HC Bingo - Prompt 15
Title: Always Leaving
Prompt: Monophobia
Medium: fic
Rating: PG
Warnings:Season 5 SPN spoilers.
Summary: Sam's left for Stanford - he's glad to finally be alone... but is alone really what he wants?
Sam slung his duffel bag over his shoulder, his father's last words to him still echoing in his mind - If you walk out that door, don't you ever come back - he'd been waiting for that to be said. He'd been expecting it constantly since he turned fourteen and started to hate hunting. Well, maybe not start, but hate it more. So he'd asked for the truth from his brother straight out when he was eight. The worst Christmas present he ever got was the truth: monsters were real. He didn't get his father's need for revenge, why his brother followed him so blindly - how could they not learn to let something go? Sam can't remember his mom, so it's not like she ever really existed for him. Not in the way she did for Dean and dad. The even thump of his boots on asphalt only reminded him that he was getting further and further away from his family, from hunting - and freedom lay straight ahead. His new life was waiting for him and he couldn't wait to see it.
He'd been on his own before - he'd run away once when he was twelve - two of the best weeks of his entire life. Funions, pizza, Mr. Pibb and a dog he named Bones - that's all he'd needed, no dad, no Dean, no hunting. Of course, he'd remembered to put down the salt lines and all, but that's sort of like home security. But still - it had been nothing short of awesome.
When he climbs onto the San Francisco bound Greyhound, the feeling only grows stronger. No crappy heater in the Impala that rattled from the Legos Dean had shoved in there years ago, no fighting over the shotgun seat, no dad barking orders to where they were going, how long he expected it to take, what they were hunting... Nothing to bother him at all, especially since his seat companion turned out to be a seventy-year old woman off to see her grandkids who slept the entire time. Sam contented himself with staring out a window, listening to the rumble of an engine and the scenery he'd somehow forgotten to enjoy. Sam of course, can only see the freedom in all of this.
What Sam doesn't know is that back in Nebraska, Dean's trying not to show his pain as he packed up his own things - after cleaning up the mess from the fight before. That his brother is trying to ignore the fact that their father is passed out drunk in bed over the grief caused by his youngest that has just ditched his family. A family that has only had each other for the past eighteen years. He doesn't know that his brother is trying not to cry, that his brother feels empty for the first time. Sam sees only his freedom from his strict father and his little soldier brother. Dean's lost the best friend he will ever have - the person who he's stood up for, raised, put up with, yielded to more times than he can count - the one he's really sacrificed everything for - and his thanks has been a slammed door.
Sam has unknowingly abandoned the one person on the face of the earth who would never think of hurting him - and the wound he's inflicted on his brother will take years to heal.
When the bus arrives at Stanford, Sam becomes so busy, he doesn't think about what he left behind. There's a dorm room to move into, classes to register for, books to pick up, a part-time job to be secured, so much to do in such a little time. But getting things done swiftly and efficiently is the Winchester Way - and Sam can do it in spades and in his sleep.
John and Dean are clear on the other side of the country, on the trail of a werewolf in the Catskill Mountains. While Sam attends orientation, his brother heads into the woods with nothing but raw determination and pent up anger in his mind. When Sam sits down to a dinner of pizza and Mr. Pibb with a few other students who got to school early, his brother paces in an emergency room waiting room while their dad gets patched up from a fall. When Sam's phone rings and he sees Dean's number, he lets it go to voice mail.
He doesn't need his brother anymore - he's grown up and his brother needs to see that.
When Sam meets his roommate Brady, who in a year and a half will become possessed and kick him back onto the path towards hunting, Dean drives to New Hampshire for a solo hunt and his dad goes to see Pastor Jim. Now Sam has friends - friends he won't have to worry about having to say good-bye to in a few days. He's happy, really he is. Everything seems wonderful as time goes by - he loves his classes, he loves California, he loves his freedom.
Then November second comes and he nearly calls his brother.
