A Different Piece of Sky: 6/6
Master Post | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Soundtrack
“’Just a small hunt,’ he says. ‘It’ll be easy,’ he says.”
Dean shot her a warning look, hand tightening on the wheel of the Impala. “Sam…”
“Ghouls, Dean! Your small little hunt was ghouls!” She smacked his arm lightly, and then took the compress off her own to see if it was still bleeding.
“I said I was sorry, okay?”
“Ghouls need more than a sorry, Dean.” She jerked away from his hand as it tried to wrap around her shoulders. “There were like five of them!”
He made a face. “C’mon, there was only like three.” She scowled and he sighed, and then swung into the parking lot of a strip mall. Turning off the engine in front of a small diner, he said, “I bet some pie will make you feel better.”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “You know what would make me feel better? A shower. The longest, hottest shower known to mankind.”
“C’mon, Sammy, please? I’m starvin’ and nothing else is open this late.” He stared at her with a decent imitation of her puppy dog eyes and she could feel her defenses slipping.
After a few seconds, she snapped, “Fine!” She grabbed her jacked from the back seat, pulling it carefully over the cuts on her arms. Goddamn, she hated ghouls. Looking at Dean, she took in the dirt of his pants, the small cuts in his jeans and realized that she probably looked the same way. The way everyone looked at them as they came in the diner and took a booth, they were lucky if they weren’t going to get arrested.
Dean grinned at the waitress as she brought over menus and two cups of coffee. “Thank you, sweetheart.” Sam hoped she didn’t notice the smudge of blood over her brother’s cheek.
Sam flipped through the menu, her stomach rumbling a bit with hunger. Dean was smirking at her, but she refused to look up into his knowing eyes. “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries,” she said.
“Make that two,” Dean said, handing the menus back to the waitress. “And some pie. You do have pie, right?” She just pointed to the glass cabinet near the register and Dean grinned. “Awesome.”
Smiling despite herself, Sam said, “I’m gonna go wash up.”
“Alrighty, I’ll just be introducing myself to the pie.”
Sam shook her head, getting up and heading to the small bathroom in the back. Rolling the sleeves of her hoodie up, Sam washed her hands and arms slowly, wishing she had an actual bath. Standing with her arms under the hand dryers, she focused on how hungry she was rather than how much it stung against her cuts. Dean fucking owed her.
He was already working on his first piece of pie when she got back to the table. “This is really good, Sammy.” He held a forkful out to her and she ate it quickly. Okay, that was damn good pie.
Sliding into the booth across from him, she crossed her arms on the table. “Alright, Dean, let’s talk about these ghouls.”
“Would you lay off the ghouls already? I said I was sorry.”
“I know, okay? I’m just wondering…why?” She shrugged. “We could have had a very nice night back at the hotel doing nothing. Well, not nothing…”
Dean leered at her for a second, and then shrugged. “I dunno. I just thought...” He trailed off, licking his lips. “I mean, I guess I just thought that it would be good for us. Do a little hunting alone; get some extra training without Dad. Maybe show Dad that we can do this and if he wants to leave us to hunts by ourselves, it’s okay. You know, when you get done with school and stuff.”
Sighing, Sam leaned back against the booth. It was a really good reason. It was hard to have righteous anger when he was being sweet. “Oh. Well, next time, a little bit more research will help.”
He snorted into his pie. “Next time, you’re doing the research.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t mistake a family of ghouls for an angry spirit.”
“You’re never going to let this ghoul thing go, are you?”
“They tried to eat me!”
“Yeah, well, you taste delicious.” She blushed, kicking him lightly under the table. Dean just grinned nudging his foot against hers. “Look, next time we’ll do better. And we’ll tell Dad about this and he’ll be impressed.”
She took a sip of her lukewarm coffee. “Yeah? He won’t be mad that we tried to hunt alone?”
Quirking the corner of his mouth up thoughtfully, he said, “I’m hopin’ he’ll be proud of our initiative.”
“You probably shouldn’t mention how I almost got eaten.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Unfolding one of her arms, she laid it across the table, hand brushing against his. He stretched out his fingers, knuckles brushing against the inside of her hand. Their fingers intertwined loosely, not quite holding on. Licking her lips, she said, “I am glad we killed those bitches, though.”
He grinned widely. “Feels good, huh?”
“Feels like I need a shoulder rub. And a back rub. And a foot rub.” The only thing that felt good was sitting here with him.
The waitress showed up with their burgers and Dean pulled his hand away reluctantly to eat a fry. “Alright, we’ll go home, hot shower, then we’ll relax, okay?”
Sam smiled around her burger, chewing happily. “Sounds good.”
They ate silently and ravenously, and Sam was starting to realize what it felt like to be really hungry after a hunt. It was both satisfying and a little sickening, inhaling bite after bite. This was the opposite of a last meal: adrenaline made you hungry for everything, made you want what you would have missed the most out of life. She didn’t think she liked it. The food sat heavily in her stomach and now that her appetite was satisfied, she was slowly sinking back down to the reality of life before the hunt.
When Dean finished his food, he reached across the table for her wrist, thumb brushing against the healing cut across the back of her hand. “You’re not really hurt, are you?”
Shaking her head, she smiled. “Nothing that won’t heal. I’m fine, really.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, pulling her hand up to his face and brushing his lips against it in a light kiss. “We’ll do better next time.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam tended to do her real suffering in silence. It was almost comforting, being unhappy all the time. She figured it was one of those things that made her relatively normal, something that everybody her age could relate to. Maybe they did it louder, but they did it. It was a teenage thing, suffering for your family and your life and the life you wished you had.
She knew that most people weren’t angry at a family crusade, and that they probably yelled at their brothers more than they fucked them, but it was her thing. It was a thing she needed, something to back up that bitter bile that rose to the back of her throat, the anger that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to fight down completely. For now, she knew, it was best to keep it to herself, another way that she wasn’t like everyone else.
When she messed up on a hunt, John made sure she suffered in front of everyone.
“What the hell was that, Sam?” he demanded, arms crossed in front of his chest.
The trembling started early. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice hoarse.
“Sorry doesn’t change the fact that you almost got yourself killed! Almost got your brother killed!”
Dean looked up wildly, staring back and forth between her and John and looking almost as lost as she felt. Sam wrapped her arms around herself, pinching her side to focus on the pain. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, staring at his shoes, the way he ground the dirt beneath his heals.
“You need to stop being sorry and stop making mistakes! Sorry doesn’t bring people back to life, Sam.”
The words hung in her throat like they always did. I didn’t kill Mom. It wasn’t my fault. I can’t be sorry for that. I can’t apologize because you lost her. And like always, she bit her tongue, nodded, and wondered if she would ever say it to him, wondered if she’d ever actually be able to tell him the truth about anything, wondered if he would even care.
Mark sighed, shaking his long black hair out of his face. “John, look, it’s late, we’re all tired and it’s over for tonight. Let’s just get some rest.”
Sam couldn’t help but feel grateful for this man she had just met today, the friend of her father’s that was trying to protect her from him. John’s face didn’t soften as he took Mark a few feet away to speak privately. Dean closed the gap between them, reaching out to comfort her. Sam flinched away; she didn’t want to be touched right now.
The worst part was the point where Dean couldn’t fix everything.
John took a deep breath as he looked back at his kids. “It’s late. Get in the car.” John exchanged a look of understanding with Mark as Sam climbed into the backseat of the Impala and buckled up. She rested her arm against the door, burying her face in it so he wouldn’t see the inevitable tears that escaped down her cheeks.
John dropped them off at the first motel he found, paying for the room before unloading them. “I should be back in a day or so. No use registering for school.”
Sinking down onto one of the beds, Sam regarded him with wide eyes. “You’re not even gonna sleep here tonight?”
“Too much to do, Sam.” John glanced over at Dean, who nodded in affirmation to the unspoken question: things were fine, Dean would take care of it, and they would be okay without him.
“But you need to sleep too,” Sam said, twisting her hands in her lap. “Wouldn’t it be better to leave in the morning?”
His dark eyes locked on hers and she shrank against his hard gaze, swallowing against the lump in her throat and staring at the floor. “Since when do we question orders, Sam?”
Since they stopped making sense, sir. The words rolled over and over against in her mind until she simply shook her head. “We don’t, sir.”
He stood condescendingly before her for a moment until he was satisfied by her contrition. “Lock up behind me,” he said to Dean, heading out. “We’ll talk about this later, Sam.” Not a minute later, the roar of the Impala’s engine reached her ears and she bit her bottom lip hard to keep from trembling.
