Fic: It's a Love Story
It’s a love story
9,500 words, SPN AU set in a paranormal-free world. Sam and Dean are just two dysfunctional guys.
Thanks to hurricanemegan and withdiamond for betas.
ACT I
“If you walk out that door, don’t you bother coming back.”
Sam slams the apartment door behind him and bounds down the stairwell two steps at a time. Every nerve in his body sings on high alert, blood pumping in triple time, adrenaline pushing him to move faster and faster.
“Wait, Sam!” Sam hears Dean’s voice behind him through the roar in his ears but he doesn’t stop. “Sam, wait, you gotta-“
“No, Dean, I don’t gotta anything,” Sam snaps as he throws open the apartment building door and practically leaps out into the sunlight. The cold air hits like him a physical blow, stings his eyes, but it doesn’t cool him down. “Not anymore.”
“Sam,” Dean’s close now and he puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder, “you know he didn’t mean it.”
“No, he meant every word of it.” Sam shakes his hand off. He’s too pissed to stand still, too jacked up on rage and testosterone and his father being a dick to do anything but get the hell away. Because the only other option besides flight leads to Sam’s fist flying full speed towards something it shouldn’t. “And you know what? It’s better this way. It’s better for us all if I go.”
“Sam.” Sam hears a sharp intake of breath. “You don’t mean that.”
Sam starts jogging down the cracked, grey sidewalk and says, “Yeah, Dean. I do.”
* * * * *
Stanford’s warm, and sunny, and beautiful--and Sam loves it. His roommate’s some weedy little suburban kid who sniffles at night when he thinks Sam’s asleep because he misses his family. Maybe Sam should be homesick and miserable too, but then he remembers that if home is where the heart is, he’s not sure where to locate it because random motel rooms and a car don’t hold much heart. In any case, he’s not miserable because he loves it, loves the independence and control and the absence of anyone in his life barking orders at him.
It’s a new life, with new people, and a new Sam. A better Sam--one that’s free.
The classes fascinate Sam, engage him the way none of his high school classes did (didn’t matter which state they were in, they uniformly sucked). The people are smart, funny, excited to learn, and Sam thinks maybe for the first time in his life he can get to have friends and keep them. Even the food that everyone grouses about in the dining hall tastes good, is a thousand times more filling than fast food and stale candy. Everything is infinitely better here, at Stanford.
Of course, then the other shoe drops the moment he receives a notice from the registrar’s office. Good things don’t last, never did and never will. His father taught him that.
“I’m sorry,” the nice lady with pointy glasses and 80’s hair says. “But I’m afraid if you don’t pay the rest of the balance by the end of the month, we’ll have to de-register you from all your classes until further notice.”
“I thought the scholarship covered it all?” Sam says, heart sinking into his boots.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Is there any way I can work out a payment plan, or-“
She shakes her head, no. “Maybe if you had come to us a little earlier in the semester about this, we could have worked something out. But your bill’s overdue by a month and a half and we can’t overlook this any longer.” She smiles at him, kindly. “Why don’t you talk it over with your parents? I’m sure they’ll understand.”
Sam feels like he’s going to be sick.
* * * * *
The first time he sees her, she’s drawing an animal face on the whiteboard posted on the door of her dorm room.
“Nice cat,” Sam says before he knows he’s doing it. She turns around and his heart skips a tiny beat.
“Oh no!” She says, pretty eyes going wide and mouth forming a dismayed ‘o’. “That’s supposed to be an elephant!”
“Oh, um-" he stammers. The hottest girl in the dormitory notices he’s alive and he blows it with some dumb comment about a cat that’s supposed to be an elephant. Figures.
Then she bursts out laughing and Sam feels more confused. “Your face!” she chortles. “It’s priceless. I was kidding! Yes, this is meant to be a cat. Thank you.”
“Oh man,” Sam starts to breathe again. “Give a guy a heart attack.”
“That was the plan,” she says, her eyes twinkling mischievously. She sticks her hand out to shake, “I’m Jess, by the way.”
“Sam.” He shakes her hand and melts a little inside.
* * * * *
Sam tried everything he could think of to avoid making this phone call. First he got a part time job at the bookstore and another one mopping the floors at the nearby coffee place. When he received his paychecks two weeks later and compared the pathetic numbers post-taxes to the gigantic number that was his tuition, he ran the math and realized he could work for a year and still not have enough saved to pay.
Sam hit up a nearby bar with his fake ID to try to hustle some pool, even though he’d sworn to himself that he’d left all that behind. He won a few hundred bucks after eight hours, non-stop, but the next day he slept through all his classes and ran into half the guys he’d hustled in the dining hall. At the rate he was going, he could expect to fail out of school and alienate everyone on campus before the semester finished out anyway.
Sam wants to punch the wall for having to do this, but they’d probably add the damage to his overdue bill. “I wouldn’t ask, Dean, but.” He can imagine them both smiling smugly, knowingly. Of course he failed. Of course he had to come crawling back. Better make him beg. “But they’re going to kick me out and there’s no way I can come up with that kind of money.”
Sam expects Dean to say, ‘Dad doesn’t have that kind of money’ or, ‘if he did, he’s not going to give it to you, no way and no how’. He expects Dean to say, ‘you’re on your own’, but instead he says, “Don’t worry, Sammy. When’s it due by?”
“The-the end of the month,” Sam chokes out in surprise. “You’ll talk to Dad?”
“Yeah, I’ll-I’ll take care of it.”
A week later, an envelope comes to Sam by priority mail with no return address. He rips it open and a check falls out, written in the precise amount that he needs, signature at the bottom illegible scrawl. Sam wants to kiss the check, dance around his room, but instead he carefully smoothes it out and goes to the registrar’s office.
* * * * *
Over the course of the next month, Sam finds excuses to stop by Jess’s room and write on her whiteboard weekly. He starts simply: ‘Sam was here!’ followed by a smiley face with big, floppy ears. Jess responds later that day by writing on his whiteboard, ‘Jess is the Ruler of this whiteboard!’ accompanied by a stick figure with an oversized tiara. Sam escalates with, ‘Sam is the Ruler of the known universe!’ and a sketch of the earth. She retaliates with a cartoon of the earth crying. Sam caps the whole thing off with a clumsily drawn picture of an elephant on her board, underneath the cat (which does, when he examines it closely, vaguely resemble an elephant). By this time, they’re run out of room on their whiteboards and Sam doesn’t want to erase anything.
He finally gets the courage to ask Jess out to dinner a week later when they run into each other in the laundry room. They go out to a burger joint that Saturday and he watches her laugh so long that his cheeseburger gets cold. The evening ends with a kiss, chaste and sweet. The corner of her mouth tastes a little like ketchup and when Sam walks back to his room, he has to resist the urge to wake up his roommate for a high five.
* * * * *
Sam calls after the check clears and the registrar tells him everything’s okay. “Tell Dad thanks. You know, for the money.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Deans says.
“Do you--" Sam hesitates.
His roommate’s always bitching about how his family won’t leave him alone, keeps embarrassing him by showing up on campus with care packages full of cupcakes iced with messages like, ‘I Luv U!’ and ‘World’s Best Son’. Sam never knows how to respond when his roommate makes comments like, “You’re lucky your family is cool and not embarrassing, like mine.” He usually agrees and says something like, “Yeah, I’m glad they don’t come up because I bet they’d be totally embarrassing if they came to visit me.”
Secretly, he wonders what it would be like to get a cupcake with an icing message on top, although knowing Dean and his father, the cupcake probably wouldn’t taste much like cake at all. And though his roommate says he hates it every time his mom comes by and smothers him in kisses and other motherly things, Sam thinks it would be nice to have a mom like that.
Sam forces himself to swallow his pride. “Do you and-and Dad want to come up next month, maybe? Thanksgiving Break is coming up soon and maybe we could…”
There’s silence at the other end and then, “I’m sorry, Sammy. Dad’s working a big case and I-I got my car totaled in some damn accident, so I haven't got wheels anymore. And money’s, you know-"
“Money’s always been-" Sam starts and then stops himself. It’s an excuse, obviously. If Dean really wanted to visit, all he’d have to do is drop by the nearest pool hall and hit up some sucker for the cab fare. Sam used to watch Dean hustle almost a thousand on the good nights.
“Sam, it’s not that I-we-don’t want to, it’s that,” Dean pauses. “I started this new job and they might still can my ass for being a slacker, for calling in sick too many days.”
Excuses, Sam thinks. Out loud, he says, “No, that’s, I get it.” Sam doesn’t know why his throat feels thick. “Whatever. It was a stupid idea anyway.”
ACT II
Jess and Sam are sitting outside on a bench together and Sam thinks he will never get over the constantly perfect Palo Alto weather. It’s the perfect setting for the new life he’s built, complete with smiling, tan people who wear polo shirts and go sailing on yachts and don’t know what the inside of a motel smells like.
Some days, Sam worries that one day all his friends are going to realize where he came from, the kind of childhood he lived.
He tells everyone who asks that he’s from Lawrence, Texas, but the truth is that he’s not from anywhere, really. He tells everyone that he moved a few times because his father’s company kept moving him, but the truth is that the only thing that kept his father moving was his father. He tells everyone charming little anecdotes about a dog named Mr. Bonkers who he loved for years and cried over when the doctors put him down, but the truth is that Mr. Bonkers died as a puppy in the same fire that killed Sam’s mother, and he never knew either. He tells people about how his father nearly cried when Sam first rode a bicycle, and how he clapped Sam on the shoulder and told him he was growing into a man. The truth is, his father was out on a case the day Sam learned to ride; Dean had cut the chain on some old bike locked up outside the motel and pushed Sam around on it until he stopped crashing down onto the parking lot pavement. Dean bought him a congratulatory donut afterwards and made him promise not to tell Dad because he’d stolen the dollar for it out of his pocket.
Sam makes up stories based on TV shows or movies he’s seen because that sad, screwed up kid from a fucked up life isn’t him anymore. He doesn’t want shock, or pity, or charity. Sam wants three things: to succeed, to have friends, and not to go back. He doesn’t even want to think about going back.
“Do you know what you’re going to do after you graduate?” Jess asks as she takes a bite into her ice cream cone.
“I really like school,” Sam says as he puts a hand on the small of her back, feels the warmth of her body. “I’m thinking I want to continue.”
“Grad school, law school, or med school?” she asks, and a little bit of ice cream dribbles down the side of her mouth. She wipes it away quickly.
“I was thinking law or med school but,” he ducks his head, “this is going to sound cheesy, but I think I want to help people, you know? And I think I could do that better as a doctor than a lawyer.”
“Oh my god,” Jess says as she finishes the last bite of her cone and dabs her mouth with her napkin. “That’s awesome! You are going to be such a great doctor.”
Sam’s face heats up as he kisses her cheek. Her face smells like mint chocolate chip. With her, he feels like he can do anything.
* * * * *
It’s mid-March of his junior year and he’s watching TV in his room with Jess when he gets the call. Dean’s voice is raspy on the line like he’s got a cold and when Sam drops the phone, Jess takes his hand and asks him what happened.
* * * * *
All Sam can think as he steps inside the building is that the flowers smell sickly sweet and the suit he borrowed from his roommate itches. Through the double doors which open from the lobby into the viewing room, Sam can see that there aren’t too many people filling up the seats. The ones that notice him all come up to Sam to offer their condolences. He doesn’t know what to say because the truth doesn’t seem appropriate, so he mostly nods and says nothing.
