Let Me Introduce Myself
Title: Let Me Introduce Myself
Summary: Sam thought Stanford would make him feel normal; Sam is wrong a lot.
Word count: 1,200
Rated: pg-13 (Language)
Notes: Set preseries; No spoilers (wait, does the title count!?)
Genre: Gen
Characters: Sam, OMC
Disclaimer: Supernatural and it's characters belongs to WB/The CW, I own nothing and make no money.
***
Just about the only thing Sam finds familiar at the orientation picnic is the beer. The people and conversations around him are utterly foreign, but Budweiser tastes the same if your father’s a hunter or a stockbroker.
Sam is standing on the edge of the milling crowd, watching an absolutely gorgeous blonde go for seconds. There’s a tiny mole between her eyebrows that makes his chest ache, and she’s laughing while she scoops a handful of chips onto her plate. If Dean were here, he’d be piling up on nachos, too, without the slightest feeling that he was taking somebody else’s food. And he’d probably have talked himself halfway into the blonde’s pants. How is it that even at Stanford, Dean would fit in better?
“Hey, aren’t you a freshman?” a voice comes from behind him. Which is fine, Sam reminds himself as he turns. Normal means not flipping your shit when a person talks to you, even if you didn’t know they were there until they spoke, and they were close enough to bite you if they were a zombie. Because normal means no zombies.
The voice belongs to an upper classman Sam vaguely recognizes- Mark, or Martin, or Josh or something. He waggles the bottle he’s holding at Sam meaningfully.
“Oh, the beer. Sorry. I can toss it.” Sam had forgotten he wasn’t of legal drinking age. His dad let Dean start drinking when he turned 18, and they’d only held out for a couple years before including Sam. He’d had a fake ID by 17, and he’d gotten over the thrill of sneaking into a bar by 17 and a half. Beer was just something you drank to keep your mouth busy when you didn’t have anything to say.
“Nah, there aren’t any cops around.” Mark or Martin or Josh smiles like it’s cool that he’s accepting of such illicit activity.
“Thanks,” Sam says. “I’m Sam.”
“Ryan. You know, there’s actually some decent lager over there. Well, for a BYOB sort of affair.” He flicks his eyes at the sky and shrugs, a wordless and conspiratorial “you know how it is.”
“Uh, Bud’s fine for me.”
Ryan hums in acceptance, and Sam realizes he’s supposed to be making conversation, not just responding to questions.
“So where’re you from?” his new acquaintance asks cheerfully. It shows that he’s pretty familiar with the whole small-talk with awkward freshmen thing; a safe question that leads nicely into easy conversation.
Or it would, if Sam wasn’t a freak.
“Around,” he says vaguely. “My dad moves a bunch for work. Me and my brother are from pretty much everywhere.”
“Oh, you have a brother. Older or younger?”
Sam smiles at the idea of Dean being his kid brother. “Four years older.”
“Nice,” Ryan says politely. “Where’d he graduate?”
“Got his G.E.D. actually,” Sam says, warming to the subject. Everything else about him might be friggin’ weird, but siblings are siblings. It’s easy to talk about awesome big brothers, totally normal. He takes a sip of his drink.
“He didn’t go to college?” the upperclassman asks, his own beer paused near his lips and one eyebrow quirked.
“What? No. He’s not really…” Sam trails off, unsure of how to phrase what Dean isn’t.
“Huh.” The tone is pretty neutral, but Sam knows that people only sound that way when they’re trying to downplay a different reaction. “What’s he into?”
“He likes working on my Dad’s car,” Sam says. “Plays a mean game of pool. And you know, music. Black Sabbath, Motorhead, AC/DC. I think he’s got every Metallica song memorized.” It’s easier to talk about all the things Dean is.
“Right. But, what industry is he in,” Ryan clarifies.
“Uh, he does odd jobs,” Sam stammers, because it’s close to the truth and he stupidly hasn’t come up with a cover story. He thought he wouldn’t need those any more. “He travels, with my dad, and…they kind of…it’s…” Sam flounders, hyper-aware of how what he’s saying sounds. “…the family business.”
“Oh,” Ryan says, politely.
Sam stares at his beer, willing the heat in his face away without effect. It stings- badly- to have this preppy douche looking at him like he’s a pity case. It’s worse knowing Ryan thinks Dean is some aimless looser, living with his father and going nowhere in life.
