Epilogue
Broken chain
beginning/ end
-0-0-
Three weeks after Billy leaves,
(which is longer than Sam actually knew Billy,)
Sam's walking across one of the open lawns that the groundskeepers guard with their lives but all the students walk over anyway. He's caught up on the work that he let slide when he was busy doing drugs and Billy, and he's pretty securely not ever going to do anything harder than weed for the rest of his life, if it always
hurts like his heart's ripped out
sucks that much to come down.
He hears, "Sam?" and turns around, and.
Jess is staring, and she was hot before but she's gorgeous now, the bloodshot eyes are gone and her makeup's cleaner, subtle-sharp lines and womanly confidence instead of a kid at a concert.
Sam's kind of wiped blank for a second, and then he reboots and says, "Jess. Hi. Uh."
Jess beams when he knows her name, and for a second her dangling earrings catch the warm California sun and gleam-glitter-glow.
"You never called. But I know how it is. I didn't know you were a student. Going this way?" She starts ahead of Sam, in the direction Sam was walking before she said anything. Sam can't do much else but catch up.
"So. What's your major?"
Sam's still shocked at her even being there, and she's bringing back memories, which is tragically inconvenient for his plan to never think about it again.
"Or haven't you decided?" and she's staring at him, blue eyes, wide and deep enough to lose himself in, and, and,
and she might be glowing.
-0-0-
Nearly a year after the stuff with Sam, Billy's leaning against a bar because it's the only place in town to get a drink besides the club that's full of kids who'll recognize him, being that he just played there last night.
There's a game of pool going in the corner, and a mostly-drunk blue-collar guy is in the middle of being hustled. In the friendly spirit between one performer and another, Billy sidles a little closer and watches the show and sips his beer, because if this is done right, it can be quite a production.
The hustler artfully loses a game and forty dollars, and grouses and grumbles because he knows he can "play better'n this, man, how 'bout double or nothin'?" and the mark smirks in his drunken way and agrees and even offers to buy the hustler a round, but the hustler has half a beer and Billy can bet that he's been nursing his first all night.
The hustler fumbles his way through the first strokes like he's downed a case, though, and halfway through the game he deliberately gives Billy a hard look, because of course he knows he has an audience.
He's a pretty guy, thick with muscle and enough of a swagger to see that he's been told so a few too many times. Long lashes, eyes that are hard and soft at the same time. Not Billy's type at all, but he maybe reminds Billy of himself in a few ways, how he moves when he's putting on a show.
And that brings up Sam, so Billy finishes his beer and gets another as the hustler loses spectacularly and, "Double'r nothin', c'mon," slurring carefully and still not a whole drink into the evening.
The mark says, "Only got time to beat ya once more, then I gotta get home."
They set up the game, and it's easy for the mark to carry it as a conversation. "How long're you stayin'?"
"Meeting someone in a while," the hustler says, and sinks three balls and leaves the mark without a clear shot at anything.
When he loses, the guy's pretty cool and very drunk, congratulating the hustler on his luck and shaking his head, shame he lost, g'night.
The hustler pockets a hundred and sixty dollars and glances at Billy, and Billy raises his bottle instead of clapping, and the hustler nods and shrugs and orders his second drink and they don't talk.
An hour later, a guy maybe Billy's age and definitely older than the hustler shouts across the bar, "Dean Winchester, you're three feet taller'n when I saw ya last!"
And Billy normally wouldn't pay any attention, except he already has Sam on his mind
(so it makes him notice Winchester right away)
and halfway down the bar from him the hustler turns around.
And didn't Sam say 'Dean' was the guy? Right? The guy that broke his heart?
So Billy very resolutely does not stare at Dean's back for the rest of his meeting with the newcomer, apparently the meeting he was waiting for. Not even when the older guy mimes either jacking off or stabbing something.
And the meeting ends and the older guy leaves and Dean finishes his beer and goes, too. Billy waits ten minutes and pays and very casually exits the establishment and hears, "Should I be concerned, here?"
Dean, the hustler, is right behind him somehow, and Billy's one-hundred-percent sure that even if the guy isn't carrying Billy could still end up dead if he doesn't answer the right way.
So he says, "I don't know you from Adam, but I met a kid named Sam Winchester a while back."
It buys him a half-hour interrogation and two more drinks, and he recounts every detail he can remember about Sam except for the sex ones and the things about drugs, which isn't a whole lot, but it seems to mollify Dean.
And Billy focuses really hard on ignoring the slow spin of resentment in his chest when Dean stops paying as much attention and calls his brother 'Sammy'.
End
Master post