Dean locked the door, leaning against it and staring at her pitifully. “C’mon, Sam,” he said, plaintively. “Let’s just get this place set up and then we can go to bed.” There was only the door and one small window to line, but he still glared at her when she made no move to help him. “You just gonna sit there?” Her lack of response was enough and he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “You heard him, he’s gonna be back in a few days.”
Lip curling in disgust, Sam rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ll start looking at the high school tomorrow.” Dean’s sigh came quickly enough that she heard his long-suffering grief in the short seconds it took to grab her toothbrush and disappear into the sanctuary of the bathroom. She brushed her teeth until her gums bled and she was spitting red into the sink.
To Dean’s credit, he waited until she was done, sitting patiently on the bed. An exhaustion that she had tried to ignore came over Sam and she refused to do anything other than strip off her upper layers onto a pile on the floor, climbing into the farthest bed from the door and facing the wall away from the bathroom in only a cami and panties. Dean had turned the heat on and she curled into herself more for comfort than warmth.
All she could see when she closed her eyes was the way her father looked at her before he left.
When he was finished, Dean shut off all the lights and climbed into bed behind her. She could feel the uncertainty in his actions and she tried to stop shaking as he put his arm gently around her waist. “You cold, Sammy?”
Shaking her head, she curled up tighter, but couldn’t bear to leave his grip. Her breaths came shallowly, gasps turning into sobs.
“Hey,” he said suddenly, sitting up. “What’s wrong? Sam?”
Burying her face in the thin motel pillow, she used it to dab away the tears. It took her a few minutes to find her voice. “Why does he always leave?”
She felt Dean relax, as if weary from a battle not yet occurred, though one he knew by heart. “He’s got a job to do, Sam.”
“Why can’t he just stay for a little bit?” Sam pulled at a frayed string in the blanket. “I mean…why all the time? Doesn’t he want to be here?” She remembers asking these questions when she was little. There wasn’t a suitable answer then and she didn’t think there would be now.
“He’s saving lives,” Dean said. It wasn’t really an answer, but it made Sam feel more alone than she had before. Dean understood hunting-she didn’t think she ever would. Even now, she knew it would be something to always separate them.
“So hunting is more important than us.”
He sighed wearily. “That’s not what-”
“It wasn’t a question,” she said, interrupting him. “It just…is. We’re never going to be more important to him.” The words came shakily and she was a few seconds behind Dean in realizing that there were tears rolling down her cheeks, slowly, one waiting for the other to finish before making its way down.
Lying back next to her, Dean wrapped his arm tighter around her. “Sammy…”
The tenderness in his touch made her crack open, break there in a fucking motel room in God knows where. “Why doesn’t he want us? Why can’t we be important to him too? Just…why...can’t I ever be good enough for him?”
His hands held her steady, turning her towards him and Dean stroked her hair as she cried against his white shirt. She knew he was at a loss for words, could hear his faint mumbling as he kissed the top of her head. Greedily, she clung tightly to him, wishing with everything that it was enough to be loved so completely by Dean. It shouldn’t be wrong to want her father to love her too.
“He’s never going to love us as much as he loved her,” she realized aloud, voice soft as a whisper. Dean froze at the words, solidly as if nothing can penetrate him, not a single breath, or sound, or undeniable truth. Sam gripped his arms, short nails digging into his skin. “Why doesn’t he want us?” she repeated, less a question than a forlorn statement of reality. “Why does he always leave?”
Their mother’s death wasn’t her fault and she wanted to resent him for treating her like it was, but the sting hurt endlessly. Whatever killed Mary had lost Sam both her mother and her father.
Dean’s hands cupped her face and in the dim lighting she could see the shine in his eyes. “I won’t leave,” he said, voice haggard. “I promise.” Leaning down, he kissed her roughly, the stubble a coarse reminder against her skin of his lingering presence. Sam surged against him, needing him, needing everything he had to give. It wasn’t fair to Dean to use him to fill up all of her emptiness, but he was all that she had left.
As he gasped for air, Sam pressed closer, burying her head against his neck and letting him sooth her with his large, warm hands rubbing her back. She wept openly, wrapping herself inside him and selfishly hoarding his heart, until she cried them both to sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam woke up with a vague sense of foreboding. It wasn’t odd for her, or for their life, but as she tried to blink open eyes that were still crusted together from her tears the night before, it swooped low in her stomach, settling there ominously. The solid presence of her brother was still next to her in the bed, but she couldn’t help feeling that it was something she shouldn’t take for granted. Every day felt like another one away from him.
She had acted childishly the night before and even worse, she had acted like the girl she had never wanted to become. The girl Dean had never wanted her to become. The reminders of her heartbreak hung around them, target practice for ruining a day; for ruining everything that they had.
There was no talking, nothing until her brother pressed her against the wall, tongue invading her mouth with clear intent. His hands gripped her hips, holding her up against the wall until they were equal in height and she could wrap her legs around his waist. Her back flattened against the wall, and she gasped in a deep breath before looking straight at him.
He was already breathing hard, full lips spread apart and chest heaving. Her index finger traced his bottom lip until he nipped at it, leaning in for another deep kiss. As his hands moved down to squeeze her ass, hers held the back of his head, spiked hair tickling the pads of her fingers. She was held solidly between him and the wall. He ground himself against her, erection pressing against her thin panties until she was moaning.
Carefully, he inched along the wall until he was in reach of his bag, reaching inside of it for a condom. His boxers fell to the floor, but he didn’t bother removing Sam’s panties, moving them to the side enough to tease at her wet folds and gently insert two fingers until she was cursing under her breath. After he rolled on the condom, he lined himself up with her, taking his time pushing in.
Sam’s hands squeezed his shoulders, nails digging in and drawing long marks down his arms. Dean was completely inside her, forehead leaning against the wall, the only part of him moving his mouth against her neck, sucking and biting a deep mark in it. It would never fade in the time John had estimated he would be home-Dean clearly didn’t believe him any more than Sam did.
Her stomach muscles flexed and she pushed her hips towards him, pinned submissively and aching for some friction. He held the bottom of her legs as he pulled out and pushed back in hard, knocking the breath out of her. Sam reached for the doorjamb into the bathroom, holding hard to that with one hand while the other fought for purchase against his firm chest.
The pace was fast and unrelenting as he pounded into her, her back and ass sore and red within a few minutes. Sam’s whole body arched in pleasure aa Dean removed his hand long enough to push up her cami, biting lightly at the sensitive skin of her breasts. She gasped loudly as he sucked on a nipple, shuddering in pleasure.
Eyes squeezed tightly shut, her orgasm came quickly, thundering through her and she held on to Dean, letting him anchor her and steady her through the crashing ecstasy. He followed after several more strokes, a guttural groan against her chest before kissing her over and over, pressing her into the wall to get as far into her mouth as possible.
When they were both gasping with exertion, Dean unwrapped her legs and she stretched out before landing solidly on them. Forehead resting on her shoulder, Dean panted hot puffs of breath against her neck, the sensation completely different from the numb tingle of her backside.
Once he had control over himself, Dean walked into the bathroom, trashing the condom and pulling up his boxers. He leaned against the wall, staring at her with his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” The smile he gave her was small and not quite whole, but it was forgiving and understanding and her heart warmed in her chest.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling back. “Me, too.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dean stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. “What are you doing?”
“Some bastardized version of physics,” she said, using her large pink eraser furiously on the page. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”
He dropped his things loudly on the ground, making her jump. “Did you not see the note I left you?”
Clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, she recalled spotting it on the counter as she was inwardly ranting about how her father had made her take Latin and not all schools offered Latin and how fucking difficult it was to switch between it and Spanish every other school. “Yeah, I saw it.”
His jaw dropped open as he looked around the room. “That’s weird, because I don’t see anything different here.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll get to it later. I had important things to do.”
“What the fuck is so important, Sam? What is so important that you can’t do your share of the work?”
Holding up her book, she said, “I have a trig test tomorrow and I cannot blow it. I need to do well on this test to maintain my average, or I’m going to be miserable for the rest of the week.”
Dean’s fists were tight against his sides. “If we don’t do what we’re supposed to do, Dad’s gonna make us miserable.”
“Dad always makes us miserable. Nothing new there.”
He threw the keys against the wall behind her head. “Why do you always have to be that way? Why do you always act like that?”
Resting her head in her hands, she took a deep breath before looking at him. “What do you want from me? Sometimes I have no fucking idea what you want!”
“What I want is for you to pull your own weight around here! Hunting is hard work, Sam. Everyone needs to help.”
She shook her head. “But I’m not a hunter, Dean.”
“Of course you are.”
“No, I’m not!” she said, standing up quickly and knocking her chair over. “I am not a hunter. You and Dad are, but I never was and I’m never going to be! And I don’t see why I should have to help you two on your little crusade when I don’t care!”