It isn’t like that. Sam has never been ashamed of his brother.
“Dean’s really, he’s really good at what he does. And he really likes it, too, so…”
“Yeah, no, everyone has their thing,” Ryan says in an appeasing, fake tone.
“Yeah,” Sam echoes. Yeah, you condescending prick, everyone has their thing, and my brother’s “thing” is saving jerks like you from monsters that would have you shitting your pants. And if you met him I bet you’d laugh at how he dresses, and how he never went to school, and everything else. But he wouldn’t care what people like you think of him. He’d still risk his goddamn life to save yours.
“Mullet rock, though. That must get annoying.” Ryan smiles, gamely still trying to find common ground. Sam feels a whole new wave of embarrassment that the bands he’s always thought were cool are actually a punchline. Not that it matters what someone like Ryan says, really. He doesn’t even know what a rawhead is, much less how to kill it. A poltergeist would make mincemeat out of a person like Ryan.
Which is a line of reasoning that sounds exactly like his father.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Same five albums over and over. It is pretty annoying.” He laughs, a tight, forced sound.
“Look, man,” Ryan says suddenly, putting a hand on Sam’s arm. “Last year’s valedictorian, Chad McClinton? His whole family’s in plumbing. It doesn’t matter where you came from. It’s where you’re going.”
“Yeah,” Sam says again. The details are all wrong, but in large strokes that’s not far off. He’s in a different world, now, and it’s not as if he can ever go back, even if he wanted to. Dad made that pretty clear.
“Hey, let me introduce you to Jessica.” Miraculously, Ryan's flagging down the blonde from before. When he catches her eye, she grins at him and licks a bit of salsa off her thumb. She says something quickly to the group she was talking to and she’s walking over, right to him, and he has her name and an introduction.
Ryan’s an alright guy, actually. Sam just shouldn’t have gotten into his family. Dean’s the perfect hunter, sure. Sam has been jealous of his brother’s easy physicality and rapport with their father for long enough to know exactly how true that is. But all that doesn’t apply here. Nothing in his past applies. The mistake was talking about Dean at all, when these people will never get it. And in the future, he thinks as Jessica amends her name to Jess with a blinding smile, he’s not going to make that mistake.
Summary: Sam thought Stanford would make him feel normal; Sam is wrong a lot.
Word count: 1,200
Rated: pg-13 (Language)
Notes: Set preseries; No spoilers (wait, does the title count!?)
Genre: Gen
Characters: Sam, OMC
Disclaimer: Supernatural and it's characters belongs to WB/The CW, I own nothing and make no money.
***
Just about the only thing Sam finds familiar at the orientation picnic is the beer. The people and conversations around him are utterly foreign, but Budweiser tastes the same if your father’s a hunter or a stockbroker.
Sam is standing on the edge of the milling crowd, watching an absolutely gorgeous blonde go for seconds. There’s a tiny mole between her eyebrows that makes his chest ache, and she’s laughing while she scoops a handful of chips onto her plate. If Dean were here, he’d be piling up on nachos, too, without the slightest feeling that he was taking somebody else’s food. And he’d probably have talked himself halfway into the blonde’s pants. How is it that even at Stanford, Dean would fit in better?
“Hey, aren’t you a freshman?” a voice comes from behind him. Which is fine, Sam reminds himself as he turns. Normal means not flipping your shit when a person talks to you, even if you didn’t know they were there until they spoke, and they were close enough to bite you if they were a zombie. Because normal means no zombies.
The voice belongs to an upper classman Sam vaguely recognizes- Mark, or Martin, or Josh or something. He waggles the bottle he’s holding at Sam meaningfully.
“Oh, the beer. Sorry. I can toss it.” Sam had forgotten he wasn’t of legal drinking age. His dad let Dean start drinking when he turned 18, and they’d only held out for a couple years before including Sam. He’d had a fake ID by 17, and he’d gotten over the thrill of sneaking into a bar by 17 and a half. Beer was just something you drank to keep your mouth busy when you didn’t have anything to say.
“Nah, there aren’t any cops around.” Mark or Martin or Josh smiles like it’s cool that he’s accepting of such illicit activity.
“Thanks,” Sam says. “I’m Sam.”
“Ryan. You know, there’s actually some decent lager over there. Well, for a BYOB sort of affair.” He flicks his eyes at the sky and shrugs, a wordless and conspiratorial “you know how it is.”