On the morning of the third, Sam sits on his bed, deep in thought. He's only been fooling himself about the freedom and the friends. He lies about his past to them so he can protect them - they don't need to know what's lurking in the shadows. He knows the truth - deep down, he's doing all this because he doesn't want to be alone. He can't stand to be alone - not entirely. The two weeks he ran away? He had a dog. He only wants company he choses, not company forced upon him. True, he prefers to be alone most of the time, but after his restricted childhood, who can blame him? Time alone to a Winchester was as precious as fifty-dollar bill. He loves his freedom, he loves his new life. What he doesn't love is being so completely alone. Dean has called him every week, like clockwork - eight at night every Thursday. Always with an update - and where he and dad are.
Normally it was the kid at college who checked in, not the other way around. He's never answered the calls, just listened to the message and called his brother a co-dependent jerk.
Brady wasn't much of a companion at the moment, he might as well be on another planet half the time - they didn't share majors and he was currently busy pledging to Delta Chi.
But Winchesters know how to endure and bury things, so Sam does what Winchesters do best - he buries his fear of being alone under studying and work, filling his life with so much to do that he doesn't have time to think about what he's feeling. He never stops to think that this is why his father hunts with such vigor and absoluteness - because if he stops, John will think of Mary and his need for revenge will be consumed by grief. Dean hunts with the passion he does not out of loyalty to his father, but because he doesn't know how to not hunt. Sam never thinks its weird he's the only one to never had a hunt-free life and he can't think of seeing anything but not hunting.
Sam never put salt lines down in his dorm - that's not because he forgot, but because he was trying to be normal. He just keeps his hex bag on him at all times.
Sam doesn't know it yet, but this one act will cause the house of cards he's building in a life that's free of hunting to come tumbling down. When Brady introduces him to Jess, Sam sees the person he wants to build the new life with. He doesn't know that it's all a set-up. He won't find that out until the world has gone to Hell and he's one of the key players.
Sam only knows that right now, on a blustery November morning, nineteen years after the death of his mom that he has to bury his fear of being alone. While he goes out for coffee and doughnuts with some guys in his Psychology 101 class his dad and brother are headed to Pennsylvania to battle a poltergeist.
Sam doesn't answer one of his brother's weekly calls until Thanksgiving.
Prompt: Monophobia
Medium: fic
Rating: PG
Warnings:Season 5 SPN spoilers.
Summary: Sam's left for Stanford - he's glad to finally be alone... but is alone really what he wants?
Sam slung his duffel bag over his shoulder, his father's last words to him still echoing in his mind - If you walk out that door, don't you ever come back - he'd been waiting for that to be said. He'd been expecting it constantly since he turned fourteen and started to hate hunting. Well, maybe not start, but hate it more. So he'd asked for the truth from his brother straight out when he was eight. The worst Christmas present he ever got was the truth: monsters were real. He didn't get his father's need for revenge, why his brother followed him so blindly - how could they not learn to let something go? Sam can't remember his mom, so it's not like she ever really existed for him. Not in the way she did for Dean and dad. The even thump of his boots on asphalt only reminded him that he was getting further and further away from his family, from hunting - and freedom lay straight ahead. His new life was waiting for him and he couldn't wait to see it.
He'd been on his own before - he'd run away once when he was twelve - two of the best weeks of his entire life. Funions, pizza, Mr. Pibb and a dog he named Bones - that's all he'd needed, no dad, no Dean, no hunting. Of course, he'd remembered to put down the salt lines and all, but that's sort of like home security. But still - it had been nothing short of awesome.
When he climbs onto the San Francisco bound Greyhound, the feeling only grows stronger. No crappy heater in the Impala that rattled from the Legos Dean had shoved in there years ago, no fighting over the shotgun seat, no dad barking orders to where they were going, how long he expected it to take, what they were hunting... Nothing to bother him at all, especially since his seat companion turned out to be a seventy-year old woman off to see her grandkids who slept the entire time. Sam contented himself with staring out a window, listening to the rumble of an engine and the scenery he'd somehow forgotten to enjoy. Sam of course, can only see the freedom in all of this.