The parlor’s actually pretty nice as far as they go, tastefully decorated and spacious. The wooden coffin gleams with a polished shine and Sam wonders whether his father would have put out for a funeral this nice if he was still-but, well, that’s a moot point now. He must have left a decent chunk of change for Dean to have arranged all this. Maybe he wrapped up a big case before-Sam can’t continue the thought.
Jess offered to come but Sam declined, not wanting to have to explain that the last good memories he had of his father entailed a check arriving in the mail. Sam stands by the door of the viewing room but he can’t bring himself to walk through it.
“I told him one day the job was going to catch up with him,” Dean says, coming to stand by Sam. He looks older than Sam remembers. “At least it was quick. That’s what the cops said, anyway.”
“I don’t want to know,” Sam says and Dean flinches minutely. Sam braces himself for a lecture, but Dean just looks away.
“I almost wish I didn’t,” Dean says.
“Are you,” Sam stops and tries again, haltingly. “Do you want to-"
“Talk about my feelings?” Deans says roughly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I think I’ll pass on the girltalk.”
“Fine,” Sam mutters. “Just an offer. Whatever.”
They stand together, not saying anything for a few minutes before Dean blurts out, “We gotta-" His voice rasps a little. “We should go say goodbye.”
“Yeah, alright,” Sam says as a flood of guilt pushes through his chest. The rage is still there, bubbling inside him alongside resentment, but a whisper of shame for not being sorrier sneaks up too. He should feel sad, he should feel scared and alone maybe, but mostly he feels angry that there’s no one to direct his anger at anymore.
They walk to the coffin together and Sam isn’t sure what to expect. Something grotesque, maybe? Something that isn’t his father anymore. But all he gets when he peers inside is his father, a couple of years older, a little paler, looking to all the world like he’s asleep.
“Wow,” Sam says. There’s a numbness inside his chest and it’s spreading to his abdomen, his legs, his arms and fingers and toes. He thinks maybe he should be doing something dramatic, like in the movies, trying to reach in and shake his father awake. But all he wants is to walk away as quickly as possible to try to forget about it all.
“Sammy.” Sam sees a flash of tears before Dean reaches up and rubs them away. “Sammy, he was so proud of you-"
“Don’t say that!” Sam shouts, and everyone in the room jumps at the noise. He doesn’t know how it happens, but tears start sliding down his cheeks, the end of his nose. “Don’t you lie to me, not while we’re standing here with, with-" Sam chokes off and turns away. He waits for Dean to come after him, put a hand on his shoulder like he always used to, but a minute passes and nothing comes.
Sam turns back and Dean’s sitting in one of the chairs in the front row, head in his hands, rocking back and forth silently. Sam doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, so he does nothing.
* * * * *
When Sam gets the acceptance letter, he can hardly believe it. Jess shrieks and hugs him, but all he can do is sit in a daze.
Later, he calls Dean. “I got into med school.”
“Oh, Sam,” Dean says, “I knew you would. Congratulations, brainiac.”
“Listen, Dean,” Sam sighs, “they didn’t really give me a lot of scholarship aid. Not enough, anyway. And I can cover the difference, maybe, through loans, but I was thinking since Dad-you know, maybe he left us some insurance money, or-“
“I-“ Dean sounds strained, “I don’t know, Sammy. I gotta sort through all of his stuff, pay his bills and-“
“Then don’t worry about it,” Sam says. “Like I said, I can probably get enough student loans to make up the difference, I was just wondering if-“
“Forget the loans,” Deans says. “I can get the money. Give me a few days to-to talk to the insurance company, okay?”
The next day, Dean calls back and says, yes, the insurance money came through and they’re all in the clear. Sam breathes a sigh of relief and returns to trying to live up his last year in college.
* * * * *
“You have to go,” Jess says. “It’s graduation! The proof that we made it through the last four years mostly intact.”
“Graduation is for family to celebrate together,” Sam replies. “I don’t exactly have a Hallmark card left anymore.”
“You have Dean,” she says. “I’m sure he would-"
“Dean’s got a busy life,” Sam says. The memory of Dean declining to come to visit Sam still stings slightly, but Sam does his best to ignore it. “Work’s all he does these days. He wouldn’t have time to come to my graduation.” Maybe Sam’s being unreasonable and petty, but he doesn’t care.
“If you asked, maybe he’d take some time off. If he knew what it meant to you.”
“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” Sam says empathically. “That’s not how it works with me and Dean anyway. I’ve barely seen him in the last four years and that’s not an accident, okay?”
She touches Sam’s forearm, squeezing gently. “When’s the last time you invited him up here? Or asked if you could go home and see him?”
“He doesn’t have a home. He lives in a truck cab,” Sam says, a flash of embarrassment heating his cheeks. A truck, of all things. “And if he wanted to see me, he could hop in that stupid truck and come anytime. He knows where I live.”
Jess sighs, but drops the topic.
* * * * *
Sam doesn’t know why he let Jess convince him to come to graduation. Three hours into it and he’s already bored to death. Somewhere between the keynote and the valedictorian droning on about soaring through the sky like birds, Sam falls asleep. He doesn’t wake up until the student next to him jabs him sharply in the ribs and mutters, “We’re next!”
Sam dutifully follows the line of people in front of him and gets his diploma and pictures taken through a haze. By the time he gets back to his seat, the ceremony is over (thankfully, Winchester is at the end of the alphabet). Sam watches everyone throw their square hats into the air and signs in relief. Finally, it’s done.
As Sam makes his way through the throngs of crying, happy moms and dads crowded around their graduates, he feels strangely alone. He congratulates some of his friends but they’re all too distracted by parents taking pictures to stop and talk. He sees Jess a few hundred feet from him through the masses of people, surrounded by her immediate and extended family. He should give them a moment to celebrate together before he crashes the party.
“Congratulations, Sammy,” a familiar voice says from behind Sam.
“Dean,” Sam says, jumping slightly. Dean’s awkwardly clutching a yellow smiley face balloon that says, ‘Congrats!’ on the back. He stands stiffly, alone and totally out of place in a black bomber jacket and faded jeans amidst a sea of linen-clad, gussied up family members and graduates. Always the outcast. “What are you-"
“Your girlfriend,” Dean coughs. “She called me and told me to get my ass up here. And to buy a gift. I didn’t know what, uh, what you should buy a college graduate besides a strong drink. All they had left at the store was this and a bouquet of roses, and I figured since I’m not taking you to prom, a balloon’s what you’re getting.” Dean shoves the balloon at Sam. “Congratulations, college grad.”
“Thanks.” Sam accepts the balloon warily. He’s not twelve anymore, but he supposes it’s better than a bouquet of roses. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here for this.”
“I--I was in town anyway,” Dean rushes to explain. Sam feels his heart fall a tiny bit.
“Well, that’s. That’s convenient, then.”
Dean shoves his hands in his pockets and glances around. “You wanna grab a beer or-or, a bite to eat or something? My treat for the big shot.”
“Nah, it’s okay,” Sam says, tugging at the balloon string, watching the balloon bob up and down again. He doesn’t know what he’d talk to Dean about-trucking? Women? Beer? “Jess already invited me to dinner with her family.” Besides, it would be rude to cancel plans last minute like this.
“That sounds-that sounds real nice.” Dean clears his throat. “I guess I should be getting a move on, anyway. Big day tomorrow. Work’s a pain.”
“Yeah,” Sam says.
Dean turns to go, pauses, and then whirls around to catch Sam in a hug that’s as surprising as it is bone-crushingly tight. “I am so damn proud of you,” Dean whispers in his ear so quick and low that Sam isn’t sure he heard it at all. Then Dean releases him and walks away, disappearing into the crowd in seconds, leaving Sam holding a ridiculous yellow smiley face and standing alone in a sea of people.
ACT III
“Hey, beautiful,” Sam says as the drops the keys in the dish by the door.
“Hey, handsome.” Jess waltzes over for a kiss. “Dinner’s ready.”
“You spoil me,” he says, pulling her in for another, deeper kiss.
“I do, don’t I?” She grins. “How was your first day of medical school? Was it everything you hoped it would be?”
“’Terrifying’ sums it up,” Sam says as he walks into the kitchen, sits at the table. “Everyone’s brilliant, competitive, a little nuts…”
“You fit right in then, huh?” Jess teases.
“Hardy har,” Sam says, serving the mixed greens salad into their respective bowls before drizzling them with vinaigrette. “And how was your day? Your boss still being an asshole?”
“An incredible ass,” Jess sighs, and launches into an epic description of the latest work escapade, which culminated in the destruction of an innocent photocopier.
At some point during the middle of her story, Sam glances up from his salad and is struck all over again by how beautiful Jess is. As he keeps one ear open to her story and nods at appropriate moments, the realization hits him: this is what he wants every single day to be like. He wants to come home this.
“What?” Jess asks when she catches him staring. “Do I have something on my face?”
Sam reaches across the table and pinches the tip of her nose. “Now you do.”
“God, Sam,” she laughs as she pushes his hand away. “How do I put up with you?”
* * * * *
Sam picks up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey.” It’s Dean. There’s a rumble of engines in the background.
“Dean?” Sammy stares at the receiver. “Did something happen? Is everything okay?”
“What? No, everything’s fine.”
“Oh,” Sam feels at a loss. “Is there something you need, or-"
“No, I just,” Dean pauses, “I just called to see how you were. Has-has school started yet?”
“Uh, yeah, it started last month. It’s going good, I guess.”
“Oh, started already, huh?” Dean sounds disappointed. “I was thinking the other day that I got some time off coming up soon and maybe I could stop by, or something.”
“Ah,” Sam scratches his head awkwardly. “The next two weeks aren’t really that great for me. It’s my first block of exams and I really gotta hit the books, you know.”
“Oh yeah, right,” Deans says gruffly. “That’s-that’s important. You focus on doing good on your tests and stuff. I should maybe put in some overtime anyway.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. He thinks he should say something more, ask to reschedule, maybe, but Dean’s already mumbling something about work and dinner and then he’s gone.
* * * * *
“It’s a gorgeous day,” Jess says, “a gorgeous day to be out in the wilderness!”
Sam laughs. “We’re at the zoo, Jess. I don’t know if this qualifies as wilderness.”
“Whatever,” she says, “there’s animals, and grass, and poop. Smells like the wilderness to me.”
Sam laughs again as he guides her to a bench in front of-but not too close to-the elephant cages. “Way to take the romance out of our anniversary.”
“If you wanted romance, you should have taken me to some place with a fancy French name I can’t pronounce,” Jess says as she sits.
“Yeah.” Sam sits down next to her and feels his mouth dry up. He shifts nervously and thinks, now or never.
“Hey, you okay?” Jess smiles at him curiously, and Sam steels himself and nods.
“We’ve been together a long time,” Sam starts, feels like an idiot. In his rehearsals, the words didn’t sound this lame. The mirror also didn’t look at him like he’d lost his mind. “Five years now. And they’ve been great, really great. The best five years of my life. Not counting my father dying.”
“Um,” Jess says. Shit, Sam thinks, don’t go off script.
“But that’s not your fault-my dad dying, I mean. Obviously. And it’s also not the point. The point that I’m trying to get at is, um.”