The words echoed in the room as he stared at her. “You just think it’s all about you.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “What?”
“You think we just do this for kicks?” he spat. “We’re helping people, we’re saving lives. We’re avenging Mom!”
“Mom’s been dead for over seventeen years, Dean. It’s not about her anymore. It’s about Dad being an obsessive bastard.”
He shook his head angrily. “Don’t talk about him like that. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Sam. You have no fucking idea. You’re just being a whiny brat, because things aren’t going your way.”
“And you’re being a stupid jackass who doesn’t have two of his own thoughts to rub together.”
The surprise registered on his face and he took a deep breath as if she had hit him. “Yeah, well, at least I’m not a selfish brat who doesn’t care about anything but herself.”
She shut her eyes, stomach twisting with pain as she struggled to breathe. They were so good at hurting each other. “How dare you say that I’m selfish when you’ve never given half a damn about anything I care about? You and Dad have never cared about anything important to me! Oh, right, unless it involves giving you a blowjob, of course.”
“What Dad and I do matters, Sam. We have a duty, a purpose that’s a lot more important than some stupid math test!”
Kicking the table angrily, she said, “That’s it, that’s just it! You think you’re so much better than everyone, because you burn some corpses and you’re not! There’s nothing wrong with wanting a normal life! Mom would have wanted that!”
He shook his head, brow furrowed. “Mom would have wanted us to be safe, Sam. And that’s what Dad and I are doing. We’re keeping people safe.”
She took a deep breath, pressing her palms to the hot skin of her face. “Why don’t you ever just say it?” Hiccuping, she held back the flood of tears that threatened to derail everything. “I know that if I wasn’t born, Mom never would have died, but it wasn’t my fault! You guys can’t keep punishing me for it.”
Turning on her heel, she slammed out the back door, not making it farther than the stairs of the porch before sitting down and crying into her arms. She wanted to know her Mom. Sometimes, she needed her more than anything. Sam just wished she had known a mom to want to avenge.
There was a sick pattern to their arguments: he said that they had things to do, she yelled back that she had her own stuff to worry about, and in the end, they settled on fighting, which meant nothing got done.
The door behind her opened and Dean sat down next to her, shoulder barely brushing hers. “We’re going to fight,” he said, chugging down the last of his beer and setting the can aside. He was always a lot more willing to make up than she ever was, even when she started it. Sam wondered what that said about her. “Being…whatever we are doesn’t mean we’re not going to fight.”
“I know,” she whispered, though she had been naïve enough to think that they at least wouldn’t fight as much. The fact that she was wrong hurt worse than the fight, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
His fingers were cold as the cupped the back of her neck, stroking the vulnerable skin softly. “People always fight. I think I even remember Mom and Dad fighting once or twice, it happens.” She nodded, not sure what to say to that. It was easier to respond to him when they were fighting.
He sighed, nudging her until she looked at him. “Dad is coming back tomorrow.”
Sam didn’t bother to conceal her eye roll. “I know, Dean.”
“I’m just saying, if we’re gonna make up-which I’m thinking the sex thing will help a lot-we’ve gotta do it tonight.” He raised an eyebrow at her, thumb rubbing the sweet spot under her ear.
She relaxed into him, tilting her head upward for his kiss. It was gentle-Dean clearly thought make up sex was going to be tender and sweet, and she didn’t mind. Right now, she wanted him to hold her, wanted to forget that their passion had come out as anger instead of need for once.
There was a solid ache in her heart as she realized that they were never going to talk about what the fight was really about. This wasn’t making up, not really. It was a mutual agreement to ignore everything in favor of something else. Once again, they had buried the real issue under all of their other baggage.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Bobby’s car was in the driveway when she got home from school. She grinned at him, waving and letting him wrap a one-armed hug around her shoulders. “Hey, Bobby.”
He turned a critical eye on her. “You seem taller. Have you gotten taller?”
Dean snorted, loading the first aid kid into the back of John’s trunk. “She doesn’t stop growing.”
She stuck her tongue out at him as Bobby chuckled, and she said, “Dean’s just jealous that he stopped growing three years ago.”
He made a face at her before helping their dad carry more things outside. John was going through the usual spiel of food and money and what to expect when Bobby patted her gently on the shoulder. “Let’s go inside and talk for a second,” he said lowly, grabbing a bag from the backseat of his car.
They went inside, Bobby keeping an eye on John and Dean through the window. “How are you doing, Sam?”
“I’m okay,” she said. Everything was better now that she was with Dean, but she didn’t think that was what Bobby was asking.
“Good, good. Well, I’ve got something for you.” He pulled a handful of large white envelopes out of the bag. “USD is in here, too, but I don’t think that’s what you’re concerned about.”
Sam swallowed hard as she took them from him gently. A large envelope from Stanford was sitting on top of the pile and she licked her lips slowly. “I…I got in?”
He smiled. “You got in, kid. I called my contact at the school as soon as he got it and he said that he put in a good word for you, but you didn’t really need it between your grades, your test scores, and what not. And the fact that you’re the first in your family to go to college, he said that’s a big deal for them. He’s already started working on your financial stuff, and as soon as you give me the word, I’ll call him and he’ll put it through officially.”
Nodding slowly, she quickly wiped away a few tears so they wouldn’t get the papers wet. It was a lot at once and she knelt down to conceal them in her backpack. “I don’t know how to thank you, Bobby. I just…thank you so much.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.
Rubbing her back gently, he said, “You don’t need to thank me, I didn’t do much. I want you to do what you want, whether it’s Stanford or South Dakota. No pressure.”
Staring past him, she saw that her father and brother were still talking outside. “Yeah. No pressure.”
He patted her shoulder. “I should get going before John wonders what I’m up to. You just think about it.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling until he left. When the door shut behind him, she sat down on the bed, heart beating rapidly in her chest. She would see Dean laughing with her dad and Bobby and it hurt a little bit. She couldn’t breathe, staring at him, staring at John. His face was as closed off as ever, but Dean…Dean was smiling. Dean was happy. They were supposed to be happy together.
Reaching down, she pulled out her acceptance letter slowly. The white envelope seemed heavy in her hand and she stared at the Stanford emblem. She was only now realizing that she had never really expected to get in. It had seemed like a dream, a reality that would never be hers. Her hands were shaking a little as she held it closer to her chest.
She had actually gotten into Stanford.
“What’s that?” Dean said, grabbing his jacket from where it was thrown haphazardly across the bed. John and Bobby had disappeared without her even realizing it.
“Nothing, just something for school,” she said, and slid it gently into her backpack, not wanting to bend or wrinkle it. “So, you want Chinese for dinner?”
“I was thinking we could go out.”
“Go out? Like…go out where?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Do something different for once. Bobby slipped me a twenty, told me to go have fun. So I thought we could go eat, or see a movie, or something.”
Licking her lips slowly, Sam stared up at him. “Dean Winchester, are you asking me out on a date?”
“I guess. I mean, we’re gonna have sex either way.”
She grabbed a pillow and hit him on the head repeatedly. “Not if you act like that, we’re not.”
He stole it from her, tossing it on the other bed. Offering her his hand, he said, “C’mon. Let’s go have fun.” There was nothing she could say no to when he looked at her like that, and she took his hand happily, holding it all the way out to the car.
They drove the mostly empty streets and Sam wondered what kind of town this was with no traffic on a Friday night. It would be just her luck Bumfuck, Michigan, or wherever they were was the only town without a single thing to do on the weekend. She was about to suggest going back to the motel and having their own fun when Dean said, “Oh, bowling!”
Staring out his window, she could see the bright neon sign that said Bowl-A-Rama. “Bowling? Have we ever been bowling?”
“I took you a couple times as a kid,” he said. “I remember them having the best junk food.”
He raised his eyebrows excitedly and all of her reservations disappeared. “Alright, let’s go bowling.”
They got shoes and paid for two games, heading for a lane on the far side of the room near the food. Dean elected himself to go first, picking out bowling balls as Sam tried to figure out how to work the computer scoring.
On his first frame, he picked up a spare, hooting and hollering and rubbing her shoulders for good luck. It was less than effective and she only knocked down three pins. When Dean laughed, she turned to glare at him. “I think you’re lying about me bowling before.”
“I seem to remember you always sucking.”
She rolled her eyes, grabbing her ball and turning back to the pins. This time, she only knocked one down and Dean was pressing his lips tightly together, trying not to laugh. “Don’t worry, Sammy,” he said, running his hand down her back as he moved past her to get to his bowling ball. “You’re good at a lot of other things.”
His leering wink caused her to blush, and she sat down, watching as he knocked seven pins down. She thought that maybe people who went to Stanford didn’t need to know how to bowl, then immediately felt bad. It wasn’t right to think that, not with Dean right there. Not with Dean not going to Stanford.
