clothes occupy drawers he claims he isn’t using, though you occasionally find his shirts beneath them.
the apartment you choose is small enough that opening the oven blocks one kitchen cabinet. the bedroom window sticks, the shower makes a high-pitched sound when the water gets too hot, and a thin crack crosses one corner of the ceiling. you love it immediately.
sam stands in the empty living room and lists every flaw as if preparing a case against the lease. when he points out the leaking sink, you tell him you can fix it; when he says the bedroom is barely large enough for a bed, you call it cozy. at the mention of the ceiling, you put your hands on your hips and declare that it has character.
sunlight reaches through the wide front window, catching dust in the air. outside, somebody walks a dog along the sidewalk while traffic moves faintly beyond the row of buildings. sam looks around once more, and the corner of his mouth gives him away.
“you like it,” you accuse.
“i didn’t say that.” sam tries to arrange his face into something neutral, which only makes you laugh.
“your face did,” you say.
“my face doesn’t do anything,” he says, smiling now.
you sign the lease.
the first night, you eat takeout on the floor because you don’t own a dining table. boxes crowd the room, your mattress rests directly on the bedroom floor, and the only lamp you manage to unpack illuminates about half the living room. there are no curtains, three forks, one pan, and nothing in the refrigerator except leftover takeout and a bottle of ketchup.
sam sits beside you with his back against the couch while you open the wrong carton. “this is yours,” you say, peering at the broccoli inside.
“you need vegetables,” he tells you, taking it from your hands.
you remind him that you had lettuce at lunch, and when he points out that it was on a burger, you steal one of his dumplings. sam catches your wrist halfway to your mouth, but you declare it community property and eat it anyway.
“that isn’t how moving in together works,” he says, watching you chew.
“too late.” when he asks whether the theft was worth it, you nod without remorse.
sam pulls you sideways until your shoulder knocks against his chest. his arms close around your waist, his chin settles over your hair, and cardboard boxes cast long shadows across the unfinished room.
“you happy?” he asks, the question soft enough to belong only to the two of you.
you lean farther into him. “yeah. you?”
sam looks around the apartment before lowering his eyes to you. “yeah.”
you believe him.
—
living with sam teaches you things dating him doesn’t. he leaves cabinet doors open—all of them—and you discover this at two in the morning when you enter the kitchen and nearly put your forehead through one.
“sam,” you say, flattening a hand against the door.
he looks up from the table, where three books surround his laptop and a cup of coffee sits near his hand. “what?”
you point to the cabinet. sam follows the gesture, blinks, and says, “oh,” as if it has betrayed him.
“how did you survive before me?” you ask while closing that door, the one above the sink, and another near the refrigerator.
“pretty well.” he takes one look at your expression and amends, “debatably.”
you walk to the table and take his coffee. a thin film has formed across the surface, and when he protests, you tell him it has achieved room temperature.
“i was going to reheat it,” sam insists, glancing guiltily at his laptop when you ask when. “eventually.”
“that isn’t a time.” you dump the neglected coffee into the sink while he watches with an expression usually reserved for minor tragedy, then make him another.
when you set the fresh mug beside his hand, sam catches your wrist and pulls you between his knees. you ask what he is doing, but he only looks up at you with that quiet, unguarded expression he still seems surprised to wear.
“you’re doing that thing,” you tell him, working your fingers into his hair when his forehead comes to rest against your stomach. “when you’re thinking something sentimental and refusing to tell me.”
his arms close around you. “maybe i just like you.”
“how embarrassing,” you say, and the word softens in your mouth as you hold him.
the books remain open behind him. you stay there until his coffee gets cold again.
—
sam turns twenty-one in may, and he doesn’t like birthdays. some of his were forgotten, others were spent in motels, and one happened during a hunt dean still describes only as “the incident in tucson,” which apparently ruined chocolate cake for both brothers for several years. you know enough now not to make the day enormous.
there is no surprise party and no crowded restaurant. you make breakfast instead.
sam walks into the kitchen wearing sweatpants and an old shirt, his hair sticking up at the back from sleep. he stops when he sees a crooked candle planted in the top pancake.