“Sam,” Jess says, “you’re scaring me a little. Are you-“
“Do you remember when we first met?” Sam blurts out, giving up on the speech. “I complimented your cat and it was supposed to be an elephant?”
“Oh yeah,” Jess chuckles fondly. “I couldn’t believe you took me seriously. I thought, has this kid never seen an elephant before? They look nothing like cats.”
“Actually, now that you mention it, no, I had never seen an elephant in person before,” Sam says. He slides off the bench into an awkward, kneeling position, and the gravel digs painfully into his kneecaps. “I’d seen them in pictures, but I’d never been to a zoo before because we never stuck around a school long enough to go on the class field trips, and-"
“Sam,” Jess swallows, “what-"
“I wanted the first elephant I ever saw in person to be with you.” Sam gets onto one knee and he’s pretty sure gravel’s made its way into his right shoe but he doesn’t care. He thinks about only one thing when he reaches into his pocket with palms so sweaty he’s afraid the box will shoot out of his hands into the lion pit and ruin everything. But it doesn’t, and he somehow manages to get it open in spite of the sweat and says, “Jessica Lee Moore, will you make me the luckiest guy on earth and marry me?”
“Oh my god.” She stares at the box with eyes wide with-wonder? Horror? Shock? Sam’s heart is thudding so loudly in his chest that he can hardly breathe. “Oh my god, Sam, yes! Absolutely, oh my god, yes!” She drops to her knees on the ground next to him and throws her arms around his neck. It takes a full minute for Sam to comprehend that she’s said yes, and then he’s standing, picking her up in his arms and twirling her around.
“Oh man,” she says in his ear, and in the background he can hear people clapping, cheering for them, “give a gal a heart attack.”
“That was the plan,” he whispers back.
* * * * *
“I know this is a little last minute, but I’m going to be up around your parts later this week,” Dean says. “I was wondering if you might have some free time to spare, seeing as it’s the holidays and all.”
“Who is it?” Jess asks, putting her thumb in between the pages of the book she’s reading.
“Dean,” Sam says, covering the mouthpiece. “He’s going to be in town this week.”
“Oh my god,” Jess exclaims, “that’s great! That means he can go to the Christmas party with you!”
“Jess!” Sam hisses as he gets out of bed to head into the bathroom for some privacy. Through the phone, he hears Dean cough.
“That your girl talking?”
“Yeah,” Sam says once he’s safely in the bathroom.
“Tell her I say hey.”
“Oh, yeah, um.” Sam sticks his head out of the bathroom and says to Jess, who’s still sitting on the bed, “Dean says hey.”
“Hi, Dean!” she yells back and Sam winces at the volume. He can hear Dean chuckling on the other side though. ‘Christmas party’ she mouths, with two thumbs up in the air.
“You got any time in that busy schedule of yours for me?” Dean asks and Sam’s a touch annoyed at Dean for springing this on him at this last minute and expecting him to drop everything else, but. But it has been a long time and Dean probably won’t even want to come to the Christmas party anyway.
“There’s this Christmas party at my prof’s house. It’s like, this schmoozy cocktail he throws every year. Jess is getting over this stomach flu otherwise I’d bring her,” Sam says. “Friends and family are invited too. It’ll probably be kind of boring, though, talking to doctors and their families and people you don’t know, so I would understand if you didn’t want to go.”
“Christmas party, huh? I guess I could swing that,” Dean says. “Meet all your fancy doctor friends. I guess I’ll dig my suit out of storage.”
Sam nearly drops the phone in surprise. “You really-you want to go?”
“Of course, Sammy,” Dean says. “You’re gonna be the belle of the ball. Of course I want to be there.”
* * * * *
When Dean shows up, he is--as advertised--in a suit. It’s a surprisingly nice suit, a soft matte black tailored to fit him a hell of a lot better than the jeans and T-shirt Dean usually wears. “You look weird,” Sam says when he opens the door.
“Good to see you too, brainiac,” Deans says as he steps inside without an invitation, cuffing Sam gently. “Have you grown again? I don’t remember you being the size of a monster truck the last time I saw you.”
Sam rolls his eyes, “Why come on in, Dean. Welcome to my apartment. Make yourself right at home.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Dean says, seeming not to catch the sarcasm in Sam’s voice as he strolls around the apartment.
“Hey.” Jess appears in the bedroom door and heads out to greet them. “You must be Dean. It’s nice to finally meet you in the flesh.”
“And you must be the girl that always puts a smile on my little brother’s face,” Deans says with a smile. His eyes fall on the ring on her finger, cut over to Sam briefly, and then go back to her. Without missing a beat, he says, “I can’t believe you said yes to this chucklehead. Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”
Jess giggles and Sam suppresses the urge to roll his eyes again at Dean’s shamelessness. “I think I’ll keep him for now,” she says.
“You sure?” Dean asks. “I could arrange a trade-in if you’re interested. I hear I’m the fun Winchester.”
“Dean!” Sam says, scandalized, but Jess giggles again. He can’t believe she’s playing along.
“I believe it. But I’m not one of those gals that marries for fun,” Jess says.
Sam waits for Dean to hit on his fiancé some more, but all he says is, “Good.”
“Are you done yet?” Sam asks huffily. “Or would you like to get her number now?”
Dean leans over to Jess and says in a loud stage whisper, “He’s still mad about that time this girl in middle school liked me better than him.”
“She did not-“ Sam takes a deep breath and tries to calm down. Now he remembers why Dean and him don’t spend more time together: because Dean grinds on his every last nerve deliberately. “She was my girlfriend and then you bribed her away.”
Dean raises an eyebrow at Jess, who laughs. “He has his version of the story, and I have mine. It’s up to you who you want to believe.”
“What I really can’t believe is that it took this long for us to meet.” She looks pointedly at Sam.
“It’s been too long,” Dean agrees.
Sam clears his throat. “We should probably get going.”
“You boys have fun now,” Jess says, and Dean’s expression softens when she reaches out to hug him. “And it was nice to finally meet you, Dean.”
“Welcome to the family,” Dean says warmly. “We’re a little crazy but we try our damnedest to make it work.” His eyes meet Sam’s over her shoulder, and the sadness in them doesn’t match his smile.
* * * * *
“And what do you do, Dean?” the question comes from one of the throng of people surrounding Dean (mostly female, of course) and Sam steels himself for the inevitable embarrassment.
“I’m a trucker,” Dean says cheerfully, as if it’s the most respectable thing in the world. “Long haul, mostly.”
“Wow,” the questioner says, “that’s-I don’t think I’ve ever met a trucker before. You like, drive trucks for a living?”
“Yup, own my own rig and everything,” Dean says and Sam thinks he hears a few giggles. He wishes he could disappear into the floor, or the wall, or one of the ten fabulously trimmed and imported Christmas trees scattered throughout the mansion. “I’m my own boss, in a way.”
Sam finishes off the last of his glass of red wine and sets it down on the table, immediately reaching for a fresh one. It’s his eighth-ninth?-tonight but all the alcohol in the world isn’t going to Dean from babbling on, blissfully ignoring the mortification he’s heaping on Sam.
“…funny thing about this suit,” Sam tunes in to whatever new and horrible story he’s telling, “is I didn’t want to get it at first. My ex-girlfriend wanted to drag me to this wedding and said, don’t you dare rent a tux or get a second-hand piece of junk. If there’s anything worth investing in, it’s a good suit. Get something nice and simple and you can wear it anywhere for the rest of your life-weddings, funerals, baby showers, Christmas parties,” Dean chuckles and as if on cue, as does half of his audience. “And like everything else in life, she was right. I’ve worn this suit more times than I can count and it still wears like the day I bought it. It’s a miracle, considering the number of times it’s ended up on the floor in a hurry, if you know what I mean.” Dean winks lewdly and at this point, Sam’s had enough.
Sam walks up to Dean, grabs his arm none too gently and says through gritted teeth, “Could I have a word with you please?”
“Excuse me,” Dean says, “seems I’ve got a call waiting.”
Sam ignores the chorus of protests from the audience as he drags Dean away to the relatively empty foyer of the mansion. They stand next to an enormous Christmas tree lit up with a thousand crystal figurines which are probably worth more than the entire apartment complex Sam lives in.
“Dude, what’s your trauma?” Dean says, pulling his arm out of Sam’s grasp once they’re no longer within earshot of any of the other guests.
“What’s my trauma? What do you think?”
“I think if I’d known we were playing a guessing game I’d have brought a deck of cards so we could play that instead.” Dean seems baffled, but Sam’s tired of his cutesy wide eyes act.
“Just knock it off, Dean,” Sam says.
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that,” Dean says.
“All your stupid stories,” Sam says. “I know you think everyone here is nothing but a stuffed shirt and you may think it’s hilarious to make up long and involved tales about a fake ex-girlfriend and your suit of all things, but these are my colleagues and my future bosses. I don’t think it’s funny at all.”
“Making what up?” Dean squints at Sam. “Are you drunk?”
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Sam snaps. “And I know that story’s not real because in order for you to have an ex-girlfriend you had to have had an actual girlfriend at some point. And that’s definitely not you.”
Dean’s mouth turns up, but it’s not a smile. “Yeah, because you’ve got some kind of monopoly on having girlfriends, is that right?” He reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out his wallet and takes out a photo. “I think it’s a little ridiculous that I have to offer proof of existence, but hey, what the hell, why not. Her name’s Cassie, she lives in Missouri, we were together a year before she dumped me. I’ve still got her number memorized--would you like to give her a call, see if she’s a real person?”
“She--" She’s pretty and real and Sam doesn’t know what to do with that, so he hands the picture back. “You’ve never mentioned her before.”
“Would it have killed you to ask?” Dean’s hand is shaking as puts the picture back in his wallet.
The annoyance surges up again. This is not Sam’s fault. Dean’s the one who hates talking, thinks sharing and caring is a pansyass waste of time. “Oh yeah, because we’re totally the type of family that talks about feelings and shit. ‘Hey, Dean, I know the last time you brought a girl home to meet the family was never, but have you fallen in love lately? No? I’ll check back next week then’.”
“Fuck you,” Dean says. “And no thanks for the head’s up about your recent engagement, by the way. You planning to invite me to the wedding, or was I supposed to find that out after the fact too?”
“I don’t need your permission to live my life,” Sam says, feeling spiteful. “What do you care anyway?”
“Jesus Christ, Sam!” Dean explodes. “Of course I care! You’re all I-" He stops and his fists ball up. “I’m not doing this here, next to this thing.” Dean gestures at the Christmas tree with disgust before spinning on his heel and storming out the front door.
“What are you doing?” Sam’s still pissed and he’s not ready for this fight to be over yet. “Where are you going?”
“Away from your ungrateful punkass,” Dean charges onto the lush green grass of the huge front lawn, trampling it down as he goes.
“’Ungrateful?’ What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” The night is brisk, a little misty, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else outside besides them, thankfully.
“It means working my ass off to pay for some punkass’ damn college and med school fund three hundred and sixty four days out of the year, taking my one day off to visit said punkass and getting nothing but shit for it.”
Sam swallows, starts to feel a little lightheaded. “What are you talking about?”
“Forget it,” Dean says, but Sam’s not letting him get off that easy.