After he finished, she said, “I’m hungry.”
“I’ll get some food. You try not to hurt yourself.”
Shaking her head, she bowled her frame, doing only slightly better than the last round. She had always had to work on aim a lot more than Dean had. Very few things in the Winchester way of life had ever come easily to her. Tapping her fingers against the small table, she remembered how she had always felt inferior to Dean, so jealous of him.
Maybe that would never go away.
“We’re number 135,” he said, dropping the food ticket on the table in front of her and picking up his ball. “They said they’d have the drinks ready in a second, if you wanna go get them.”
She didn’t want to stick around to watch him kick her ass some more, grabbing the pitcher of soda and plastic cups from the food counter. Even from across the room, she could see Dean pumping his fist with victory. Her heart swelled with love for him. She had no idea how she could possibly walk away from this.
They made it through a few more frames before their food was ready, Dean making it back to the table piled high with brightly-colored baskets. “Alright, we’ve got chicken fingers, crinkle fries, chili cheese fries, and mozzarella sticks.”
Her stomach growled hungrily and she bit into a fry, and then fanned her mouth. “Oh, hot, hot. But good. Sooo good.” They were perfectly seasoned and she knew what Dean meant about the best junk food. Leaning over, she kissed Dean lightly. “Thanks.”
He smiled softly at her. “You’re welcome.”
They polished off the food in record time, finishing their first game in between. She agreed to take a short stretch break so that he could check in with Dad, and Sam waited patiently for him, trying not to think of the decisions that awaited her back at the room.
Suddenly, a cupcake was held in front of her face and Dean said, “Surprise.”
She frowned at it, taking it and slowly. Glancing around the bowling alley, she saw what looked like a birthday party in the middle of the room. “Did you steal this?”
“I did not steal it! The nice lady over there mentioned how cute my girlfriend and I are, and I asked if I could snag a cupcake for you.”
Biting her bottom lip, she said, “You got one cupcake? And I can have it?”
He picked up his bowling ball, flexing his hands around it. “Yeah, so?”
“Are you trying to woo me, Dean Winchester?”
His laugh was one of surprise and then he smirked. “I think I’m far past wooing you.” He rolled the ball down the lane and she smiled at his back, scooping up some of the icing and sucking it off her finger.
She broke the cupcake in half, leaving part of it on the table for Dean as she got up to bowl. After letting the ball go, she felt Dean’s arms around her waist, his lips brushing against her ears as he said, “So, are you wooed?”
Her cheeks hurt from smiling as she turned her head to look at him. “I am far past wooed.” Then she kissed him, hearing the pins fall and not caring. Nothing mattered but Dean.
The rest of the game was spent mostly wrapped around each other, and even though Dean had beaten her by an embarrassing amount, she couldn’t make herself care as they wandered back to the car and his arm was wrapped comfortably around her shoulders.
Dean licked his lips as he pulled out of the parking lot. “So, I was thinking. Your birthday’s soon, and then school will be ending after that.”
“Uh huh,” she said, sinking into the worn leather of her seat. “You can’t be worrying about me being legal now.”
“No, I’m over that. I thought that maybe I could talk to Dad and we could figure out something to do for your birthday. It’s a big one. And then maybe could try to convince him that we were good enough to do some small hunts on our own.” He smiled at her, shrugging. “If you’re not in school, he’ll want us to follow him on hunts anyway.”
Her face fell-she hadn’t realized that not being in school meant that there would be nothing to tie her to a place for more than a few days. Nothing to keep her not with John. “Right. Yeah.”
As soon as they got back to the hotel, Dean pulled her close, kissing her senselessly. They walked towards the bed, Sam pushing off his jacket as he grinned against her neck. She felt oddly energized, kissing him again as his hands worked her jeans open. Their lips met in heady need and Sam felt like they were making up for lost time and time that would be stolen from them. They were making up for things that had yet to happen.
“Sammy,” he groaned in her ear as his hands slid up the skin of her back, and she shivered. Their eyes met and the realization of never being with him again rocked her body, made it hard to breathe. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she kept him against her, holding on tightly.
She couldn’t go. She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t survive without him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam woke up to Dean’s arm still wrapped around her, loosely but possessively, as if he worried about losing her even in the night. Carefully, she inched herself upwards, trying to sit up without moving him too much. His head was only halfway on the pillow and he snored a little, drooling against it. Smiling to herself, Sam ran her finger lightly across the freckles on the bridge of his nose.
The morning light was shining easily through the window, whose blinds had seen better days. She suddenly felt uneasy in there, the midmorning glow surreal. The familiar bags and weapons of her childhood littered around the room seemed out of place, even though nothing had moved from the night before. Clearly, the shift was within her.
It wasn’t the only thing clear to her. The questions hurt and the answers hurt even more. Her life was made of questions that she didn’t want to know the answer to, things that hung unspoken in the air so long that she had forgotten what it was like not to breathe it in. For everyone but her father, their existence had stopped being about what had killed Mary. Sam was so far past that, it didn’t register until she looked in the mirror, until her father looked at her as if she should have been someone else, someone he loved.
She was unanchored, adrift in a sea of confusion about what she wanted. The weight of what she didn’t want held her down, but only far enough so that she would sink. She wouldn’t be her father and she wouldn’t be her mother, doomed to misery because they hadn’t been able to prevent it with actions or coincidence.
Sam was willing to sacrifice everything good she had for that elusive happiness, something she had once imagined so far beyond her grasp that it didn’t exist outside their world of blood and death.
Dean hurt. Everything about him hurt her, hurt with how perfect he was and how much she felt when she was with him. Time with him was like dreaming, like that waking point where you try so hard to fall back to sleep to capture the fleeting essence of that wonder that was untouched in waking.
What hurt the most was knowing that one day, the dreaming wouldn’t be enough, that she would long to live like she had never been allowed to. That one day, Dean wouldn’t be enough. The thought seized at her chest and she choked on the thought of how quickly her bitterness could grow, how soon she could resent him. She loved him, but she could hate him just as easily. It was a funny thing about Winchesters. Even her mother hadn’t managed to half-ass dying.
She couldn’t be her father. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life chasing shadows, hoping to regain a bit of perfection that may have never really been there in the first place.
After brushing a kiss against Dean’s temple, she moved out from under him, freezing as he shifted in his sleep. Once she was sure he was out, she pulled on one of his shirts and padded into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. Bobby couldn’t see her, but this wasn’t a phone call she wanted to make naked.
He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Bobby,” she said softly. The sound in here carried. “I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”
“No, no, I stopped sleeping years ago. What’s up, Sam?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When you get a chance, can you call your friend at the financial aid office? I’ve…I’ve decided to go to Stanford.”
“I’m proud of you, Sam,” he said, and she could hear it in his voice. It didn’t make it any easier. “Have you told Dean yet?”
Swallowing around the lump in her throat, she hesitated before saying, “Not yet. I’m gonna wait till Dad gets back. Make a family meeting out of it. I don’t wanna go through that chaos more than I have to.”
“I gotcha. Anywho, sounds like your daddy is gettin’ up, better go see what he’s up to. We should be home in a few days. I’ll see ya then.”
“Yeah, great. Thanks, Bobby.” The tears started as soon as she hung up. She set the phone on the counter and leaned on it, head in her hands as she sobbed quickly and silently. She didn’t allow herself more than a minute. There would be plenty of time later.
Once her face stopped being red and blotchy, she padded quietly back into the bedroom as Dean was stirring. “Sammy? Something wrong?”
She shook her head, peeling off his shirt and throwing it aside. “No, just checking on something.”
He grinned at her naked form. “Want breakfast?”
“Not yet,” she said, crawling back into bed again and kissing him softly. “Can we just…lay here for a bit? Please?”
Dean kissed her again, slowly and deeply, and she took the time to memorize every part of him as if he wasn’t half of her. “If that’s what you want.” Nodding, she rested her head against his chest, listening to their heartbeats sync up as he stroked his calloused hands down her back and kissed the top of her head. “You sure you’re okay, Sammy?”
She hated lying to him. “You know I love you, right, Dean?”
He shook his head while laughing. “God, you really are a girl sometimes.”
The words pierced her heart because she finally understood them. That was how Dean was saying he loved her, loved every part of her, every difference between them. She quickly blinked away her tears. “Yeah, I know.”
He kissed her head, then down to her lips, taking his time with her as if this day would go on forever. When they pulled away, breathing hard, he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I love you, too, though.”
Sam just nodded, pressing her head to his neck and breathing him in. She planned to stay there with him, legs and hearts entangled, for as long as she could.
