Mirage - SN fic - PG
Title: Mirage
Fandom: “Supernatural”
Disclaimer: not my characters; just for fun.
Warnings: spoilers for pilot
Pairings: Sam/Jessica
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 870
Point of view: third
Notes: originally posted under another ID; please don’t accuse me of plagiarizing myself.
The book is where he left it when he ran out this morning, and that’s what drives it home.
He’s gone. She had him and now she’s lost him. He’ll never come back.
She was never enough.
--
She’s never had a problem with words, able to hold conversation with a wall. A chatterbox, Daddy said, that didn’t know when or how to stop.
She ducked her head and flushed but didn’t deny it.
You’re your momma’s girl, alright, Grandpa told her, kissing her forehead. And someday, some boy’s goin’ to be as lucky as your dad.
---
Bumping into him was fate, she’d told him. Why else would they have been in the library at the same time?
Finals, he deadpanned, and she whacked his arm with a book.
Tall as she was, she’d learned as a high school freshman she couldn’t be picky. Boys were intimidated by her height-five eight by fourteen, then five eleven by sixteen. Oh, yes, many guys were too scared to approach her.
So by college, she’d learned to appear smaller than she was. But still, she never felt small until she met Sam Winchester.
---
One wall of the library ran all the way to ceiling; the top shelf was a good foot out of her reach. Once she realized that-it was the last book, damnit, it’d been a shitty day, and she really just wanted to go home-she grumbled and muttered and cursed, then looked around for a stool.
An amused snort caught her attention and wrath. She turned, a scalding remark on the tip of her tongue, when she looked up. Perhaps it was clichéd, but her eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat.
Which book’s escaping you? he asked, gaze on her face.
She told him and he grabbed it and she had to ask, How tall are you?
He smiled and she was totally gone.
---
She hadn’t been treated delicately since she was a little girl, not since she shot up a foot in year and kept growing till she was just shy of six feet.
Sam held her gently, like something precious. He actually talked to her and heard her, took her opinions to heart.
She never felt safer than when with him.
A year and a half. It seemed like forever and lasted only a blink. He was all she’d ever dreamed of, a knight in shining armor who was also a scholar, treated her like an equal, cared what she wanted and thought.
She told him anything and everything, answered every question he asked.
But Sam… he didn’t talk about his family or his past. The scars told their own story and she wondered every time she saw them, but she gave up asking.
---
So when Sam introduces his brother in the middle of the night, she’s a little off-guard.
And she’d thought Sam was beautiful.
Something about Dean set her on edge, but at the same time… He’s a threat, her granddaddy whispered in her mind, but not to you.
Sam’d always moved with a feline grace, no wasted motion, ready to duck or twist from anything, never taken by surprise. She’d figured it came from his childhood, like the scars.
His brother moved the same way, yet… more.
And Jessica was at a loss for words.
Sam made her feel physically small, no matter what he did. Dean made her feel small because of his presence, even though they were roughly the same height. Just the way he moved, the way he talked-
He and Sam were having a conversation with their eyes and body language and for the first time in a year, she feared losing him.
---
He said he’d be back and he kissed her cheek and nothing had ever sounded so final as when the door closed behind him.
The book he’d been reading, World on Fire, is where he’d left it before bed, on the coffee table, open to page 95. He’d told her it was shockingly depressing but also highly addictive. She’d laughed and shook her head.
She picks it up and glances at the words, tears pricking behind her eyes. Somewhere sometime this whole mirage first solidified leaps at her; she throws the book against the wall.
Even if he comes back after finding his dad, he was never hers anyway.
---
She cleans their apartment top to bottom. She bakes cookies, even though she hates cooking of any kind. She plans to shower so she’ll be beautiful if he comes home.
She turns the water on but she never gets under the spray.
And being dirty is not what’s on her mind with her stomach slashed and skin on fire.
---
It was destiny, she told him. Fated that we met.
He kissed her and held her and she’d never felt so safe.
She wishes she could blame him. All she can do is watch. Her death is tearing him up and she wants to thread her fingers in his hair, to wrap his arms around her, to wake from this nightmare.
But Jessica can only remember Somewhere sometime this whole mirage first solidified and watch Dean do his best to take care of Sam.