“Uh, Bud’s fine for me.”
Ryan hums in acceptance, and Sam realizes he’s supposed to be making conversation, not just responding to questions.
“So where’re you from?” his new acquaintance asks cheerfully. It shows that he’s pretty familiar with the whole small-talk with awkward freshmen thing; a safe question that leads nicely into easy conversation.
Or it would, if Sam wasn’t a freak.
“Around,” he says vaguely. “My dad moves a bunch for work. Me and my brother are from pretty much everywhere.”
“Oh, you have a brother. Older or younger?”
Sam smiles at the idea of Dean being his kid brother. “Four years older.”
“Nice,” Ryan says politely. “Where’d he graduate?”
“Got his G.E.D. actually,” Sam says, warming to the subject. Everything else about him might be friggin’ weird, but siblings are siblings. It’s easy to talk about awesome big brothers, totally normal. He takes a sip of his drink.
“He didn’t go to college?” the upperclassman asks, his own beer paused near his lips and one eyebrow quirked.
“What? No. He’s not really…” Sam trails off, unsure of how to phrase what Dean isn’t.
“Huh.” The tone is pretty neutral, but Sam knows that people only sound that way when they’re trying to downplay a different reaction. “What’s he into?”
“He likes working on my Dad’s car,” Sam says. “Plays a mean game of pool. And you know, music. Black Sabbath, Motorhead, AC/DC. I think he’s got every Metallica song memorized.” It’s easier to talk about all the things Dean is.
“Right. But, what industry is he in,” Ryan clarifies.
“Uh, he does odd jobs,” Sam stammers, because it’s close to the truth and he stupidly hasn’t come up with a cover story. He thought he wouldn’t need those any more. “He travels, with my dad, and…they kind of…it’s…” Sam flounders, hyper-aware of how what he’s saying sounds. “…the family business.”
“Oh,” Ryan says, politely.
Sam stares at his beer, willing the heat in his face away without effect. It stings- badly- to have this preppy douche looking at him like he’s a pity case. It’s worse knowing Ryan thinks Dean is some aimless looser, living with his father and going nowhere in life.
It isn’t like that. Sam has never been ashamed of his brother.
“Dean’s really, he’s really good at what he does. And he really likes it, too, so…”
“Yeah, no, everyone has their thing,” Ryan says in an appeasing, fake tone.
“Yeah,” Sam echoes. Yeah, you condescending prick, everyone has their thing, and my brother’s “thing” is saving jerks like you from monsters that would have you shitting your pants. And if you met him I bet you’d laugh at how he dresses, and how he never went to school, and everything else. But he wouldn’t care what people like you think of him. He’d still risk his goddamn life to save yours.
“Mullet rock, though. That must get annoying.” Ryan smiles, gamely still trying to find common ground. Sam feels a whole new wave of embarrassment that the bands he’s always thought were cool are actually a punchline. Not that it matters what someone like Ryan says, really. He doesn’t even know what a rawhead is, much less how to kill it. A poltergeist would make mincemeat out of a person like Ryan.
Which is a line of reasoning that sounds exactly like his father.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Same five albums over and over. It is pretty annoying.” He laughs, a tight, forced sound.
“Look, man,” Ryan says suddenly, putting a hand on Sam’s arm. “Last year’s valedictorian, Chad McClinton? His whole family’s in plumbing. It doesn’t matter where you came from. It’s where you’re going.”
“Yeah,” Sam says again. The details are all wrong, but in large strokes that’s not far off. He’s in a different world, now, and it’s not as if he can ever go back, even if he wanted to. Dad made that pretty clear.
“Hey, let me introduce you to Jessica.” Miraculously, Ryan's flagging down the blonde from before. When he catches her eye, she grins at him and licks a bit of salsa off her thumb. She says something quickly to the group she was talking to and she’s walking over, right to him, and he has her name and an introduction.
Ryan’s an alright guy, actually. Sam just shouldn’t have gotten into his family. Dean’s the perfect hunter, sure. Sam has been jealous of his brother’s easy physicality and rapport with their father for long enough to know exactly how true that is. But all that doesn’t apply here. Nothing in his past applies. The mistake was talking about Dean at all, when these people will never get it. And in the future, he thinks as Jessica amends her name to Jess with a blinding smile, he’s not going to make that mistake.