Fic: Sleeping Desire (Sam/Dean, NC-17) Part 1 of 2

[smalltrolven]

Title: Sleeping Desire

Author: smalltrolven

Pairing: Sam/Dean

Rating: NC-17

Wordcount: 7,866

Warning: Schmoop-filled to the brim.

Author’s Note: Not my characters, only my words. Written for the 2019 spn-meanttobe for prompt 56, Sleeping Desire.

“Sara had run away from Alex Stevenson's demands of unquestioning love, but her amnesia made her forget her year away from him. Until she saw the woman who had caused the break up of their marriage. Then shatteringly, everything fell back into place and she saw the caring and protestations of love were all part of the plan to make her stop their divorce. Her parents were in on that, too, constantly trying to bring them together. All of them treated her like a child - they didn't seem to realise that the pain and hurt of the past year had made her grow up into a confident woman, sure of what she wanted. But was she so sure of not wanting Alex?”

Summary: Sam wakes up in Kermit, Texas on Amelia’s front porch. He’s badly beaten and bleeding, with a whole month worth of memories just gone. He finally recalls writing a horrible note for Dean after a fight they’d had on a hunt. Does Sam even have a home to go back to?

Read it over on AO3 right here.

*****



When he sees their house, it all comes crashing back in on him. All the pain he was trying to run away from in the first place, losing Dean like that, essentially losing himself. He’d never dealt with it back then, and there’s so much more of it now that he’s been carrying around. No wonder he’s exhausted and forgetting everything. System overload…system collapse…system reboot.

Maybe that’s what this is, a chance at starting over again. He stumbles up the familiar slate pathway and up on to the yellow painted porch. The porch light is on, and he can hear the tv blaring from inside. He tries the front door’s handle, but it’s locked. He takes a chance and knocks.

The next thing he knows, Amelia is helping him get up. He must have collapsed in front of her and then there’s a man too. It must be her husband, right in his face too. All out on their front porch, the one that Sam had painted this ugly yellow. It was ugly then, and it was worse now in its current faded state. It’s been a few years.

“Amelia, we need to call the police, they should definitely handle this,” The man says, what is his name, Sam really should be able to remember, he struggles around in the mixed-up contents he’s got upstairs and comes up with David, no Dan or Don, it’s one of those, definitely starts with a D and is one short syllable.

“No cops, please,” Sam says to no one in particular. He hopes Amelia will stick up for him this one last time. If there ever was a first time.

“This is Sam, the guy I was telling you about. He’s the one who saved me, so you had someone to come home to,” Amelia says, keeping her hand on Sam’s forearm.

Amelia’s husband (Dan or Don or whatever it is?) puts out a meaty hand to shake like this is some normal introduction. Sam forces himself to pull it together enough to shake his hand in as manly a manner as possible. He needs to get the fuck out of there. This was all kinds of wrong coming here, there was no point to it, so why in all the places in the world had he ended up here?

“Sam, is there someone we can call or should we take you to the hospital?” Amelia asks, still squeezing his forearm.

“No, I’m okay, I’ve got to-uh, get back on the road. Gotta get going, go home.” Wait, does he even have a car here? And if so where the fuck is it?

“I really don’t think you should be driving, dude,” Dan (or Don?) says.

“I don’t think you should be telling me what to do, dude,” Sam says, emphasis on the dude. He tries standing up to his full height and squaring his shoulders to emphasize the point.

Amelia steps between them and puts her hand firmly in the middle of Sam’s chest, pushing him back gently, almost enough to make him stumble. “Sam, I just want you to be okay.”

“I know…I know that, thanks, Amelia. I am okay, really…mostly I guess. I just need to-go,” Sam says in a mumble. He briefly enfolds her in a hug, glaring at Dan (or Don?) over her shoulder. “Thanks for helping me again, I didn’t mean to mess anything up here.”

Amelia pats him on the back a couple of times and lets him go. “You didn’t mess up anything, Sam. Except for maybe your poor face,” Amelia says, examining the cuts on his face with one gentle hand under the porch light. “I really think we ought to run you over to County General, looks to me like you need more than a few stitches.”

Sam takes a few steps backwards from her and almost wipes out on the porch steps. He steadies himself on the railing, trying to stand up straight. What is wrong with his balance? He’s not drunk, he doesn’t feel drunk at all, just unsteady and unsure. “Nah, I’m just gonna go. Thanks for helping me, it was good seeing you again. Bye, Dan, it was nice meeting you.”