Master Post | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Soundtrack
“’Just a small hunt,’ he says. ‘It’ll be easy,’ he says.”
Dean shot her a warning look, hand tightening on the wheel of the Impala. “Sam…”
“Ghouls, Dean! Your small little hunt was ghouls!” She smacked his arm lightly, and then took the compress off her own to see if it was still bleeding.
“I said I was sorry, okay?”
“Ghouls need more than a sorry, Dean.” She jerked away from his hand as it tried to wrap around her shoulders. “There were like five of them!”
He made a face. “C’mon, there was only like three.” She scowled and he sighed, and then swung into the parking lot of a strip mall. Turning off the engine in front of a small diner, he said, “I bet some pie will make you feel better.”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “You know what would make me feel better? A shower. The longest, hottest shower known to mankind.”
“C’mon, Sammy, please? I’m starvin’ and nothing else is open this late.” He stared at her with a decent imitation of her puppy dog eyes and she could feel her defenses slipping.
After a few seconds, she snapped, “Fine!” She grabbed her jacked from the back seat, pulling it carefully over the cuts on her arms. Goddamn, she hated ghouls. Looking at Dean, she took in the dirt of his pants, the small cuts in his jeans and realized that she probably looked the same way. The way everyone looked at them as they came in the diner and took a booth, they were lucky if they weren’t going to get arrested.
Dean grinned at the waitress as she brought over menus and two cups of coffee. “Thank you, sweetheart.” Sam hoped she didn’t notice the smudge of blood over her brother’s cheek.
Sam flipped through the menu, her stomach rumbling a bit with hunger. Dean was smirking at her, but she refused to look up into his knowing eyes. “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries,” she said.
“Make that two,” Dean said, handing the menus back to the waitress. “And some pie. You do have pie, right?” She just pointed to the glass cabinet near the register and Dean grinned. “Awesome.”
Smiling despite herself, Sam said, “I’m gonna go wash up.”
“Alrighty, I’ll just be introducing myself to the pie.”
Sam shook her head, getting up and heading to the small bathroom in the back. Rolling the sleeves of her hoodie up, Sam washed her hands and arms slowly, wishing she had an actual bath. Standing with her arms under the hand dryers, she focused on how hungry she was rather than how much it stung against her cuts. Dean fucking owed her.
He was already working on his first piece of pie when she got back to the table. “This is really good, Sammy.” He held a forkful out to her and she ate it quickly. Okay, that was damn good pie.
Sliding into the booth across from him, she crossed her arms on the table. “Alright, Dean, let’s talk about these ghouls.”
“Would you lay off the ghouls already? I said I was sorry.”
“I know, okay? I’m just wondering…why?” She shrugged. “We could have had a very nice night back at the hotel doing nothing. Well, not nothing…”
Dean leered at her for a second, and then shrugged. “I dunno. I just thought...” He trailed off, licking his lips. “I mean, I guess I just thought that it would be good for us. Do a little hunting alone; get some extra training without Dad. Maybe show Dad that we can do this and if he wants to leave us to hunts by ourselves, it’s okay. You know, when you get done with school and stuff.”
Sighing, Sam leaned back against the booth. It was a really good reason. It was hard to have righteous anger when he was being sweet. “Oh. Well, next time, a little bit more research will help.”
He snorted into his pie. “Next time, you’re doing the research.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t mistake a family of ghouls for an angry spirit.”
“You’re never going to let this ghoul thing go, are you?”
“They tried to eat me!”
“Yeah, well, you taste delicious.” She blushed, kicking him lightly under the table. Dean just grinned nudging his foot against hers. “Look, next time we’ll do better. And we’ll tell Dad about this and he’ll be impressed.”
She took a sip of her lukewarm coffee. “Yeah? He won’t be mad that we tried to hunt alone?”
Quirking the corner of his mouth up thoughtfully, he said, “I’m hopin’ he’ll be proud of our initiative.”
“You probably shouldn’t mention how I almost got eaten.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Unfolding one of her arms, she laid it across the table, hand brushing against his. He stretched out his fingers, knuckles brushing against the inside of her hand. Their fingers intertwined loosely, not quite holding on. Licking her lips, she said, “I am glad we killed those bitches, though.”
He grinned widely. “Feels good, huh?”
“Feels like I need a shoulder rub. And a back rub. And a foot rub.” The only thing that felt good was sitting here with him.
The waitress showed up with their burgers and Dean pulled his hand away reluctantly to eat a fry. “Alright, we’ll go home, hot shower, then we’ll relax, okay?”
Sam smiled around her burger, chewing happily. “Sounds good.”
They ate silently and ravenously, and Sam was starting to realize what it felt like to be really hungry after a hunt. It was both satisfying and a little sickening, inhaling bite after bite. This was the opposite of a last meal: adrenaline made you hungry for everything, made you want what you would have missed the most out of life. She didn’t think she liked it. The food sat heavily in her stomach and now that her appetite was satisfied, she was slowly sinking back down to the reality of life before the hunt.
When Dean finished his food, he reached across the table for her wrist, thumb brushing against the healing cut across the back of her hand. “You’re not really hurt, are you?”
Shaking her head, she smiled. “Nothing that won’t heal. I’m fine, really.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, pulling her hand up to his face and brushing his lips against it in a light kiss. “We’ll do better next time.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam tended to do her real suffering in silence. It was almost comforting, being unhappy all the time. She figured it was one of those things that made her relatively normal, something that everybody her age could relate to. Maybe they did it louder, but they did it. It was a teenage thing, suffering for your family and your life and the life you wished you had.
She knew that most people weren’t angry at a family crusade, and that they probably yelled at their brothers more than they fucked them, but it was her thing. It was a thing she needed, something to back up that bitter bile that rose to the back of her throat, the anger that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to fight down completely. For now, she knew, it was best to keep it to herself, another way that she wasn’t like everyone else.
When she messed up on a hunt, John made sure she suffered in front of everyone.
“What the hell was that, Sam?” he demanded, arms crossed in front of his chest.
The trembling started early. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice hoarse.
“Sorry doesn’t change the fact that you almost got yourself killed! Almost got your brother killed!”
Dean looked up wildly, staring back and forth between her and John and looking almost as lost as she felt. Sam wrapped her arms around herself, pinching her side to focus on the pain. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, staring at his shoes, the way he ground the dirt beneath his heals.
“You need to stop being sorry and stop making mistakes! Sorry doesn’t bring people back to life, Sam.”
The words hung in her throat like they always did. I didn’t kill Mom. It wasn’t my fault. I can’t be sorry for that. I can’t apologize because you lost her. And like always, she bit her tongue, nodded, and wondered if she would ever say it to him, wondered if she’d ever actually be able to tell him the truth about anything, wondered if he would even care.
Mark sighed, shaking his long black hair out of his face. “John, look, it’s late, we’re all tired and it’s over for tonight. Let’s just get some rest.”
Sam couldn’t help but feel grateful for this man she had just met today, the friend of her father’s that was trying to protect her from him. John’s face didn’t soften as he took Mark a few feet away to speak privately. Dean closed the gap between them, reaching out to comfort her. Sam flinched away; she didn’t want to be touched right now.
The worst part was the point where Dean couldn’t fix everything.
John took a deep breath as he looked back at his kids. “It’s late. Get in the car.” John exchanged a look of understanding with Mark as Sam climbed into the backseat of the Impala and buckled up. She rested her arm against the door, burying her face in it so he wouldn’t see the inevitable tears that escaped down her cheeks.
John dropped them off at the first motel he found, paying for the room before unloading them. “I should be back in a day or so. No use registering for school.”
Sinking down onto one of the beds, Sam regarded him with wide eyes. “You’re not even gonna sleep here tonight?”
“Too much to do, Sam.” John glanced over at Dean, who nodded in affirmation to the unspoken question: things were fine, Dean would take care of it, and they would be okay without him.
“But you need to sleep too,” Sam said, twisting her hands in her lap. “Wouldn’t it be better to leave in the morning?”
His dark eyes locked on hers and she shrank against his hard gaze, swallowing against the lump in her throat and staring at the floor. “Since when do we question orders, Sam?”
Since they stopped making sense, sir. The words rolled over and over against in her mind until she simply shook her head. “We don’t, sir.”
He stood condescendingly before her for a moment until he was satisfied by her contrition. “Lock up behind me,” he said to Dean, heading out. “We’ll talk about this later, Sam.” Not a minute later, the roar of the Impala’s engine reached her ears and she bit her bottom lip hard to keep from trembling.
Dean locked the door, leaning against it and staring at her pitifully. “C’mon, Sam,” he said, plaintively. “Let’s just get this place set up and then we can go to bed.” There was only the door and one small window to line, but he still glared at her when she made no move to help him. “You just gonna sit there?” Her lack of response was enough and he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “You heard him, he’s gonna be back in a few days.”