“No, Dean, you started this and you aren’t backing down now. All that money for college that Dad,” Sam shakes his head as the pieces slide into place. “Wasn’t Dad, right? And that-that insurance money that we split, fifty-fifty-“
“Shit, Sam, you think I’d be living out of a goddamned truck if there was any insurance money?” Dean practically shouts. “I’d at least spring for a motel room. Hell, maybe go wild and hit a hotel.”
“Why the fuck would you.” Sam kicks the grass and a clump of dirt goes flying up, marring the perfect landscaping. “Why’d you go and do that?”
“Wasn’t none of your worry,” Dean says gruffly. “You had more important things to think about, like getting to be the best damn doctor out there.”
“Fuck you.” Sam stares intently at the hole in the earth he made. “I’m not a kid. You don’t get to do this to me anymore.”
“I don’t know about that, Sammy. You’re sure acting like one now.”
“Don’t call me Sammy,” Sam says slowly. “And don’t patronize me. I never asked for charity and now you spring this on me and call me ungrateful? Thanks, Dean, thanks for that. Thanks for lying to me this whole time.”
“Oh come on, you must have known there’d be no insurance company crazy enough to take odds on Dad’s life,” Dean says. “Frankly, it’s a shock to everyone that knew him that he managed to hang on as long as he did.”
Sam shakes his head again. “You don’t get to play the martyr for this. You should have told me the truth.”
“And what good would that have done?”
“We could have been in this together!” Sam yells. “It didn’t have to be this way, Dean! It didn’t have to be heads I win, tails you lose. We could have been a team. But then you had to pull this bullshit, just like Dad. Always holding back on the information, saying it’s for my own good and he knows better. Well, fuck Dad for doing that and fuck you.”
“What do you want from me, Sam?” Dean yanks at the knot of his tie violently. “You ask for money, I give it to you. You ask me to come to this party full of people I don’t know dressed up in a monkey suit, I come and dance like a monkey. What more do you want?”
“I want you to leave,” the words slip out so easily Sam thinks he means them. The anger’s draining away now, leaving nothing but exhaustion its wake. He’s so tired he wants to lie down on the ground and close his eyes. “I knew this was a mistake.”
“Yeah, I guess it was.” Dean turns to go. “You know,” he says, “Dad was right about you.”
After Dean’s gone, Sam falls to his knees and vomits all over the spot where he stood.
He gets up afterwards, fixes his tie, swipes a hand across his mouth, and goes back inside to the party.
* * * * *
“You can fix this,” Jess says.
“No,” Sam says. “I don’t want to fix this.”
ACT IV
It starts as a day like any other. Sam gets up, brushes his teeth, eats breakfast. He packs up his books and kisses Jess goodbye. He goes to class, takes diligent notes, and then heads immediately over to the library afterwards. Exams are a week away and he needs to study hard.
He calls Jess to tell her he’ll be home late, and that she shouldn’t wait up for him. Then he gets back to studying and stays at it until his necks aches too badly to continue. He leaves the library around two am.
There are fire trucks and police cars all up and down his entire block. Sam’s annoyed at the inconvenience of having to fight through the yellow tape, saying over and over, "I live here, I gotta get home."
When he reaches his apartment building, the smell of fire and burning is overwhelming. The firefighters have giant hoses out and a fine spray of water mixes with the ash floating delicately through the air. There's noise all around with the sirens wailing, people yelling and crying, the water pumping full force into the remains of what used to be a wall.
But the noise seems to hush when he sees her car parked in the building lot out front. It all goes so quiet and still that he can hear clearly one of the officers radioing in his report: that they couldn’t make it to the floors five and above before the building collapsed, that no one got out after that.
Sam calls her phone twenty times, listens to the message play and can’t bring himself to leave a voicemail. He calls her parents, her friends, her ex-boyfriends, her boss and her coworkers, listens to the endless refrain: I’m sorry, she’s not here, I haven’t seen her.
He breaks past the police line, runs to her car and wrenches open every single door including the trunk, praying she’s inside, or praying to find a clue that will lead to the place she’s gone. Because if there’s no clue and no body, and no one’s seen her, the only other possibility that exists is one Sam can’t contemplate. Can’t allow himself to think about, because otherwise he might have to run towards that still burning building and throw himself inside, start digging through the soot and the char and the debris to find her.
He allows the police to drag him away from the car. He thinks they might be angry at him, but he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know.
* * * * *
“They found remains, but they’re not going to be able to ID anyone yet,” the man with a caterpillar mustache says. Sam can hardly concentrate on the words; he’s that sure the mustache is going to move, try to make a break for freedom. “The preliminary investigation points toward faulty wiring being the cause of the fire. No signs of arson or any foul play.”
Sam imagines the mustache wriggling off the guy’s face, jumping down onto the table, growing legs, and skittering away. It’s a ridiculous image and Sam can’t help but laugh.
“Sir? Did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah,” Sam replies. “You found some ashes shaped like people but you don’t know if any of those ashes are hers. I hear you loud and clear.”
“I’m sorry,” the man says. He says some other things too, meaningless platitudes and whatever fillers people use to make themselves feel less uncomfortable. Sam knows he has to pretend to pay attention though; otherwise the man will keep trying to talk to him. Maybe send him to more people to talk to. “…and are your accommodations alright? Comfortable?”
“It’s a motel,” Sam says dully. “It’s just like home.”
The man sighs. “Maybe it’s best that you’re not alone right now. Do you have anyone you can call? Friends, family?”
“She burned up in a fire,” Sam says.
* * * * *
When her mother calls, that’s when he knows it’s true. He’s known deep down all along but now he can’t run through the possible stories in his head anymore. He can’t pretend she’s done something impulsive like taken an impromptu trip to the Alps without him. Can’t pretend she’s going to call him in five minutes and tell him “It’s gorgeous, let’s go there for our honeymoon!” Can’t pretend she’s going to walk through that door any second, grinning and saying, “Aw, you were all worried about little old me.” He can’t pretend.
Sam imagines all the things they’re not going to do together. He’s not going to cut the cake with her on their wedding day. He’s not going to stay with her and hold her hand during the birth of their first child. He’s not going to buy a house with her, watch the sun set on the front porch. He’s not going to grow old with her.
Sam hangs up the phone when her mother starts to cry. He doesn’t pick up when it rings again and again and again.
Instead, Sam walks over to the bed and stretches face down onto it. It’s almost too short to fit his legs, but he manages. His face falls into the crease in between the two pillows and he finds it difficult to breathe. He thinks that if he stays in this position he might asphyxiate during in his sleep, and he’s okay with that.
* * * * *
Sam wakes up to banging on his door. After it continues for another fifteen minutes, he gets up and opens the door.
“Oh thank god.” Her parents have come. “You hung up and we tried calling you back but you wouldn’t pick up. We were worried you’d gone and done something-rash.” Mrs. Moore covers her trembling mouth with her palm.
“We were worried about you, son,” Mr. Moore says and there are tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says. “I was sleeping.”
Mr. Moore glances at the wall clock. “It’s four in the afternoon, Sam.”
“Oh,” Sam says. “I guess the sun came up.”
“You should come stay with us,” Mrs. Moore says. “No one should have to be alone in this.”
“No, it’s okay,” Sam replies. It’s not that he doesn’t want to go with them, and it’s not that he wants to worry them more. It’s that if he goes with them, their house is going to be full of her. Photos of her, memories of her, rooms of her. But not her. “I’m fine, really.”
“This is no way to live.” Mrs. Moore puts a hand on Sam's arm.
“No,” Sam agrees, and pulls away. “It’s not.”
“You need family at a time like this, son,” Mr. Moore says. “If you won’t come with us, isn’t there someone else you can call?”
‘Dean’ a foggy part of Sam’s mind supplies. “Maybe,” Sam says.
They make him promise to call Dean, swear that they’ll be back in a week and if he hasn’t cleared out by then, they’ll take him in by force. They finally leave and Sam relaxes, slides down the wall to sit on the floor.
It’s all quiet again.
* * * * *
Sam stares at the phone and doesn’t know what he should say. Spit out the cold hard facts? Tell Dean’s he on suicide watch and needs a chaperone? Make an inappropriate joke about a guy that walks into a bar and burns it down?
When Dean actually picks up, his voice is angry and groggy. “Who the fuck do you think you are, calling me at this time of-"
“Dean,” Sam says, and that’s when it starts. It’s been eight days and he hasn’t shed a single tear, and it’s like those past eight days he’s been storing it up, waiting for his moment to let it all rush out. “She’s dead, Dean. She’s really dead.” Sam’s shaking and he can’t speak, his mouth so full up with tears and broken breath. He can’t answer the questions Dean’s shooting him, can’t manage anything more than, “Dean, please.”
“Hold on, Sammy,” Dean says. “I’m coming.”
* * * * *
Sam remembers one of the worst nights of his life took place in one of their many nameless motel rooms, back when he and Dean were just kids. Sam got sick right after their father had dropped them off in the room with vague promises about being back the next morning. He'd crawled straight into bed even though it was only eight at night and he usually loved watching TV at that time because Dean let him watch whatever he wanted when Dad wasn’t around.
But his stomach hurt and his head hurt and his whole entire life hurt, so it was all Sam could do to make it to the bed without falling face first into the nasty motel carpet.
“You okay?” Dean asked, throwing their suitcases onto the floor by the bathroom door carelessly. “You hungry or anything?”
“N-no,” Sam said, teeth chattering a little. “I don’t feel so good.”
“You should eat something,” Dean said, digging through his backpack for a candy bar. “It’s been four hours since we last ate. I can get you something from the vending machine.”
“Don’t wanna,” Sam said, yanking the stiff covers and sheets up to his chest. “Where’d Dad go?”
“To take care of some business,” Dean said, finally emerging triumphant with a partially crushed Snickers bar. “He said he’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. The pain hurt really bad in his head, and he couldn’t help the tears that squeezed out of the corners of his eyes.
“Hey now,” Dean said, walking over to the bed. “We have to be strong until Dad comes back, you know that. No more crying because you’re almost twelve now, and that means it’s time to act like an adult. Grace under pressure, like Dad says.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, turning his face into the pillow, willing himself to stop. “My head hurts. Do we have any Tylenol left?”
Dean sighed. “Dad used the last of it up a couple of days ago and we haven’t had the chance to stop since then.” He glanced at the clock on the table. “I guess the store might still be open, but it’s at least an hour walk away and I don’t know if I’ll get there in time.”
“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Don’t go. I’m okay.”
“Sam,” Dean said, and put the back of his hand on Sam’s forehead, “you’re burning up!”
“Then why do I feel so cold?” Sam asked, teeth chattering again.
“Oh, Sammy,” Dean said, and minute later, Sam felt the covers lift, Dean sliding in next to him.
“Dean,” Sam said, wrapping his arms and legs around Dean like a heater. It soothed the chills a little bit. He hid his face in Dean’s chest and Dean pretended not to notice the tears soaking through the thin T-shirt fabric.
“Don’t worry,” Dean murmured into the Sam’s hair, hand rubbing soothing circles between his shoulder-blades. “I got you, Sammy. I got you.”
Sam fell asleep like that and only dimly remembered the next few days, Dean watching over him carefully like he might break. Dad didn’t actually come back until three days later because the business he had to take care ended up taking longer than expected. By the time he came back, Sam wasn’t sick anymore anyway.
fin
9,500 words, SPN AU set in a paranormal-free world. Sam and Dean are just two dysfunctional guys.