What Sam doesn't know is that back in Nebraska, Dean's trying not to show his pain as he packed up his own things - after cleaning up the mess from the fight before. That his brother is trying to ignore the fact that their father is passed out drunk in bed over the grief caused by his youngest that has just ditched his family. A family that has only had each other for the past eighteen years. He doesn't know that his brother is trying not to cry, that his brother feels empty for the first time. Sam sees only his freedom from his strict father and his little soldier brother. Dean's lost the best friend he will ever have - the person who he's stood up for, raised, put up with, yielded to more times than he can count - the one he's really sacrificed everything for - and his thanks has been a slammed door.
Sam has unknowingly abandoned the one person on the face of the earth who would never think of hurting him - and the wound he's inflicted on his brother will take years to heal.
When the bus arrives at Stanford, Sam becomes so busy, he doesn't think about what he left behind. There's a dorm room to move into, classes to register for, books to pick up, a part-time job to be secured, so much to do in such a little time. But getting things done swiftly and efficiently is the Winchester Way - and Sam can do it in spades and in his sleep.
John and Dean are clear on the other side of the country, on the trail of a werewolf in the Catskill Mountains. While Sam attends orientation, his brother heads into the woods with nothing but raw determination and pent up anger in his mind. When Sam sits down to a dinner of pizza and Mr. Pibb with a few other students who got to school early, his brother paces in an emergency room waiting room while their dad gets patched up from a fall. When Sam's phone rings and he sees Dean's number, he lets it go to voice mail.
He doesn't need his brother anymore - he's grown up and his brother needs to see that.
When Sam meets his roommate Brady, who in a year and a half will become possessed and kick him back onto the path towards hunting, Dean drives to New Hampshire for a solo hunt and his dad goes to see Pastor Jim. Now Sam has friends - friends he won't have to worry about having to say good-bye to in a few days. He's happy, really he is. Everything seems wonderful as time goes by - he loves his classes, he loves California, he loves his freedom.
Then November second comes and he nearly calls his brother.
On the morning of the third, Sam sits on his bed, deep in thought. He's only been fooling himself about the freedom and the friends. He lies about his past to them so he can protect them - they don't need to know what's lurking in the shadows. He knows the truth - deep down, he's doing all this because he doesn't want to be alone. He can't stand to be alone - not entirely. The two weeks he ran away? He had a dog. He only wants company he choses, not company forced upon him. True, he prefers to be alone most of the time, but after his restricted childhood, who can blame him? Time alone to a Winchester was as precious as fifty-dollar bill. He loves his freedom, he loves his new life. What he doesn't love is being so completely alone. Dean has called him every week, like clockwork - eight at night every Thursday. Always with an update - and where he and dad are.
Normally it was the kid at college who checked in, not the other way around. He's never answered the calls, just listened to the message and called his brother a co-dependent jerk.
Brady wasn't much of a companion at the moment, he might as well be on another planet half the time - they didn't share majors and he was currently busy pledging to Delta Chi.
But Winchesters know how to endure and bury things, so Sam does what Winchesters do best - he buries his fear of being alone under studying and work, filling his life with so much to do that he doesn't have time to think about what he's feeling. He never stops to think that this is why his father hunts with such vigor and absoluteness - because if he stops, John will think of Mary and his need for revenge will be consumed by grief. Dean hunts with the passion he does not out of loyalty to his father, but because he doesn't know how to not hunt. Sam never thinks its weird he's the only one to never had a hunt-free life and he can't think of seeing anything but not hunting.
Sam never put salt lines down in his dorm - that's not because he forgot, but because he was trying to be normal. He just keeps his hex bag on him at all times.
Sam doesn't know it yet, but this one act will cause the house of cards he's building in a life that's free of hunting to come tumbling down. When Brady introduces him to Jess, Sam sees the person he wants to build the new life with. He doesn't know that it's all a set-up. He won't find that out until the world has gone to Hell and he's one of the key players.
Sam only knows that right now, on a blustery November morning, nineteen years after the death of his mom that he has to bury his fear of being alone. While he goes out for coffee and doughnuts with some guys in his Psychology 101 class his dad and brother are headed to Pennsylvania to battle a poltergeist.
Sam doesn't answer one of his brother's weekly calls until Thanksgiving.