“no,” he says.
you turn from the stove with the spatula in your hand. “good morning.”
sam eyes the pancake. “you put a candle in it.”
“i’m innovative.” when he looks around suspiciously and asks whether anyone else is there, you point the spatula at yourself. “me.”
his shoulders ease, though his eyes narrow. “no party?”
“no party. dean will call at noon because i had to schedule him.” you slide the plate across the counter as sam approaches. “happy birthday.”
there are no decorations except one paper banner taped crookedly above the stove. no pile of presents waits for him, only a small wrapped box beside his coffee. sam touches the edge of the plate with two fingers.
“you remembered,” he says.
the words are quiet enough to almost disappear, but you set the spatula down. sam immediately looks as though he wishes he could pull them back.
“of course i remembered.” you step closer and touch his wrist. “i know when your birthday is. i know what kind of cake you like, and i know you hate surprise parties.”
his mouth twitches. “correct.”
“i know you pretend birthdays don’t matter because it’s easier than caring whether anybody else remembers.” sam looks down, but his hand turns beneath yours until your fingers fit together. “i remember,” you tell him.
“every year?” he asks.
you stare until a smile begins to pull at his mouth. “unfortunately.”
you place the little box in his free hand. he starts to say that you didn’t have to get him anything, catches your expression, and exhales. “right. sorry.”
inside is a watch. it is nothing expensive, only a simple leather strap and a dark face to replace the one that broke two months ago. sam lifts it carefully and runs his thumb over the glass.
“there’s an engraving,” you say, and he turns it over.
since eighteen.
sam goes very still. nervousness arrives too late to stop you from asking whether it is too much and offering the receipt in the same breath.
“don’t,” he says, setting the watch down before reaching for you. his hands settle around your waist, and yours land on his shoulders as he pulls you between his knees. “since eighteen?”
you touch the sleep-mussed hair near his temple. “that’s when i met you. you gave me a terrible pen.”
“you kept it,” sam says.
your fingers stop. when you accuse him of going through your things, he reminds you that it sits in the cup on your desk, where anybody with eyes can see it.
“you’re sentimental,” he murmurs.
“don’t tell anyone.” you bend toward him until your forehead meets his.
sam’s smile brushes your mouth. “never.”
you kiss him while the candle burns down into the pancake.
—
by senior year, photographs have begun collecting around your apartment. not intentionally, at least not at first. there is one of you outside your freshman dorm, one of sam asleep at the library with a textbook beneath his cheek, and another from the first night in this apartment, when both of you sit on the floor with takeout cartons between you.
dean appears in several now. he visits twice during sophomore year and three times during junior year, and the first time he meets you, he looks from sam to you before asking how much his brother paid you. sam tells him to shut up. you love dean immediately.
there are pictures from thanksgivings, birthdays, late-night diners, and a weekend near the coast when sam forgets sunscreen and spends two days pretending his shoulders weren’t burned. in some photographs, you look at the camera. in more, you look at each other.
you find the oldest one while packing. graduation is three weeks away, and the apartment has slowly begun returning to cardboard. sam has been accepted to law school, you have a job offer nearby, and there is another apartment you toured last saturday with more windows and a kitchen where the oven doesn’t block anything. the future has stopped being abstract; it has an address.
“sam, come here,” you call from the bedroom floor, an old shoebox open across your lap.
he answers from the closet that he needs one second. when you tell him you mean now, his head appears around the door with immediate concern. “is something wrong?”
you hold up the photograph. “us.”
sam lowers himself beside you and takes it. the picture is from november of freshman year, captured by somebody in your biology class while the two of you sit on a low stone wall outside the lecture hall. you are both eighteen.
his hair is shorter and his shoulders are narrower. he wears the brown jacket he eventually gives dean after one sleeve tears, and you sit beside him in a sweatshirt you forgot you ever owned. you are not dating yet, but sam’s arm rests along the wall behind you, close enough to resemble an embrace, and both of your bodies tilt toward the other.
the photograph contains a relationship neither person inside it knows exists.