Thanks to hurricanemegan and withdiamond for betas.
ACT I
“If you walk out that door, don’t you bother coming back.”
Sam slams the apartment door behind him and bounds down the stairwell two steps at a time. Every nerve in his body sings on high alert, blood pumping in triple time, adrenaline pushing him to move faster and faster.
“Wait, Sam!” Sam hears Dean’s voice behind him through the roar in his ears but he doesn’t stop. “Sam, wait, you gotta-“
“No, Dean, I don’t gotta anything,” Sam snaps as he throws open the apartment building door and practically leaps out into the sunlight. The cold air hits like him a physical blow, stings his eyes, but it doesn’t cool him down. “Not anymore.”
“Sam,” Dean’s close now and he puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder, “you know he didn’t mean it.”
“No, he meant every word of it.” Sam shakes his hand off. He’s too pissed to stand still, too jacked up on rage and testosterone and his father being a dick to do anything but get the hell away. Because the only other option besides flight leads to Sam’s fist flying full speed towards something it shouldn’t. “And you know what? It’s better this way. It’s better for us all if I go.”
“Sam.” Sam hears a sharp intake of breath. “You don’t mean that.”
Sam starts jogging down the cracked, grey sidewalk and says, “Yeah, Dean. I do.”
* * * * *
Stanford’s warm, and sunny, and beautiful--and Sam loves it. His roommate’s some weedy little suburban kid who sniffles at night when he thinks Sam’s asleep because he misses his family. Maybe Sam should be homesick and miserable too, but then he remembers that if home is where the heart is, he’s not sure where to locate it because random motel rooms and a car don’t hold much heart. In any case, he’s not miserable because he loves it, loves the independence and control and the absence of anyone in his life barking orders at him.
It’s a new life, with new people, and a new Sam. A better Sam--one that’s free.
The classes fascinate Sam, engage him the way none of his high school classes did (didn’t matter which state they were in, they uniformly sucked). The people are smart, funny, excited to learn, and Sam thinks maybe for the first time in his life he can get to have friends and keep them. Even the food that everyone grouses about in the dining hall tastes good, is a thousand times more filling than fast food and stale candy. Everything is infinitely better here, at Stanford.
Of course, then the other shoe drops the moment he receives a notice from the registrar’s office. Good things don’t last, never did and never will. His father taught him that.
“I’m sorry,” the nice lady with pointy glasses and 80’s hair says. “But I’m afraid if you don’t pay the rest of the balance by the end of the month, we’ll have to de-register you from all your classes until further notice.”
“I thought the scholarship covered it all?” Sam says, heart sinking into his boots.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Is there any way I can work out a payment plan, or-“
She shakes her head, no. “Maybe if you had come to us a little earlier in the semester about this, we could have worked something out. But your bill’s overdue by a month and a half and we can’t overlook this any longer.” She smiles at him, kindly. “Why don’t you talk it over with your parents? I’m sure they’ll understand.”
Sam feels like he’s going to be sick.
* * * * *
The first time he sees her, she’s drawing an animal face on the whiteboard posted on the door of her dorm room.
“Nice cat,” Sam says before he knows he’s doing it. She turns around and his heart skips a tiny beat.
“Oh no!” She says, pretty eyes going wide and mouth forming a dismayed ‘o’. “That’s supposed to be an elephant!”
“Oh, um-" he stammers. The hottest girl in the dormitory notices he’s alive and he blows it with some dumb comment about a cat that’s supposed to be an elephant. Figures.
Then she bursts out laughing and Sam feels more confused. “Your face!” she chortles. “It’s priceless. I was kidding! Yes, this is meant to be a cat. Thank you.”
“Oh man,” Sam starts to breathe again. “Give a guy a heart attack.”
“That was the plan,” she says, her eyes twinkling mischievously. She sticks her hand out to shake, “I’m Jess, by the way.”
“Sam.” He shakes her hand and melts a little inside.
* * * * *
Sam tried everything he could think of to avoid making this phone call. First he got a part time job at the bookstore and another one mopping the floors at the nearby coffee place. When he received his paychecks two weeks later and compared the pathetic numbers post-taxes to the gigantic number that was his tuition, he ran the math and realized he could work for a year and still not have enough saved to pay.
Sam hit up a nearby bar with his fake ID to try to hustle some pool, even though he’d sworn to himself that he’d left all that behind. He won a few hundred bucks after eight hours, non-stop, but the next day he slept through all his classes and ran into half the guys he’d hustled in the dining hall. At the rate he was going, he could expect to fail out of school and alienate everyone on campus before the semester finished out anyway.
Sam wants to punch the wall for having to do this, but they’d probably add the damage to his overdue bill. “I wouldn’t ask, Dean, but.” He can imagine them both smiling smugly, knowingly. Of course he failed. Of course he had to come crawling back. Better make him beg. “But they’re going to kick me out and there’s no way I can come up with that kind of money.”
Sam expects Dean to say, ‘Dad doesn’t have that kind of money’ or, ‘if he did, he’s not going to give it to you, no way and no how’. He expects Dean to say, ‘you’re on your own’, but instead he says, “Don’t worry, Sammy. When’s it due by?”
“The-the end of the month,” Sam chokes out in surprise. “You’ll talk to Dad?”
“Yeah, I’ll-I’ll take care of it.”
A week later, an envelope comes to Sam by priority mail with no return address. He rips it open and a check falls out, written in the precise amount that he needs, signature at the bottom illegible scrawl. Sam wants to kiss the check, dance around his room, but instead he carefully smoothes it out and goes to the registrar’s office.
* * * * *
Over the course of the next month, Sam finds excuses to stop by Jess’s room and write on her whiteboard weekly. He starts simply: ‘Sam was here!’ followed by a smiley face with big, floppy ears. Jess responds later that day by writing on his whiteboard, ‘Jess is the Ruler of this whiteboard!’ accompanied by a stick figure with an oversized tiara. Sam escalates with, ‘Sam is the Ruler of the known universe!’ and a sketch of the earth. She retaliates with a cartoon of the earth crying. Sam caps the whole thing off with a clumsily drawn picture of an elephant on her board, underneath the cat (which does, when he examines it closely, vaguely resemble an elephant). By this time, they’re run out of room on their whiteboards and Sam doesn’t want to erase anything.
He finally gets the courage to ask Jess out to dinner a week later when they run into each other in the laundry room. They go out to a burger joint that Saturday and he watches her laugh so long that his cheeseburger gets cold. The evening ends with a kiss, chaste and sweet. The corner of her mouth tastes a little like ketchup and when Sam walks back to his room, he has to resist the urge to wake up his roommate for a high five.
* * * * *
Sam calls after the check clears and the registrar tells him everything’s okay. “Tell Dad thanks. You know, for the money.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Deans says.
“Do you--" Sam hesitates.
His roommate’s always bitching about how his family won’t leave him alone, keeps embarrassing him by showing up on campus with care packages full of cupcakes iced with messages like, ‘I Luv U!’ and ‘World’s Best Son’. Sam never knows how to respond when his roommate makes comments like, “You’re lucky your family is cool and not embarrassing, like mine.” He usually agrees and says something like, “Yeah, I’m glad they don’t come up because I bet they’d be totally embarrassing if they came to visit me.”
Secretly, he wonders what it would be like to get a cupcake with an icing message on top, although knowing Dean and his father, the cupcake probably wouldn’t taste much like cake at all. And though his roommate says he hates it every time his mom comes by and smothers him in kisses and other motherly things, Sam thinks it would be nice to have a mom like that.
Sam forces himself to swallow his pride. “Do you and-and Dad want to come up next month, maybe? Thanksgiving Break is coming up soon and maybe we could…”
There’s silence at the other end and then, “I’m sorry, Sammy. Dad’s working a big case and I-I got my car totaled in some damn accident, so I haven't got wheels anymore. And money’s, you know-"
“Money’s always been-" Sam starts and then stops himself. It’s an excuse, obviously. If Dean really wanted to visit, all he’d have to do is drop by the nearest pool hall and hit up some sucker for the cab fare. Sam used to watch Dean hustle almost a thousand on the good nights.
“Sam, it’s not that I-we-don’t want to, it’s that,” Dean pauses. “I started this new job and they might still can my ass for being a slacker, for calling in sick too many days.”
Excuses, Sam thinks. Out loud, he says, “No, that’s, I get it.” Sam doesn’t know why his throat feels thick. “Whatever. It was a stupid idea anyway.”
ACT II
Jess and Sam are sitting outside on a bench together and Sam thinks he will never get over the constantly perfect Palo Alto weather. It’s the perfect setting for the new life he’s built, complete with smiling, tan people who wear polo shirts and go sailing on yachts and don’t know what the inside of a motel smells like.
Some days, Sam worries that one day all his friends are going to realize where he came from, the kind of childhood he lived.
He tells everyone who asks that he’s from Lawrence, Texas, but the truth is that he’s not from anywhere, really. He tells everyone that he moved a few times because his father’s company kept moving him, but the truth is that the only thing that kept his father moving was his father. He tells everyone charming little anecdotes about a dog named Mr. Bonkers who he loved for years and cried over when the doctors put him down, but the truth is that Mr. Bonkers died as a puppy in the same fire that killed Sam’s mother, and he never knew either. He tells people about how his father nearly cried when Sam first rode a bicycle, and how he clapped Sam on the shoulder and told him he was growing into a man. The truth is, his father was out on a case the day Sam learned to ride; Dean had cut the chain on some old bike locked up outside the motel and pushed Sam around on it until he stopped crashing down onto the parking lot pavement. Dean bought him a congratulatory donut afterwards and made him promise not to tell Dad because he’d stolen the dollar for it out of his pocket.
Sam makes up stories based on TV shows or movies he’s seen because that sad, screwed up kid from a fucked up life isn’t him anymore. He doesn’t want shock, or pity, or charity. Sam wants three things: to succeed, to have friends, and not to go back. He doesn’t even want to think about going back.
“Do you know what you’re going to do after you graduate?” Jess asks as she takes a bite into her ice cream cone.
“I really like school,” Sam says as he puts a hand on the small of her back, feels the warmth of her body. “I’m thinking I want to continue.”
“Grad school, law school, or med school?” she asks, and a little bit of ice cream dribbles down the side of her mouth. She wipes it away quickly.
“I was thinking law or med school but,” he ducks his head, “this is going to sound cheesy, but I think I want to help people, you know? And I think I could do that better as a doctor than a lawyer.”
“Oh my god,” Jess says as she finishes the last bite of her cone and dabs her mouth with her napkin. “That’s awesome! You are going to be such a great doctor.”
Sam’s face heats up as he kisses her cheek. Her face smells like mint chocolate chip. With her, he feels like he can do anything.
* * * * *
It’s mid-March of his junior year and he’s watching TV in his room with Jess when he gets the call. Dean’s voice is raspy on the line like he’s got a cold and when Sam drops the phone, Jess takes his hand and asks him what happened.
* * * * *
All Sam can think as he steps inside the building is that the flowers smell sickly sweet and the suit he borrowed from his roommate itches. Through the double doors which open from the lobby into the viewing room, Sam can see that there aren’t too many people filling up the seats. The ones that notice him all come up to Sam to offer their condolences. He doesn’t know what to say because the truth doesn’t seem appropriate, so he mostly nods and says nothing.