Lip curling in disgust, Sam rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ll start looking at the high school tomorrow.” Dean’s sigh came quickly enough that she heard his long-suffering grief in the short seconds it took to grab her toothbrush and disappear into the sanctuary of the bathroom. She brushed her teeth until her gums bled and she was spitting red into the sink.
To Dean’s credit, he waited until she was done, sitting patiently on the bed. An exhaustion that she had tried to ignore came over Sam and she refused to do anything other than strip off her upper layers onto a pile on the floor, climbing into the farthest bed from the door and facing the wall away from the bathroom in only a cami and panties. Dean had turned the heat on and she curled into herself more for comfort than warmth.
All she could see when she closed her eyes was the way her father looked at her before he left.
When he was finished, Dean shut off all the lights and climbed into bed behind her. She could feel the uncertainty in his actions and she tried to stop shaking as he put his arm gently around her waist. “You cold, Sammy?”
Shaking her head, she curled up tighter, but couldn’t bear to leave his grip. Her breaths came shallowly, gasps turning into sobs.
“Hey,” he said suddenly, sitting up. “What’s wrong? Sam?”
Burying her face in the thin motel pillow, she used it to dab away the tears. It took her a few minutes to find her voice. “Why does he always leave?”
She felt Dean relax, as if weary from a battle not yet occurred, though one he knew by heart. “He’s got a job to do, Sam.”
“Why can’t he just stay for a little bit?” Sam pulled at a frayed string in the blanket. “I mean…why all the time? Doesn’t he want to be here?” She remembers asking these questions when she was little. There wasn’t a suitable answer then and she didn’t think there would be now.
“He’s saving lives,” Dean said. It wasn’t really an answer, but it made Sam feel more alone than she had before. Dean understood hunting-she didn’t think she ever would. Even now, she knew it would be something to always separate them.
“So hunting is more important than us.”
He sighed wearily. “That’s not what-”
“It wasn’t a question,” she said, interrupting him. “It just…is. We’re never going to be more important to him.” The words came shakily and she was a few seconds behind Dean in realizing that there were tears rolling down her cheeks, slowly, one waiting for the other to finish before making its way down.
Lying back next to her, Dean wrapped his arm tighter around her. “Sammy…”
The tenderness in his touch made her crack open, break there in a fucking motel room in God knows where. “Why doesn’t he want us? Why can’t we be important to him too? Just…why...can’t I ever be good enough for him?”
His hands held her steady, turning her towards him and Dean stroked her hair as she cried against his white shirt. She knew he was at a loss for words, could hear his faint mumbling as he kissed the top of her head. Greedily, she clung tightly to him, wishing with everything that it was enough to be loved so completely by Dean. It shouldn’t be wrong to want her father to love her too.
“He’s never going to love us as much as he loved her,” she realized aloud, voice soft as a whisper. Dean froze at the words, solidly as if nothing can penetrate him, not a single breath, or sound, or undeniable truth. Sam gripped his arms, short nails digging into his skin. “Why doesn’t he want us?” she repeated, less a question than a forlorn statement of reality. “Why does he always leave?”
Their mother’s death wasn’t her fault and she wanted to resent him for treating her like it was, but the sting hurt endlessly. Whatever killed Mary had lost Sam both her mother and her father.
Dean’s hands cupped her face and in the dim lighting she could see the shine in his eyes. “I won’t leave,” he said, voice haggard. “I promise.” Leaning down, he kissed her roughly, the stubble a coarse reminder against her skin of his lingering presence. Sam surged against him, needing him, needing everything he had to give. It wasn’t fair to Dean to use him to fill up all of her emptiness, but he was all that she had left.
As he gasped for air, Sam pressed closer, burying her head against his neck and letting him sooth her with his large, warm hands rubbing her back. She wept openly, wrapping herself inside him and selfishly hoarding his heart, until she cried them both to sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam woke up with a vague sense of foreboding. It wasn’t odd for her, or for their life, but as she tried to blink open eyes that were still crusted together from her tears the night before, it swooped low in her stomach, settling there ominously. The solid presence of her brother was still next to her in the bed, but she couldn’t help feeling that it was something she shouldn’t take for granted. Every day felt like another one away from him.
She had acted childishly the night before and even worse, she had acted like the girl she had never wanted to become. The girl Dean had never wanted her to become. The reminders of her heartbreak hung around them, target practice for ruining a day; for ruining everything that they had.
There was no talking, nothing until her brother pressed her against the wall, tongue invading her mouth with clear intent. His hands gripped her hips, holding her up against the wall until they were equal in height and she could wrap her legs around his waist. Her back flattened against the wall, and she gasped in a deep breath before looking straight at him.
He was already breathing hard, full lips spread apart and chest heaving. Her index finger traced his bottom lip until he nipped at it, leaning in for another deep kiss. As his hands moved down to squeeze her ass, hers held the back of his head, spiked hair tickling the pads of her fingers. She was held solidly between him and the wall. He ground himself against her, erection pressing against her thin panties until she was moaning.
Carefully, he inched along the wall until he was in reach of his bag, reaching inside of it for a condom. His boxers fell to the floor, but he didn’t bother removing Sam’s panties, moving them to the side enough to tease at her wet folds and gently insert two fingers until she was cursing under her breath. After he rolled on the condom, he lined himself up with her, taking his time pushing in.
Sam’s hands squeezed his shoulders, nails digging in and drawing long marks down his arms. Dean was completely inside her, forehead leaning against the wall, the only part of him moving his mouth against her neck, sucking and biting a deep mark in it. It would never fade in the time John had estimated he would be home-Dean clearly didn’t believe him any more than Sam did.
Her stomach muscles flexed and she pushed her hips towards him, pinned submissively and aching for some friction. He held the bottom of her legs as he pulled out and pushed back in hard, knocking the breath out of her. Sam reached for the doorjamb into the bathroom, holding hard to that with one hand while the other fought for purchase against his firm chest.
The pace was fast and unrelenting as he pounded into her, her back and ass sore and red within a few minutes. Sam’s whole body arched in pleasure aa Dean removed his hand long enough to push up her cami, biting lightly at the sensitive skin of her breasts. She gasped loudly as he sucked on a nipple, shuddering in pleasure.
Eyes squeezed tightly shut, her orgasm came quickly, thundering through her and she held on to Dean, letting him anchor her and steady her through the crashing ecstasy. He followed after several more strokes, a guttural groan against her chest before kissing her over and over, pressing her into the wall to get as far into her mouth as possible.
When they were both gasping with exertion, Dean unwrapped her legs and she stretched out before landing solidly on them. Forehead resting on her shoulder, Dean panted hot puffs of breath against her neck, the sensation completely different from the numb tingle of her backside.
Once he had control over himself, Dean walked into the bathroom, trashing the condom and pulling up his boxers. He leaned against the wall, staring at her with his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” The smile he gave her was small and not quite whole, but it was forgiving and understanding and her heart warmed in her chest.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling back. “Me, too.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dean stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. “What are you doing?”
“Some bastardized version of physics,” she said, using her large pink eraser furiously on the page. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”
He dropped his things loudly on the ground, making her jump. “Did you not see the note I left you?”
Clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, she recalled spotting it on the counter as she was inwardly ranting about how her father had made her take Latin and not all schools offered Latin and how fucking difficult it was to switch between it and Spanish every other school. “Yeah, I saw it.”
His jaw dropped open as he looked around the room. “That’s weird, because I don’t see anything different here.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll get to it later. I had important things to do.”
“What the fuck is so important, Sam? What is so important that you can’t do your share of the work?”
Holding up her book, she said, “I have a trig test tomorrow and I cannot blow it. I need to do well on this test to maintain my average, or I’m going to be miserable for the rest of the week.”
Dean’s fists were tight against his sides. “If we don’t do what we’re supposed to do, Dad’s gonna make us miserable.”
“Dad always makes us miserable. Nothing new there.”
He threw the keys against the wall behind her head. “Why do you always have to be that way? Why do you always act like that?”
Resting her head in her hands, she took a deep breath before looking at him. “What do you want from me? Sometimes I have no fucking idea what you want!”
“What I want is for you to pull your own weight around here! Hunting is hard work, Sam. Everyone needs to help.”
She shook her head. “But I’m not a hunter, Dean.”
“Of course you are.”
“No, I’m not!” she said, standing up quickly and knocking her chair over. “I am not a hunter. You and Dad are, but I never was and I’m never going to be! And I don’t see why I should have to help you two on your little crusade when I don’t care!”