He walks off down the familiar front pathway, the one he’d re-graveled and installed the slate stepping stones when they’d first moved in all those years ago. He hears Dan’s voice say something about, “It’s Don actually.” But it’s not worth re-engaging, he’s got to keep moving forward, and get away, quick, before she figures how messed-up he really is.

The Amelia he knew before would have insisted on taking him to the hospital immediately. She would have hustled him into her car, she wouldn’t have let him just stumble off into the darkness alone, bleeding from all these head wounds. But she’s got Don again, she doesn’t need him like she used to, or who knows if she ever really did. Sam sure as hell doesn’t know, and doesn’t care enough to stick around and force the issue. The more pressing question at the moment is where the fuck is his car? And if he doesn’t have one here, then how did he get all the way here to Kermit?

Think, Sam, think. He rubs at his forehead in-between the sore and still bleeding places trying to put his memory back in order. Step it through, what was the first thing you remember? I was walking down the street looking for Amelia’s house. Ok, what came before that? Pain, lots of it, everywhere all at once. Sam pats himself down, besides the head wounds he’s got at least one broken rib, his knuckles feel like hamburger and his belly feels deeply bruised. Bar fight then? Or monster?  Maybe both?

That’s it, monster, what was the monster he and Dean were hunting? It had been some kind of cryptid, on a tear through a small town in where was it…Kentucky somewhere. Wayne County, right there on the edge of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Sam hadn’t been sure about which cryptid it was, and they’d gone in kind of blind because Dean had gotten antsy and insisted they needed to get it before it killed again. He was right, but of course it hadn’t gone well. They’d barely managed to kill the thing, and then they’d had a big fight on the way back to their motel. He remembers coming out of the motel bathroom and finding their room empty. Dean had left, no jacket, no keys, a faint roar of the Impala taking off confirming he was on his own. What else, what else was there?

A car’s headlights washes over him from behind. A familiar voice calls out from the car which is now slowly driving beside him at his not-quite walking, more like shambling pace. “Sam, c’mon get in, at least let me stitch you up at my clinic.”

Sam’s surprised at the relief he feels flooding through him. She still cares, that’s unexpected after how they’d left things. He climbs into her car and relaxes against the seat, glad for the headrest. If this was the Impala he wouldn’t even have one to flop against. The Impala…Dean, where was he? And did he care? After that fight, maybe not?

Sam remembers all of a sudden, a cold wash of fear flooding through him, he remembers every bit of sitting at the scratched formica table, writing a note to leave for Dean in their motel room. Every single poisonous word he’d written is blinking neon warning bright in his mind. This wasn’t him, he didn’t even think these kinds of things much less commit them to paper. But he had.

Dean,

I’m assuming you only left temporarily to blow off steam after our fight, so that if you’re reading this, you’re wondering where the fuck I am. I’ll tell you where-I’m gone. I’m done. As in don’t bother trying to track me down. I can’t do this anymore. You don’t know what you want or need me for, and I can’t tell if I even matter to you at all. So I need to leave.

Have a nice rest of your life (which probably won’t be too long the way you’re going),

Sam

He could see it, the note scrawled on the top page of a yellow notepad, held down by his cellphone. He had left his cell so that he’d be even more untraceable, so Dean knew that he really meant what he’d written. He could see himself like he was watching a movie, could see himself leaving, not even taking his laptop or anything else. He could see into himself, the feeling of starting over, starting fresh, cutting all ties. He can see himself feeling free and like he could do anything, exhilarated at finally making a clean break. He saw an overhead view somehow, of himself walking out of the motel parking lot and down the side of a dark highway.

Sam came back to himself with a near-sob, why the fuck had he done something like that? How long ago had it been, and how freaked out was Dean at this point?

“You okay, Sam? You in a lot of pain?” Amelia asks from the driver’s side. They’ve pulled into the familiar parking lot of her vet office. The lights are off, but she has the keys of course. “C’mon, let’s get you inside and I’ll check you over.”

“Is it Monday, the third of February?” Sam mumbles as she helps him out of the car.

“No, it’s Saturday, March seventh. And it’s twenty-twenty in case you’re wondering what year. What happened, were you on some kind of bender?”

“Something like that,” Sam mumbles, sitting on the exam table and wincing when she turns on the bright operating lights.