The parlor’s actually pretty nice as far as they go, tastefully decorated and spacious. The wooden coffin gleams with a polished shine and Sam wonders whether his father would have put out for a funeral this nice if he was still-but, well, that’s a moot point now. He must have left a decent chunk of change for Dean to have arranged all this. Maybe he wrapped up a big case before-Sam can’t continue the thought.
Jess offered to come but Sam declined, not wanting to have to explain that the last good memories he had of his father entailed a check arriving in the mail. Sam stands by the door of the viewing room but he can’t bring himself to walk through it.
“I told him one day the job was going to catch up with him,” Dean says, coming to stand by Sam. He looks older than Sam remembers. “At least it was quick. That’s what the cops said, anyway.”
“I don’t want to know,” Sam says and Dean flinches minutely. Sam braces himself for a lecture, but Dean just looks away.
“I almost wish I didn’t,” Dean says.
“Are you,” Sam stops and tries again, haltingly. “Do you want to-"
“Talk about my feelings?” Deans says roughly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I think I’ll pass on the girltalk.”
“Fine,” Sam mutters. “Just an offer. Whatever.”
They stand together, not saying anything for a few minutes before Dean blurts out, “We gotta-" His voice rasps a little. “We should go say goodbye.”
“Yeah, alright,” Sam says as a flood of guilt pushes through his chest. The rage is still there, bubbling inside him alongside resentment, but a whisper of shame for not being sorrier sneaks up too. He should feel sad, he should feel scared and alone maybe, but mostly he feels angry that there’s no one to direct his anger at anymore.
They walk to the coffin together and Sam isn’t sure what to expect. Something grotesque, maybe? Something that isn’t his father anymore. But all he gets when he peers inside is his father, a couple of years older, a little paler, looking to all the world like he’s asleep.
“Wow,” Sam says. There’s a numbness inside his chest and it’s spreading to his abdomen, his legs, his arms and fingers and toes. He thinks maybe he should be doing something dramatic, like in the movies, trying to reach in and shake his father awake. But all he wants is to walk away as quickly as possible to try to forget about it all.
“Sammy.” Sam sees a flash of tears before Dean reaches up and rubs them away. “Sammy, he was so proud of you-"
“Don’t say that!” Sam shouts, and everyone in the room jumps at the noise. He doesn’t know how it happens, but tears start sliding down his cheeks, the end of his nose. “Don’t you lie to me, not while we’re standing here with, with-" Sam chokes off and turns away. He waits for Dean to come after him, put a hand on his shoulder like he always used to, but a minute passes and nothing comes.
Sam turns back and Dean’s sitting in one of the chairs in the front row, head in his hands, rocking back and forth silently. Sam doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, so he does nothing.
* * * * *
When Sam gets the acceptance letter, he can hardly believe it. Jess shrieks and hugs him, but all he can do is sit in a daze.
Later, he calls Dean. “I got into med school.”
“Oh, Sam,” Dean says, “I knew you would. Congratulations, brainiac.”
“Listen, Dean,” Sam sighs, “they didn’t really give me a lot of scholarship aid. Not enough, anyway. And I can cover the difference, maybe, through loans, but I was thinking since Dad-you know, maybe he left us some insurance money, or-“
“I-“ Dean sounds strained, “I don’t know, Sammy. I gotta sort through all of his stuff, pay his bills and-“
“Then don’t worry about it,” Sam says. “Like I said, I can probably get enough student loans to make up the difference, I was just wondering if-“
“Forget the loans,” Deans says. “I can get the money. Give me a few days to-to talk to the insurance company, okay?”
The next day, Dean calls back and says, yes, the insurance money came through and they’re all in the clear. Sam breathes a sigh of relief and returns to trying to live up his last year in college.
* * * * *
“You have to go,” Jess says. “It’s graduation! The proof that we made it through the last four years mostly intact.”
“Graduation is for family to celebrate together,” Sam replies. “I don’t exactly have a Hallmark card left anymore.”
“You have Dean,” she says. “I’m sure he would-"
“Dean’s got a busy life,” Sam says. The memory of Dean declining to come to visit Sam still stings slightly, but Sam does his best to ignore it. “Work’s all he does these days. He wouldn’t have time to come to my graduation.” Maybe Sam’s being unreasonable and petty, but he doesn’t care.
“If you asked, maybe he’d take some time off. If he knew what it meant to you.”
“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” Sam says empathically. “That’s not how it works with me and Dean anyway. I’ve barely seen him in the last four years and that’s not an accident, okay?”
She touches Sam’s forearm, squeezing gently. “When’s the last time you invited him up here? Or asked if you could go home and see him?”
“He doesn’t have a home. He lives in a truck cab,” Sam says, a flash of embarrassment heating his cheeks. A truck, of all things. “And if he wanted to see me, he could hop in that stupid truck and come anytime. He knows where I live.”
Jess sighs, but drops the topic.
* * * * *
Sam doesn’t know why he let Jess convince him to come to graduation. Three hours into it and he’s already bored to death. Somewhere between the keynote and the valedictorian droning on about soaring through the sky like birds, Sam falls asleep. He doesn’t wake up until the student next to him jabs him sharply in the ribs and mutters, “We’re next!”
Sam dutifully follows the line of people in front of him and gets his diploma and pictures taken through a haze. By the time he gets back to his seat, the ceremony is over (thankfully, Winchester is at the end of the alphabet). Sam watches everyone throw their square hats into the air and signs in relief. Finally, it’s done.
As Sam makes his way through the throngs of crying, happy moms and dads crowded around their graduates, he feels strangely alone. He congratulates some of his friends but they’re all too distracted by parents taking pictures to stop and talk. He sees Jess a few hundred feet from him through the masses of people, surrounded by her immediate and extended family. He should give them a moment to celebrate together before he crashes the party.
“Congratulations, Sammy,” a familiar voice says from behind Sam.
“Dean,” Sam says, jumping slightly. Dean’s awkwardly clutching a yellow smiley face balloon that says, ‘Congrats!’ on the back. He stands stiffly, alone and totally out of place in a black bomber jacket and faded jeans amidst a sea of linen-clad, gussied up family members and graduates. Always the outcast. “What are you-"
“Your girlfriend,” Dean coughs. “She called me and told me to get my ass up here. And to buy a gift. I didn’t know what, uh, what you should buy a college graduate besides a strong drink. All they had left at the store was this and a bouquet of roses, and I figured since I’m not taking you to prom, a balloon’s what you’re getting.” Dean shoves the balloon at Sam. “Congratulations, college grad.”
“Thanks.” Sam accepts the balloon warily. He’s not twelve anymore, but he supposes it’s better than a bouquet of roses. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here for this.”
“I--I was in town anyway,” Dean rushes to explain. Sam feels his heart fall a tiny bit.
“Well, that’s. That’s convenient, then.”
Dean shoves his hands in his pockets and glances around. “You wanna grab a beer or-or, a bite to eat or something? My treat for the big shot.”
“Nah, it’s okay,” Sam says, tugging at the balloon string, watching the balloon bob up and down again. He doesn’t know what he’d talk to Dean about-trucking? Women? Beer? “Jess already invited me to dinner with her family.” Besides, it would be rude to cancel plans last minute like this.
“That sounds-that sounds real nice.” Dean clears his throat. “I guess I should be getting a move on, anyway. Big day tomorrow. Work’s a pain.”
“Yeah,” Sam says.
Dean turns to go, pauses, and then whirls around to catch Sam in a hug that’s as surprising as it is bone-crushingly tight. “I am so damn proud of you,” Dean whispers in his ear so quick and low that Sam isn’t sure he heard it at all. Then Dean releases him and walks away, disappearing into the crowd in seconds, leaving Sam holding a ridiculous yellow smiley face and standing alone in a sea of people.
ACT III
“Hey, beautiful,” Sam says as the drops the keys in the dish by the door.
“Hey, handsome.” Jess waltzes over for a kiss. “Dinner’s ready.”
“You spoil me,” he says, pulling her in for another, deeper kiss.
“I do, don’t I?” She grins. “How was your first day of medical school? Was it everything you hoped it would be?”
“’Terrifying’ sums it up,” Sam says as he walks into the kitchen, sits at the table. “Everyone’s brilliant, competitive, a little nuts…”
“You fit right in then, huh?” Jess teases.
“Hardy har,” Sam says, serving the mixed greens salad into their respective bowls before drizzling them with vinaigrette. “And how was your day? Your boss still being an asshole?”
“An incredible ass,” Jess sighs, and launches into an epic description of the latest work escapade, which culminated in the destruction of an innocent photocopier.
At some point during the middle of her story, Sam glances up from his salad and is struck all over again by how beautiful Jess is. As he keeps one ear open to her story and nods at appropriate moments, the realization hits him: this is what he wants every single day to be like. He wants to come home this.
“What?” Jess asks when she catches him staring. “Do I have something on my face?”
Sam reaches across the table and pinches the tip of her nose. “Now you do.”
“God, Sam,” she laughs as she pushes his hand away. “How do I put up with you?”
* * * * *
Sam picks up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey.” It’s Dean. There’s a rumble of engines in the background.
“Dean?” Sammy stares at the receiver. “Did something happen? Is everything okay?”
“What? No, everything’s fine.”
“Oh,” Sam feels at a loss. “Is there something you need, or-"
“No, I just,” Dean pauses, “I just called to see how you were. Has-has school started yet?”
“Uh, yeah, it started last month. It’s going good, I guess.”
“Oh, started already, huh?” Dean sounds disappointed. “I was thinking the other day that I got some time off coming up soon and maybe I could stop by, or something.”
“Ah,” Sam scratches his head awkwardly. “The next two weeks aren’t really that great for me. It’s my first block of exams and I really gotta hit the books, you know.”
“Oh yeah, right,” Deans says gruffly. “That’s-that’s important. You focus on doing good on your tests and stuff. I should maybe put in some overtime anyway.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. He thinks he should say something more, ask to reschedule, maybe, but Dean’s already mumbling something about work and dinner and then he’s gone.
* * * * *
“It’s a gorgeous day,” Jess says, “a gorgeous day to be out in the wilderness!”
Sam laughs. “We’re at the zoo, Jess. I don’t know if this qualifies as wilderness.”
“Whatever,” she says, “there’s animals, and grass, and poop. Smells like the wilderness to me.”
Sam laughs again as he guides her to a bench in front of-but not too close to-the elephant cages. “Way to take the romance out of our anniversary.”
“If you wanted romance, you should have taken me to some place with a fancy French name I can’t pronounce,” Jess says as she sits.
“Yeah.” Sam sits down next to her and feels his mouth dry up. He shifts nervously and thinks, now or never.
“Hey, you okay?” Jess smiles at him curiously, and Sam steels himself and nods.
“We’ve been together a long time,” Sam starts, feels like an idiot. In his rehearsals, the words didn’t sound this lame. The mirror also didn’t look at him like he’d lost his mind. “Five years now. And they’ve been great, really great. The best five years of my life. Not counting my father dying.”
“Um,” Jess says. Shit, Sam thinks, don’t go off script.
“But that’s not your fault-my dad dying, I mean. Obviously. And it’s also not the point. The point that I’m trying to get at is, um.”