“we look like babies,” you say.
“you do,” sam replies, smiling when you turn on him. he insists he was mature at eighteen, and you remind him that he owned one bath towel and used a cardboard box as a nightstand for seven months.
“furniture is expensive,” he says, stealing the photograph when you try to hide it.
you take it back and run your thumb along the glossy edge. “do you remember this?”
sam leans his knee against yours. “you were mad because you got an eighty-eight on something. you complained for two days, then stole my sweatshirt.”
“borrowed,” you correct, glancing toward the open closet. the same sweatshirt hangs inside, faded and softened by years of washing, yours in every way that matters. “why do you remember that?”
he shrugs, but you have known him too long to believe the gesture means nothing. you turn the photograph toward him. “did you know?”
“know what?” sam asks.
“that you loved me,” you say, tapping the edge of the photograph.
the joking leaves his face slowly. sam looks down at the two eighteen-year-olds sitting beside each other in california sunlight and considers the question with the seriousness he gives everything that matters.
“not yet,” he says.
you rest your shoulder against his. “when?”
sam tips his head toward yours, still studying the picture. “i don’t know. the library, maybe.”
you remember rain against the windows, his cheek against his arms, and your fingers moving carefully across his forehead. “when you fell asleep? that made you fall in love with me?”
“no.” his laugh moves against your hair. “you moved my hair.”
“you almost broke my wrist,” you remind him.
“i said sorry,” he points out, and when you call it romantic, sam takes your hand from the photograph. his thumb moves across your knuckles. “it wasn’t one thing.”
the room continues around you: a half-empty closet, boxes against the wall, afternoon sunlight crossing the carpet, four years of your life being folded into cardboard because another one is waiting. sam keeps his eyes on your joined hands.
“when i got here, i kept waiting for something to change,” he says. “i thought everything would feel different because i left. different town, different school, different life.”
you watch the side of his face. “did it?”
sam breathes out through his nose. “not at first. i was still checking locks and waking up every time somebody walked past my door. i was still waiting for my dad to call and tell me i’d made a mistake.”
your fingers tighten around his, and sam finally looks at you. “then there was you,” he says. “you kept showing up. class, the library, lunch. you called because you saw something stupid and wanted to tell me about it. you left things in my room, knew when i had exams, and remembered my birthday.”
your eyes begin to burn. sam notices, because he always does, and a faint smile touches his mouth when you tell him not to make it worse.
“i thought normal was supposed to be a place,” he continues, bringing your hand to his lips. “stanford. california. law school. somewhere far enough away from everything i grew up with.” his mouth rests against your knuckles, and his fingers tighten around yours. “turns out it was you.”
your face crumples despite every effort to stop it. “that was horrible.”
sam laughs, startled. “horrible?”
“you can’t say things like that while i’m holding photographic evidence of your bad haircut.” you pull the picture out of reach when he goes for it.
“give me that,” he says, catching your waist.
you laugh as he pulls you sideways onto the carpet. the photograph remains safely above your head while sam tries to reach around you without crushing any of the open boxes. when he warns that you are going to bend it, you remind him that he started the attack.
“you insulted my hair,” he says, settling partly above you with one hand braced near your shoulder.
“it was too short.” you lower the photograph as his longer hair falls toward his forehead.
sam’s eyes narrow with amusement. “you liked it.”
“i liked you,” you say, and the laughter between you stills.
his body remains warm along yours, his face close enough that you can see the softness gathering behind his eyes. you touch his cheek. “i really did.”
“even then?” he asks.
“even then,” you say. “despite the haircut.”
sam rolls his eyes, but he lowers his face, and you meet him halfway.
the kiss is familiar. that is what makes it different from the first. at eighteen, kissing sam feels like discovering something that has been waiting beneath your feet all along; now, you know how he kisses when he is smiling, the weight of his hand against your waist, and the way his breathing changes when you pull him closer by the front of his shirt.
you know him, and somehow knowing doesn’t make any of it smaller.
when sam pulls away, his thumb remains beneath your jaw. “we still have to pack.”