“Oooh, shit, this is way worse than I thought. Can you take it if I stitch you up, or do you need something for the pain first?” Amelia asks, hands gentle on his face turning him this way and that.

“I’m-I’m good, go for it,” Sam says, trying to pull himself together before the sharp pain of the needle hits.

“This is going to scar, Sam. You really should be having this done by a plastic surgeon. I’m just good for stitching up dog bellies where it doesn’t really matter.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Sam says, thinking that there’s really no one left that cares what the hell his face looks like. “Please, just get it over with.”

Amelia just hums and pats him on the shoulder, her cloud of brown hair puffs out behind her as she turns to get the suture kits ready.

Her patter as she stitches him up is all about her life and Don, and how their now old dog Riot is doing, mostly light stuff, but all about how well she’s gotten her life together without him. It isn’t until she’s done stitching his face together that she finally tells him.

“I waited for you, you know. At the place where we said we’d meet? I waited for two whole days, just hoping like the complete idiot I am. And then you didn’t show, and I made myself move on like I guess you wanted me to,” Amelia says with a grimace at herself.

“Good, that’s good, I’m glad,” Sam says, trying not to meet her eyes. He’s so relieved that she’s moved on. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with her issues on top of his own.

“It didn’t work though, the moving on part. I mean…I guess I fake it well enough to keep Don mostly happy, but I’d honestly rather…”

“Rather what?” Sam asks, not really caring what she says next. It doesn’t have anything to do with his life or what he cares about, because he’s most definitely moved on.

“I probably shouldn’t say it, but I’d rather just take off with you and start over,” Amelia admits, caressing the skin of Sam’s neck. She disguises it as wiping the blood off, but that’s what it is. Sam can tell by the way her breathing changes, he remembers how she’d get.

Sam sits up and starts to shuffle away on the exam table. She stops him and leans in for a kiss. He lets her but doesn’t kiss her back.

“Oh…oh, no,” Amelia says, turning away from him and covering her mouth like she’s wiping him away.

“Amelia, listen, it’s complicated, okay? I made a choice, I moved on, and I’ve been happy, as happy as I ever have been. And I hoped…well I’d hoped you were too,” Sam says, hating that he has to make it all better for her on top of everything else. It’s the least he can do to pay for the free stitches. He’d thought he loved her at one point, and maybe he really had. It was always hard to tell when Dean was always there taking up all the space in his heart and his head.

“I really can’t fuck things up more than I already have, so why don’t I drop you off at your car or the bus station or whatever,” Amelia says, still not turning back around to face him. She’s doing that hug yourself thing, he can see her shoulders are shaking, and he doesn’t-no he can’t fucking deal with her tears right now. He needs to get back to Dean, try to take it all back, undo it, that’s the only thing that matters.

“That’s okay, I’m not parked too far away from here. I’ll just get out of your hair, thanks again,” Sam says, trying to get out the door before this goes any further.

She shuffles around in a drawer and throws some stuff in a small plastic bag. “Here’s some antiseptic wipes, bandages and a course of antibiotics. Take care of yourself, Sam.” Her big eyes rove over his face looking for any hint of caring, but he’s got nothing left over for her anymore. Not even enough energy left to put on a show in this moment. It’s better if she knows that.

“Thanks, Amelia, I never deserved someone like you,” Sam says, and this time he actually makes it through the door and out into the cool night. The light breeze feels good moving across his face as he speed-walks out of her office’s parking lot and out of the glow of the streetlights.

He watches as Amelia’s car pulls out of the lot and she speeds away into the darkness. He feels such relief he almost laughs, except his face hurts too much. Sam pats at his jean pockets and is glad to find he at least has his wallet. There’s some cash and a few credit cards. But no car keys, and no cell phone. He recalls again that he’d left his cell behind in that Kentucky motel room, on top of the note he’d written Dean.

Dean would be doing what at this point? Would he still be in Kentucky a month later, or would he have driven back home to the bunker? Does Sam even get to call it home after what he’d written?

Sam walks towards the closest bright lights, hoping for a convenience store with a cell phone for sale that he has enough cash to buy. There is one a few blocks away, an enormous Buc-Ee’s, thank all the gods and goddesses. He blinks at the harsh overhead fluorescent lights inside, but quickly finds a display of cheap cell phones. He's happy to fork over extra for one that claims it comes pre-charged. Along with a few Five-Hour energy bottles and a nut-bar at the counter, it comes to more than the cash that he has on hand. He takes a chance and swipes one of the credit cards through the cash register and is relieved that it still works. Not like he’d really thought Dean would cut him off or anything-well maybe he’d thought that briefly.