“Sam,” Jess says, “you’re scaring me a little. Are you-“
“Do you remember when we first met?” Sam blurts out, giving up on the speech. “I complimented your cat and it was supposed to be an elephant?”
“Oh yeah,” Jess chuckles fondly. “I couldn’t believe you took me seriously. I thought, has this kid never seen an elephant before? They look nothing like cats.”
“Actually, now that you mention it, no, I had never seen an elephant in person before,” Sam says. He slides off the bench into an awkward, kneeling position, and the gravel digs painfully into his kneecaps. “I’d seen them in pictures, but I’d never been to a zoo before because we never stuck around a school long enough to go on the class field trips, and-"
“Sam,” Jess swallows, “what-"
“I wanted the first elephant I ever saw in person to be with you.” Sam gets onto one knee and he’s pretty sure gravel’s made its way into his right shoe but he doesn’t care. He thinks about only one thing when he reaches into his pocket with palms so sweaty he’s afraid the box will shoot out of his hands into the lion pit and ruin everything. But it doesn’t, and he somehow manages to get it open in spite of the sweat and says, “Jessica Lee Moore, will you make me the luckiest guy on earth and marry me?”
“Oh my god.” She stares at the box with eyes wide with-wonder? Horror? Shock? Sam’s heart is thudding so loudly in his chest that he can hardly breathe. “Oh my god, Sam, yes! Absolutely, oh my god, yes!” She drops to her knees on the ground next to him and throws her arms around his neck. It takes a full minute for Sam to comprehend that she’s said yes, and then he’s standing, picking her up in his arms and twirling her around.
“Oh man,” she says in his ear, and in the background he can hear people clapping, cheering for them, “give a gal a heart attack.”
“That was the plan,” he whispers back.
* * * * *
“I know this is a little last minute, but I’m going to be up around your parts later this week,” Dean says. “I was wondering if you might have some free time to spare, seeing as it’s the holidays and all.”
“Who is it?” Jess asks, putting her thumb in between the pages of the book she’s reading.
“Dean,” Sam says, covering the mouthpiece. “He’s going to be in town this week.”
“Oh my god,” Jess exclaims, “that’s great! That means he can go to the Christmas party with you!”
“Jess!” Sam hisses as he gets out of bed to head into the bathroom for some privacy. Through the phone, he hears Dean cough.
“That your girl talking?”
“Yeah,” Sam says once he’s safely in the bathroom.
“Tell her I say hey.”
“Oh, yeah, um.” Sam sticks his head out of the bathroom and says to Jess, who’s still sitting on the bed, “Dean says hey.”
“Hi, Dean!” she yells back and Sam winces at the volume. He can hear Dean chuckling on the other side though. ‘Christmas party’ she mouths, with two thumbs up in the air.
“You got any time in that busy schedule of yours for me?” Dean asks and Sam’s a touch annoyed at Dean for springing this on him at this last minute and expecting him to drop everything else, but. But it has been a long time and Dean probably won’t even want to come to the Christmas party anyway.
“There’s this Christmas party at my prof’s house. It’s like, this schmoozy cocktail he throws every year. Jess is getting over this stomach flu otherwise I’d bring her,” Sam says. “Friends and family are invited too. It’ll probably be kind of boring, though, talking to doctors and their families and people you don’t know, so I would understand if you didn’t want to go.”
“Christmas party, huh? I guess I could swing that,” Dean says. “Meet all your fancy doctor friends. I guess I’ll dig my suit out of storage.”
Sam nearly drops the phone in surprise. “You really-you want to go?”
“Of course, Sammy,” Dean says. “You’re gonna be the belle of the ball. Of course I want to be there.”
* * * * *
When Dean shows up, he is--as advertised--in a suit. It’s a surprisingly nice suit, a soft matte black tailored to fit him a hell of a lot better than the jeans and T-shirt Dean usually wears. “You look weird,” Sam says when he opens the door.
“Good to see you too, brainiac,” Deans says as he steps inside without an invitation, cuffing Sam gently. “Have you grown again? I don’t remember you being the size of a monster truck the last time I saw you.”
Sam rolls his eyes, “Why come on in, Dean. Welcome to my apartment. Make yourself right at home.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Dean says, seeming not to catch the sarcasm in Sam’s voice as he strolls around the apartment.
“Hey.” Jess appears in the bedroom door and heads out to greet them. “You must be Dean. It’s nice to finally meet you in the flesh.”
“And you must be the girl that always puts a smile on my little brother’s face,” Deans says with a smile. His eyes fall on the ring on her finger, cut over to Sam briefly, and then go back to her. Without missing a beat, he says, “I can’t believe you said yes to this chucklehead. Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”
Jess giggles and Sam suppresses the urge to roll his eyes again at Dean’s shamelessness. “I think I’ll keep him for now,” she says.
“You sure?” Dean asks. “I could arrange a trade-in if you’re interested. I hear I’m the fun Winchester.”
“Dean!” Sam says, scandalized, but Jess giggles again. He can’t believe she’s playing along.
“I believe it. But I’m not one of those gals that marries for fun,” Jess says.
Sam waits for Dean to hit on his fiancé some more, but all he says is, “Good.”
“Are you done yet?” Sam asks huffily. “Or would you like to get her number now?”
Dean leans over to Jess and says in a loud stage whisper, “He’s still mad about that time this girl in middle school liked me better than him.”
“She did not-“ Sam takes a deep breath and tries to calm down. Now he remembers why Dean and him don’t spend more time together: because Dean grinds on his every last nerve deliberately. “She was my girlfriend and then you bribed her away.”
Dean raises an eyebrow at Jess, who laughs. “He has his version of the story, and I have mine. It’s up to you who you want to believe.”
“What I really can’t believe is that it took this long for us to meet.” She looks pointedly at Sam.
“It’s been too long,” Dean agrees.
Sam clears his throat. “We should probably get going.”
“You boys have fun now,” Jess says, and Dean’s expression softens when she reaches out to hug him. “And it was nice to finally meet you, Dean.”
“Welcome to the family,” Dean says warmly. “We’re a little crazy but we try our damnedest to make it work.” His eyes meet Sam’s over her shoulder, and the sadness in them doesn’t match his smile.
* * * * *
“And what do you do, Dean?” the question comes from one of the throng of people surrounding Dean (mostly female, of course) and Sam steels himself for the inevitable embarrassment.
“I’m a trucker,” Dean says cheerfully, as if it’s the most respectable thing in the world. “Long haul, mostly.”
“Wow,” the questioner says, “that’s-I don’t think I’ve ever met a trucker before. You like, drive trucks for a living?”
“Yup, own my own rig and everything,” Dean says and Sam thinks he hears a few giggles. He wishes he could disappear into the floor, or the wall, or one of the ten fabulously trimmed and imported Christmas trees scattered throughout the mansion. “I’m my own boss, in a way.”
Sam finishes off the last of his glass of red wine and sets it down on the table, immediately reaching for a fresh one. It’s his eighth-ninth?-tonight but all the alcohol in the world isn’t going to Dean from babbling on, blissfully ignoring the mortification he’s heaping on Sam.
“…funny thing about this suit,” Sam tunes in to whatever new and horrible story he’s telling, “is I didn’t want to get it at first. My ex-girlfriend wanted to drag me to this wedding and said, don’t you dare rent a tux or get a second-hand piece of junk. If there’s anything worth investing in, it’s a good suit. Get something nice and simple and you can wear it anywhere for the rest of your life-weddings, funerals, baby showers, Christmas parties,” Dean chuckles and as if on cue, as does half of his audience. “And like everything else in life, she was right. I’ve worn this suit more times than I can count and it still wears like the day I bought it. It’s a miracle, considering the number of times it’s ended up on the floor in a hurry, if you know what I mean.” Dean winks lewdly and at this point, Sam’s had enough.
Sam walks up to Dean, grabs his arm none too gently and says through gritted teeth, “Could I have a word with you please?”
“Excuse me,” Dean says, “seems I’ve got a call waiting.”
Sam ignores the chorus of protests from the audience as he drags Dean away to the relatively empty foyer of the mansion. They stand next to an enormous Christmas tree lit up with a thousand crystal figurines which are probably worth more than the entire apartment complex Sam lives in.
“Dude, what’s your trauma?” Dean says, pulling his arm out of Sam’s grasp once they’re no longer within earshot of any of the other guests.
“What’s my trauma? What do you think?”
“I think if I’d known we were playing a guessing game I’d have brought a deck of cards so we could play that instead.” Dean seems baffled, but Sam’s tired of his cutesy wide eyes act.
“Just knock it off, Dean,” Sam says.
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that,” Dean says.
“All your stupid stories,” Sam says. “I know you think everyone here is nothing but a stuffed shirt and you may think it’s hilarious to make up long and involved tales about a fake ex-girlfriend and your suit of all things, but these are my colleagues and my future bosses. I don’t think it’s funny at all.”
“Making what up?” Dean squints at Sam. “Are you drunk?”
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Sam snaps. “And I know that story’s not real because in order for you to have an ex-girlfriend you had to have had an actual girlfriend at some point. And that’s definitely not you.”
Dean’s mouth turns up, but it’s not a smile. “Yeah, because you’ve got some kind of monopoly on having girlfriends, is that right?” He reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out his wallet and takes out a photo. “I think it’s a little ridiculous that I have to offer proof of existence, but hey, what the hell, why not. Her name’s Cassie, she lives in Missouri, we were together a year before she dumped me. I’ve still got her number memorized--would you like to give her a call, see if she’s a real person?”
“She--" She’s pretty and real and Sam doesn’t know what to do with that, so he hands the picture back. “You’ve never mentioned her before.”
“Would it have killed you to ask?” Dean’s hand is shaking as puts the picture back in his wallet.
The annoyance surges up again. This is not Sam’s fault. Dean’s the one who hates talking, thinks sharing and caring is a pansyass waste of time. “Oh yeah, because we’re totally the type of family that talks about feelings and shit. ‘Hey, Dean, I know the last time you brought a girl home to meet the family was never, but have you fallen in love lately? No? I’ll check back next week then’.”
“Fuck you,” Dean says. “And no thanks for the head’s up about your recent engagement, by the way. You planning to invite me to the wedding, or was I supposed to find that out after the fact too?”
“I don’t need your permission to live my life,” Sam says, feeling spiteful. “What do you care anyway?”
“Jesus Christ, Sam!” Dean explodes. “Of course I care! You’re all I-" He stops and his fists ball up. “I’m not doing this here, next to this thing.” Dean gestures at the Christmas tree with disgust before spinning on his heel and storming out the front door.
“What are you doing?” Sam’s still pissed and he’s not ready for this fight to be over yet. “Where are you going?”
“Away from your ungrateful punkass,” Dean charges onto the lush green grass of the huge front lawn, trampling it down as he goes.
“’Ungrateful?’ What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” The night is brisk, a little misty, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else outside besides them, thankfully.
“It means working my ass off to pay for some punkass’ damn college and med school fund three hundred and sixty four days out of the year, taking my one day off to visit said punkass and getting nothing but shit for it.”
Sam swallows, starts to feel a little lightheaded. “What are you talking about?”
“Forget it,” Dean says, but Sam’s not letting him get off that easy.