The words echoed in the room as he stared at her. “You just think it’s all about you.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “What?”
“You think we just do this for kicks?” he spat. “We’re helping people, we’re saving lives. We’re avenging Mom!”
“Mom’s been dead for over seventeen years, Dean. It’s not about her anymore. It’s about Dad being an obsessive bastard.”
He shook his head angrily. “Don’t talk about him like that. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Sam. You have no fucking idea. You’re just being a whiny brat, because things aren’t going your way.”
“And you’re being a stupid jackass who doesn’t have two of his own thoughts to rub together.”
The surprise registered on his face and he took a deep breath as if she had hit him. “Yeah, well, at least I’m not a selfish brat who doesn’t care about anything but herself.”
She shut her eyes, stomach twisting with pain as she struggled to breathe. They were so good at hurting each other. “How dare you say that I’m selfish when you’ve never given half a damn about anything I care about? You and Dad have never cared about anything important to me! Oh, right, unless it involves giving you a blowjob, of course.”
“What Dad and I do matters, Sam. We have a duty, a purpose that’s a lot more important than some stupid math test!”
Kicking the table angrily, she said, “That’s it, that’s just it! You think you’re so much better than everyone, because you burn some corpses and you’re not! There’s nothing wrong with wanting a normal life! Mom would have wanted that!”
He shook his head, brow furrowed. “Mom would have wanted us to be safe, Sam. And that’s what Dad and I are doing. We’re keeping people safe.”
She took a deep breath, pressing her palms to the hot skin of her face. “Why don’t you ever just say it?” Hiccuping, she held back the flood of tears that threatened to derail everything. “I know that if I wasn’t born, Mom never would have died, but it wasn’t my fault! You guys can’t keep punishing me for it.”
Turning on her heel, she slammed out the back door, not making it farther than the stairs of the porch before sitting down and crying into her arms. She wanted to know her Mom. Sometimes, she needed her more than anything. Sam just wished she had known a mom to want to avenge.
There was a sick pattern to their arguments: he said that they had things to do, she yelled back that she had her own stuff to worry about, and in the end, they settled on fighting, which meant nothing got done.
The door behind her opened and Dean sat down next to her, shoulder barely brushing hers. “We’re going to fight,” he said, chugging down the last of his beer and setting the can aside. He was always a lot more willing to make up than she ever was, even when she started it. Sam wondered what that said about her. “Being…whatever we are doesn’t mean we’re not going to fight.”
“I know,” she whispered, though she had been naïve enough to think that they at least wouldn’t fight as much. The fact that she was wrong hurt worse than the fight, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.
His fingers were cold as the cupped the back of her neck, stroking the vulnerable skin softly. “People always fight. I think I even remember Mom and Dad fighting once or twice, it happens.” She nodded, not sure what to say to that. It was easier to respond to him when they were fighting.
He sighed, nudging her until she looked at him. “Dad is coming back tomorrow.”
Sam didn’t bother to conceal her eye roll. “I know, Dean.”
“I’m just saying, if we’re gonna make up-which I’m thinking the sex thing will help a lot-we’ve gotta do it tonight.” He raised an eyebrow at her, thumb rubbing the sweet spot under her ear.
She relaxed into him, tilting her head upward for his kiss. It was gentle-Dean clearly thought make up sex was going to be tender and sweet, and she didn’t mind. Right now, she wanted him to hold her, wanted to forget that their passion had come out as anger instead of need for once.
There was a solid ache in her heart as she realized that they were never going to talk about what the fight was really about. This wasn’t making up, not really. It was a mutual agreement to ignore everything in favor of something else. Once again, they had buried the real issue under all of their other baggage.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Bobby’s car was in the driveway when she got home from school. She grinned at him, waving and letting him wrap a one-armed hug around her shoulders. “Hey, Bobby.”
He turned a critical eye on her. “You seem taller. Have you gotten taller?”
Dean snorted, loading the first aid kid into the back of John’s trunk. “She doesn’t stop growing.”
She stuck her tongue out at him as Bobby chuckled, and she said, “Dean’s just jealous that he stopped growing three years ago.”
He made a face at her before helping their dad carry more things outside. John was going through the usual spiel of food and money and what to expect when Bobby patted her gently on the shoulder. “Let’s go inside and talk for a second,” he said lowly, grabbing a bag from the backseat of his car.
They went inside, Bobby keeping an eye on John and Dean through the window. “How are you doing, Sam?”
“I’m okay,” she said. Everything was better now that she was with Dean, but she didn’t think that was what Bobby was asking.
“Good, good. Well, I’ve got something for you.” He pulled a handful of large white envelopes out of the bag. “USD is in here, too, but I don’t think that’s what you’re concerned about.”
Sam swallowed hard as she took them from him gently. A large envelope from Stanford was sitting on top of the pile and she licked her lips slowly. “I…I got in?”
He smiled. “You got in, kid. I called my contact at the school as soon as he got it and he said that he put in a good word for you, but you didn’t really need it between your grades, your test scores, and what not. And the fact that you’re the first in your family to go to college, he said that’s a big deal for them. He’s already started working on your financial stuff, and as soon as you give me the word, I’ll call him and he’ll put it through officially.”
Nodding slowly, she quickly wiped away a few tears so they wouldn’t get the papers wet. It was a lot at once and she knelt down to conceal them in her backpack. “I don’t know how to thank you, Bobby. I just…thank you so much.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.
Rubbing her back gently, he said, “You don’t need to thank me, I didn’t do much. I want you to do what you want, whether it’s Stanford or South Dakota. No pressure.”
Staring past him, she saw that her father and brother were still talking outside. “Yeah. No pressure.”
He patted her shoulder. “I should get going before John wonders what I’m up to. You just think about it.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling until he left. When the door shut behind him, she sat down on the bed, heart beating rapidly in her chest. She would see Dean laughing with her dad and Bobby and it hurt a little bit. She couldn’t breathe, staring at him, staring at John. His face was as closed off as ever, but Dean…Dean was smiling. Dean was happy. They were supposed to be happy together.
Reaching down, she pulled out her acceptance letter slowly. The white envelope seemed heavy in her hand and she stared at the Stanford emblem. She was only now realizing that she had never really expected to get in. It had seemed like a dream, a reality that would never be hers. Her hands were shaking a little as she held it closer to her chest.
She had actually gotten into Stanford.
“What’s that?” Dean said, grabbing his jacket from where it was thrown haphazardly across the bed. John and Bobby had disappeared without her even realizing it.
“Nothing, just something for school,” she said, and slid it gently into her backpack, not wanting to bend or wrinkle it. “So, you want Chinese for dinner?”
“I was thinking we could go out.”
“Go out? Like…go out where?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Do something different for once. Bobby slipped me a twenty, told me to go have fun. So I thought we could go eat, or see a movie, or something.”
Licking her lips slowly, Sam stared up at him. “Dean Winchester, are you asking me out on a date?”
“I guess. I mean, we’re gonna have sex either way.”
She grabbed a pillow and hit him on the head repeatedly. “Not if you act like that, we’re not.”
He stole it from her, tossing it on the other bed. Offering her his hand, he said, “C’mon. Let’s go have fun.” There was nothing she could say no to when he looked at her like that, and she took his hand happily, holding it all the way out to the car.
They drove the mostly empty streets and Sam wondered what kind of town this was with no traffic on a Friday night. It would be just her luck Bumfuck, Michigan, or wherever they were was the only town without a single thing to do on the weekend. She was about to suggest going back to the motel and having their own fun when Dean said, “Oh, bowling!”
Staring out his window, she could see the bright neon sign that said Bowl-A-Rama. “Bowling? Have we ever been bowling?”
“I took you a couple times as a kid,” he said. “I remember them having the best junk food.”
He raised his eyebrows excitedly and all of her reservations disappeared. “Alright, let’s go bowling.”
They got shoes and paid for two games, heading for a lane on the far side of the room near the food. Dean elected himself to go first, picking out bowling balls as Sam tried to figure out how to work the computer scoring.
On his first frame, he picked up a spare, hooting and hollering and rubbing her shoulders for good luck. It was less than effective and she only knocked down three pins. When Dean laughed, she turned to glare at him. “I think you’re lying about me bowling before.”
“I seem to remember you always sucking.”
She rolled her eyes, grabbing her ball and turning back to the pins. This time, she only knocked one down and Dean was pressing his lips tightly together, trying not to laugh. “Don’t worry, Sammy,” he said, running his hand down her back as he moved past her to get to his bowling ball. “You’re good at a lot of other things.”
His leering wink caused her to blush, and she sat down, watching as he knocked seven pins down. She thought that maybe people who went to Stanford didn’t need to know how to bowl, then immediately felt bad. It wasn’t right to think that, not with Dean right there. Not with Dean not going to Stanford.