“tomorrow,” you say, sliding a hand behind his neck.
“we move saturday.” he tries to argue that there is objectively not plenty of time, but the argument disappears when you ask him to kiss you again.
“okay,” sam murmurs, and he does.
the photograph slips from your fingers onto the carpet. neither of you notices for a while.
—
on graduation morning, you wake before the alarm. sunlight reaches through the bedroom window, catching stacked boxes and the empty space where your dresser used to stand. sam sleeps beside you with one arm across your waist, his face turned toward yours and his mouth softened by sleep.
four years earlier, sam winchester is a stranger in a lecture hall. he gives you a pen, then a chair, half his fries, and the sweatshirt hanging over the back of a chair. later come his family, his secrets, an apartment, and all his ordinary mornings. by graduation, he has given you enough pieces that you stop knowing where his life ends and yours begins.
you move the hair from his forehead. sam’s eyes open, and his hand tightens around your waist before he is fully awake.
“morning,” he says, voice rough with sleep.
you return the greeting while his gaze travels toward the window and then the clock. when he says you have to get up, you remind him that eventually is still a time.
“it isn’t,” sam says, closing his eyes again. “i learned that from you.”
you move closer beneath the blanket, and his arm draws you in without thought. your cheek settles over his heartbeat while his hand traces a slow path along your back.
“we’re graduating today,” you murmur.
sam hums. “terrifying.”
you list the rest against his chest: law school, the new apartment, a functional kitchen. he corrects that last one to allegedly, and you smile without lifting your head.
the future waits outside the bedroom in graduation robes, jobs, rent, and whatever comes after. you used to think growing up would feel like leaving things behind. instead, you keep bringing sam with you.
eighteen doesn’t disappear. it lives in an old photograph inside a cardboard box, in a terrible motel pen you still keep on your desk, and in a sweatshirt that belongs to him only as a technicality. it lives in the way sam still saves you a seat, the way you remember his coffee, and the way his hand reaches for yours without looking.
you lift your head and find one of his eyes open. “what?” he asks.
“nothing.” you smile when he accuses you of staring. “i know.”
both of his eyes open now, and recognition moves slowly across his face. for a moment, four years disappear—the lecture halls, the library, rain beneath one umbrella, and the quiet outside your dorm after finals all folding into the space between you.
sam’s hand rises to your cheek. “you gonna kiss me?”
“maybe.” you lean closer while he reminds you that you are going to be late. “you’re the one holding me.”
his arm tightens deliberately around your waist. “good point.”
you kiss him as sunlight warms the room. the alarm begins ringing somewhere beneath the bed, ignored by both of you.
later, there will be photographs in graduation robes. dean will call twice before noon and insist sam’s cap looks stupid, you will eat lunch with friends, and the two of you will carry boxes into a new apartment before the week ends. there will be new routines, new furniture, and new versions of yourselves waiting to exist.
sam kisses you with the same quiet certainty he did when you were eighteen, before either of you understood how much of a life can be built from ordinary things: a pen, a saved chair, an umbrella angled too far toward you, and someone who keeps showing up.
when he finally lets you breathe, his forehead rests against yours. “still happy?” he asks.
it is the same question he asks on the floor of your first apartment. you run your thumb along his cheek and give him the same answer. “yeah.”
“me too,” sam says, smiling.
the alarm keeps ringing. you reach blindly over the mattress for it, but sam catches you around the waist and pulls you back before your fingers make it over the edge.
“five more minutes,” he murmurs when you laugh against his shoulder.
“we’re graduating,” you remind him.
“it’ll still be there,” he says.
you settle against him anyway. five minutes becomes ten, his fingers remain intertwined with yours beneath the blanket, and neither of you cares.
you are not eighteen anymore, though there are still more versions of sam ahead of you than behind and more versions of yourself he has not loved yet. everything will change because everything does. when you think of love, however, you suspect you will always remember it first like this: young and sleepy, sunlight crossing an unfinished room, sam winchester holding you as though there is nowhere else he would rather be.
the two of you are eighteen somewhere inside it all, still choosing each other.