“No, Dean, you started this and you aren’t backing down now. All that money for college that Dad,” Sam shakes his head as the pieces slide into place. “Wasn’t Dad, right? And that-that insurance money that we split, fifty-fifty-“
“Shit, Sam, you think I’d be living out of a goddamned truck if there was any insurance money?” Dean practically shouts. “I’d at least spring for a motel room. Hell, maybe go wild and hit a hotel.”
“Why the fuck would you.” Sam kicks the grass and a clump of dirt goes flying up, marring the perfect landscaping. “Why’d you go and do that?”
“Wasn’t none of your worry,” Dean says gruffly. “You had more important things to think about, like getting to be the best damn doctor out there.”
“Fuck you.” Sam stares intently at the hole in the earth he made. “I’m not a kid. You don’t get to do this to me anymore.”
“I don’t know about that, Sammy. You’re sure acting like one now.”
“Don’t call me Sammy,” Sam says slowly. “And don’t patronize me. I never asked for charity and now you spring this on me and call me ungrateful? Thanks, Dean, thanks for that. Thanks for lying to me this whole time.”
“Oh come on, you must have known there’d be no insurance company crazy enough to take odds on Dad’s life,” Dean says. “Frankly, it’s a shock to everyone that knew him that he managed to hang on as long as he did.”
Sam shakes his head again. “You don’t get to play the martyr for this. You should have told me the truth.”
“And what good would that have done?”
“We could have been in this together!” Sam yells. “It didn’t have to be this way, Dean! It didn’t have to be heads I win, tails you lose. We could have been a team. But then you had to pull this bullshit, just like Dad. Always holding back on the information, saying it’s for my own good and he knows better. Well, fuck Dad for doing that and fuck you.”
“What do you want from me, Sam?” Dean yanks at the knot of his tie violently. “You ask for money, I give it to you. You ask me to come to this party full of people I don’t know dressed up in a monkey suit, I come and dance like a monkey. What more do you want?”
“I want you to leave,” the words slip out so easily Sam thinks he means them. The anger’s draining away now, leaving nothing but exhaustion its wake. He’s so tired he wants to lie down on the ground and close his eyes. “I knew this was a mistake.”
“Yeah, I guess it was.” Dean turns to go. “You know,” he says, “Dad was right about you.”
After Dean’s gone, Sam falls to his knees and vomits all over the spot where he stood.
He gets up afterwards, fixes his tie, swipes a hand across his mouth, and goes back inside to the party.
* * * * *
“You can fix this,” Jess says.
“No,” Sam says. “I don’t want to fix this.”
ACT IV
It starts as a day like any other. Sam gets up, brushes his teeth, eats breakfast. He packs up his books and kisses Jess goodbye. He goes to class, takes diligent notes, and then heads immediately over to the library afterwards. Exams are a week away and he needs to study hard.
He calls Jess to tell her he’ll be home late, and that she shouldn’t wait up for him. Then he gets back to studying and stays at it until his necks aches too badly to continue. He leaves the library around two am.
There are fire trucks and police cars all up and down his entire block. Sam’s annoyed at the inconvenience of having to fight through the yellow tape, saying over and over, "I live here, I gotta get home."
When he reaches his apartment building, the smell of fire and burning is overwhelming. The firefighters have giant hoses out and a fine spray of water mixes with the ash floating delicately through the air. There's noise all around with the sirens wailing, people yelling and crying, the water pumping full force into the remains of what used to be a wall.
But the noise seems to hush when he sees her car parked in the building lot out front. It all goes so quiet and still that he can hear clearly one of the officers radioing in his report: that they couldn’t make it to the floors five and above before the building collapsed, that no one got out after that.
Sam calls her phone twenty times, listens to the message play and can’t bring himself to leave a voicemail. He calls her parents, her friends, her ex-boyfriends, her boss and her coworkers, listens to the endless refrain: I’m sorry, she’s not here, I haven’t seen her.
He breaks past the police line, runs to her car and wrenches open every single door including the trunk, praying she’s inside, or praying to find a clue that will lead to the place she’s gone. Because if there’s no clue and no body, and no one’s seen her, the only other possibility that exists is one Sam can’t contemplate. Can’t allow himself to think about, because otherwise he might have to run towards that still burning building and throw himself inside, start digging through the soot and the char and the debris to find her.
He allows the police to drag him away from the car. He thinks they might be angry at him, but he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know.
* * * * *
“They found remains, but they’re not going to be able to ID anyone yet,” the man with a caterpillar mustache says. Sam can hardly concentrate on the words; he’s that sure the mustache is going to move, try to make a break for freedom. “The preliminary investigation points toward faulty wiring being the cause of the fire. No signs of arson or any foul play.”
Sam imagines the mustache wriggling off the guy’s face, jumping down onto the table, growing legs, and skittering away. It’s a ridiculous image and Sam can’t help but laugh.
“Sir? Did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah,” Sam replies. “You found some ashes shaped like people but you don’t know if any of those ashes are hers. I hear you loud and clear.”
“I’m sorry,” the man says. He says some other things too, meaningless platitudes and whatever fillers people use to make themselves feel less uncomfortable. Sam knows he has to pretend to pay attention though; otherwise the man will keep trying to talk to him. Maybe send him to more people to talk to. “…and are your accommodations alright? Comfortable?”
“It’s a motel,” Sam says dully. “It’s just like home.”
The man sighs. “Maybe it’s best that you’re not alone right now. Do you have anyone you can call? Friends, family?”
“She burned up in a fire,” Sam says.
* * * * *
When her mother calls, that’s when he knows it’s true. He’s known deep down all along but now he can’t run through the possible stories in his head anymore. He can’t pretend she’s done something impulsive like taken an impromptu trip to the Alps without him. Can’t pretend she’s going to call him in five minutes and tell him “It’s gorgeous, let’s go there for our honeymoon!” Can’t pretend she’s going to walk through that door any second, grinning and saying, “Aw, you were all worried about little old me.” He can’t pretend.
Sam imagines all the things they’re not going to do together. He’s not going to cut the cake with her on their wedding day. He’s not going to stay with her and hold her hand during the birth of their first child. He’s not going to buy a house with her, watch the sun set on the front porch. He’s not going to grow old with her.
Sam hangs up the phone when her mother starts to cry. He doesn’t pick up when it rings again and again and again.
Instead, Sam walks over to the bed and stretches face down onto it. It’s almost too short to fit his legs, but he manages. His face falls into the crease in between the two pillows and he finds it difficult to breathe. He thinks that if he stays in this position he might asphyxiate during in his sleep, and he’s okay with that.
* * * * *
Sam wakes up to banging on his door. After it continues for another fifteen minutes, he gets up and opens the door.
“Oh thank god.” Her parents have come. “You hung up and we tried calling you back but you wouldn’t pick up. We were worried you’d gone and done something-rash.” Mrs. Moore covers her trembling mouth with her palm.
“We were worried about you, son,” Mr. Moore says and there are tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says. “I was sleeping.”
Mr. Moore glances at the wall clock. “It’s four in the afternoon, Sam.”
“Oh,” Sam says. “I guess the sun came up.”
“You should come stay with us,” Mrs. Moore says. “No one should have to be alone in this.”
“No, it’s okay,” Sam replies. It’s not that he doesn’t want to go with them, and it’s not that he wants to worry them more. It’s that if he goes with them, their house is going to be full of her. Photos of her, memories of her, rooms of her. But not her. “I’m fine, really.”
“This is no way to live.” Mrs. Moore puts a hand on Sam's arm.
“No,” Sam agrees, and pulls away. “It’s not.”
“You need family at a time like this, son,” Mr. Moore says. “If you won’t come with us, isn’t there someone else you can call?”
‘Dean’ a foggy part of Sam’s mind supplies. “Maybe,” Sam says.
They make him promise to call Dean, swear that they’ll be back in a week and if he hasn’t cleared out by then, they’ll take him in by force. They finally leave and Sam relaxes, slides down the wall to sit on the floor.
It’s all quiet again.
* * * * *
Sam stares at the phone and doesn’t know what he should say. Spit out the cold hard facts? Tell Dean’s he on suicide watch and needs a chaperone? Make an inappropriate joke about a guy that walks into a bar and burns it down?
When Dean actually picks up, his voice is angry and groggy. “Who the fuck do you think you are, calling me at this time of-"
“Dean,” Sam says, and that’s when it starts. It’s been eight days and he hasn’t shed a single tear, and it’s like those past eight days he’s been storing it up, waiting for his moment to let it all rush out. “She’s dead, Dean. She’s really dead.” Sam’s shaking and he can’t speak, his mouth so full up with tears and broken breath. He can’t answer the questions Dean’s shooting him, can’t manage anything more than, “Dean, please.”
“Hold on, Sammy,” Dean says. “I’m coming.”
* * * * *
Sam remembers one of the worst nights of his life took place in one of their many nameless motel rooms, back when he and Dean were just kids. Sam got sick right after their father had dropped them off in the room with vague promises about being back the next morning. He'd crawled straight into bed even though it was only eight at night and he usually loved watching TV at that time because Dean let him watch whatever he wanted when Dad wasn’t around.
But his stomach hurt and his head hurt and his whole entire life hurt, so it was all Sam could do to make it to the bed without falling face first into the nasty motel carpet.
“You okay?” Dean asked, throwing their suitcases onto the floor by the bathroom door carelessly. “You hungry or anything?”
“N-no,” Sam said, teeth chattering a little. “I don’t feel so good.”
“You should eat something,” Dean said, digging through his backpack for a candy bar. “It’s been four hours since we last ate. I can get you something from the vending machine.”
“Don’t wanna,” Sam said, yanking the stiff covers and sheets up to his chest. “Where’d Dad go?”
“To take care of some business,” Dean said, finally emerging triumphant with a partially crushed Snickers bar. “He said he’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. The pain hurt really bad in his head, and he couldn’t help the tears that squeezed out of the corners of his eyes.
“Hey now,” Dean said, walking over to the bed. “We have to be strong until Dad comes back, you know that. No more crying because you’re almost twelve now, and that means it’s time to act like an adult. Grace under pressure, like Dad says.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, turning his face into the pillow, willing himself to stop. “My head hurts. Do we have any Tylenol left?”
Dean sighed. “Dad used the last of it up a couple of days ago and we haven’t had the chance to stop since then.” He glanced at the clock on the table. “I guess the store might still be open, but it’s at least an hour walk away and I don’t know if I’ll get there in time.”
“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Don’t go. I’m okay.”
“Sam,” Dean said, and put the back of his hand on Sam’s forehead, “you’re burning up!”
“Then why do I feel so cold?” Sam asked, teeth chattering again.
“Oh, Sammy,” Dean said, and minute later, Sam felt the covers lift, Dean sliding in next to him.
“Dean,” Sam said, wrapping his arms and legs around Dean like a heater. It soothed the chills a little bit. He hid his face in Dean’s chest and Dean pretended not to notice the tears soaking through the thin T-shirt fabric.
“Don’t worry,” Dean murmured into the Sam’s hair, hand rubbing soothing circles between his shoulder-blades. “I got you, Sammy. I got you.”
Sam fell asleep like that and only dimly remembered the next few days, Dean watching over him carefully like he might break. Dad didn’t actually come back until three days later because the business he had to take care ended up taking longer than expected. By the time he came back, Sam wasn’t sick anymore anyway.
fin