After he finished, she said, “I’m hungry.”
“I’ll get some food. You try not to hurt yourself.”
Shaking her head, she bowled her frame, doing only slightly better than the last round. She had always had to work on aim a lot more than Dean had. Very few things in the Winchester way of life had ever come easily to her. Tapping her fingers against the small table, she remembered how she had always felt inferior to Dean, so jealous of him.
Maybe that would never go away.
“We’re number 135,” he said, dropping the food ticket on the table in front of her and picking up his ball. “They said they’d have the drinks ready in a second, if you wanna go get them.”
She didn’t want to stick around to watch him kick her ass some more, grabbing the pitcher of soda and plastic cups from the food counter. Even from across the room, she could see Dean pumping his fist with victory. Her heart swelled with love for him. She had no idea how she could possibly walk away from this.
They made it through a few more frames before their food was ready, Dean making it back to the table piled high with brightly-colored baskets. “Alright, we’ve got chicken fingers, crinkle fries, chili cheese fries, and mozzarella sticks.”
Her stomach growled hungrily and she bit into a fry, and then fanned her mouth. “Oh, hot, hot. But good. Sooo good.” They were perfectly seasoned and she knew what Dean meant about the best junk food. Leaning over, she kissed Dean lightly. “Thanks.”
He smiled softly at her. “You’re welcome.”
They polished off the food in record time, finishing their first game in between. She agreed to take a short stretch break so that he could check in with Dad, and Sam waited patiently for him, trying not to think of the decisions that awaited her back at the room.
Suddenly, a cupcake was held in front of her face and Dean said, “Surprise.”
She frowned at it, taking it and slowly. Glancing around the bowling alley, she saw what looked like a birthday party in the middle of the room. “Did you steal this?”
“I did not steal it! The nice lady over there mentioned how cute my girlfriend and I are, and I asked if I could snag a cupcake for you.”
Biting her bottom lip, she said, “You got one cupcake? And I can have it?”
He picked up his bowling ball, flexing his hands around it. “Yeah, so?”
“Are you trying to woo me, Dean Winchester?”
His laugh was one of surprise and then he smirked. “I think I’m far past wooing you.” He rolled the ball down the lane and she smiled at his back, scooping up some of the icing and sucking it off her finger.
She broke the cupcake in half, leaving part of it on the table for Dean as she got up to bowl. After letting the ball go, she felt Dean’s arms around her waist, his lips brushing against her ears as he said, “So, are you wooed?”
Her cheeks hurt from smiling as she turned her head to look at him. “I am far past wooed.” Then she kissed him, hearing the pins fall and not caring. Nothing mattered but Dean.
The rest of the game was spent mostly wrapped around each other, and even though Dean had beaten her by an embarrassing amount, she couldn’t make herself care as they wandered back to the car and his arm was wrapped comfortably around her shoulders.
Dean licked his lips as he pulled out of the parking lot. “So, I was thinking. Your birthday’s soon, and then school will be ending after that.”
“Uh huh,” she said, sinking into the worn leather of her seat. “You can’t be worrying about me being legal now.”
“No, I’m over that. I thought that maybe I could talk to Dad and we could figure out something to do for your birthday. It’s a big one. And then maybe could try to convince him that we were good enough to do some small hunts on our own.” He smiled at her, shrugging. “If you’re not in school, he’ll want us to follow him on hunts anyway.”
Her face fell-she hadn’t realized that not being in school meant that there would be nothing to tie her to a place for more than a few days. Nothing to keep her not with John. “Right. Yeah.”
As soon as they got back to the hotel, Dean pulled her close, kissing her senselessly. They walked towards the bed, Sam pushing off his jacket as he grinned against her neck. She felt oddly energized, kissing him again as his hands worked her jeans open. Their lips met in heady need and Sam felt like they were making up for lost time and time that would be stolen from them. They were making up for things that had yet to happen.
“Sammy,” he groaned in her ear as his hands slid up the skin of her back, and she shivered. Their eyes met and the realization of never being with him again rocked her body, made it hard to breathe. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she kept him against her, holding on tightly.
She couldn’t go. She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t survive without him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sam woke up to Dean’s arm still wrapped around her, loosely but possessively, as if he worried about losing her even in the night. Carefully, she inched herself upwards, trying to sit up without moving him too much. His head was only halfway on the pillow and he snored a little, drooling against it. Smiling to herself, Sam ran her finger lightly across the freckles on the bridge of his nose.
The morning light was shining easily through the window, whose blinds had seen better days. She suddenly felt uneasy in there, the midmorning glow surreal. The familiar bags and weapons of her childhood littered around the room seemed out of place, even though nothing had moved from the night before. Clearly, the shift was within her.
It wasn’t the only thing clear to her. The questions hurt and the answers hurt even more. Her life was made of questions that she didn’t want to know the answer to, things that hung unspoken in the air so long that she had forgotten what it was like not to breathe it in. For everyone but her father, their existence had stopped being about what had killed Mary. Sam was so far past that, it didn’t register until she looked in the mirror, until her father looked at her as if she should have been someone else, someone he loved.
She was unanchored, adrift in a sea of confusion about what she wanted. The weight of what she didn’t want held her down, but only far enough so that she would sink. She wouldn’t be her father and she wouldn’t be her mother, doomed to misery because they hadn’t been able to prevent it with actions or coincidence.
Sam was willing to sacrifice everything good she had for that elusive happiness, something she had once imagined so far beyond her grasp that it didn’t exist outside their world of blood and death.
Dean hurt. Everything about him hurt her, hurt with how perfect he was and how much she felt when she was with him. Time with him was like dreaming, like that waking point where you try so hard to fall back to sleep to capture the fleeting essence of that wonder that was untouched in waking.
What hurt the most was knowing that one day, the dreaming wouldn’t be enough, that she would long to live like she had never been allowed to. That one day, Dean wouldn’t be enough. The thought seized at her chest and she choked on the thought of how quickly her bitterness could grow, how soon she could resent him. She loved him, but she could hate him just as easily. It was a funny thing about Winchesters. Even her mother hadn’t managed to half-ass dying.
She couldn’t be her father. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life chasing shadows, hoping to regain a bit of perfection that may have never really been there in the first place.
After brushing a kiss against Dean’s temple, she moved out from under him, freezing as he shifted in his sleep. Once she was sure he was out, she pulled on one of his shirts and padded into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. Bobby couldn’t see her, but this wasn’t a phone call she wanted to make naked.
He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Bobby,” she said softly. The sound in here carried. “I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”
“No, no, I stopped sleeping years ago. What’s up, Sam?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When you get a chance, can you call your friend at the financial aid office? I’ve…I’ve decided to go to Stanford.”
“I’m proud of you, Sam,” he said, and she could hear it in his voice. It didn’t make it any easier. “Have you told Dean yet?”
Swallowing around the lump in her throat, she hesitated before saying, “Not yet. I’m gonna wait till Dad gets back. Make a family meeting out of it. I don’t wanna go through that chaos more than I have to.”
“I gotcha. Anywho, sounds like your daddy is gettin’ up, better go see what he’s up to. We should be home in a few days. I’ll see ya then.”
“Yeah, great. Thanks, Bobby.” The tears started as soon as she hung up. She set the phone on the counter and leaned on it, head in her hands as she sobbed quickly and silently. She didn’t allow herself more than a minute. There would be plenty of time later.
Once her face stopped being red and blotchy, she padded quietly back into the bedroom as Dean was stirring. “Sammy? Something wrong?”
She shook her head, peeling off his shirt and throwing it aside. “No, just checking on something.”
He grinned at her naked form. “Want breakfast?”
“Not yet,” she said, crawling back into bed again and kissing him softly. “Can we just…lay here for a bit? Please?”
Dean kissed her again, slowly and deeply, and she took the time to memorize every part of him as if he wasn’t half of her. “If that’s what you want.” Nodding, she rested her head against his chest, listening to their heartbeats sync up as he stroked his calloused hands down her back and kissed the top of her head. “You sure you’re okay, Sammy?”
She hated lying to him. “You know I love you, right, Dean?”
He shook his head while laughing. “God, you really are a girl sometimes.”
The words pierced her heart because she finally understood them. That was how Dean was saying he loved her, loved every part of her, every difference between them. She quickly blinked away her tears. “Yeah, I know.”
He kissed her head, then down to her lips, taking his time with her as if this day would go on forever. When they pulled away, breathing hard, he leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I love you, too, though.”
Sam just nodded, pressing her head to his neck and breathing him in. She planned to stay there with him, legs and hearts entangled, for as long as she could.
Master Post | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Soundtrack