He’s been gone for more than a month. Either Dean hasn’t bothered tracking him via the use of their credit cards, or Sam hasn’t been using them-but he’s been living how exactly? Sam’s memory is stubbornly blank on that. Really the last thing he remembers is seeing himself from overhead walking away from the motel in Kentucky, then awakening when he saw Amelia’s house. And he’d only woken up because it had been their house. As in a familiar place, the last home he’d known before the bunker. How he had gotten from Kentucky to Texas, and what he’d done in-between is still a complete black-box mystery at this point.

He sits outside the Buc-Ee’s at one of the tables where people can eat their pre-made sandwiches and chips and enormous sodas when pulling off the nearby highway. He downs two of the Five-Hour energy bottles and un-boxes the phone. It immediately turns on, with full bars of charge and full bars of cell service. He takes a deep breath and dials Dean’s phone number. It rings several times and goes over to voice mail. The wash of relief coursing through him, just at hearing his brother’s voice on the message reminds him of all those times he’d done just this when he’d lost Dean to the Leviathans. How he’d called his number over and over again just to hear him say. “Hey, lucky you, you’ve reached Dean Winchester, do your thing.” Every single time, the ‘Hey’ at the beginning had made his stomach swoop with hope that it was actually Dean picking up for real.

Now it was beeping in his ear and he has to say something, has to come up with a message to leave Dean.

“Hi, Dean, it’s me. I’m in Texas, and I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know why I wrote you that note in Kentucky either. I’m not sure of anything, except I need to talk to you. Call me.”

He hangs up and sets the phone on the table next to the small empty bottles, willing it to immediately ring with Dean calling him back. He doesn’t have any of Dean’s other phone numbers memorized, or Castiel’s either. Curse of modernity and all, expecting our devices to remember for us. Sam can feel the energy drinks buzzing through him and downs the other two. He follows it up with the nut-bar to have something for his stomach to hopefully stop growling at him.

As the nut bar and energy drinks fizzle in his stomach he looks up the bus schedule to get back to the bunker. It’s going to be a long one, like twenty hours. But it’ll be worth it, if Dean’s there to come back to.

Sam looks up at the night sky, the stars not really visible through all the gas-station lighting and sends out his silent plea. “Please, Dean, please.” It's worth a try, sometimes it’s worked in the past, not that he’s ever told his brother that of course.

The phone rings. It's Dean’s number on the screen.

He picks it up, hand shaking with a rush of emotion, “Dean?”

“Hey, just got your message that you’re in Texas. You okay?”

No Sam or Sammy coming from Dean, what does it mean? “Uh…yeah, I’m fi-no, I’m not fine, not really. I’m in Kermit and I don’t know how I got here or why I left.”

“I see…you got money to get home?” Dean asks, short and to the point.

“Yeah, I mean the credit card just worked, it’s how I bought this phone. I can get a bus up to Belleville, it leaves in the morning. That’s the closest I can get to Lebanon. Can you pick me up over there? According to the Greyhound website, it’ll take me twenty hours.”

“Nah, I’ll just drive down and get you there in Kermit,” Dean says. “That’s only like, what maybe ten hours.”

The relief Sam feels makes it hard to speak. “I…thanks, I’m at the Buc-Ee’s, it’s hard to miss.”

“I’ll be there in ten, Sammy, don’t move,” Dean says.

“Thanks, Dean,” Sam says, the relief turns to something else when he hears Dean use his nickname.

“Call me if anything changes,” Dean says.

“It okay if I call you while you’re driving?” Sam asks, so damn needy, but he can’t help it. It’s going to be a long and lonely ten hours.

“Yeah, of course, Sammy, call whenever. I’ll see you soon, huh?” Dean says.

“Yeah, bye, Dean. Thanks for…” Sam trails off, not sure whether to say ‘for forgiving me’ or ‘for giving me a pass’ or what, because he’s still not sure what really happened in Kentucky.

“It’s all good, I’ll explain when I get there,” Dean says.

“Okay, bye,” Sam says, still not wanting to hang up.

“I’m hanging up so I can get my shit together and leave,” Dean says, hitting the button as he chuckles.

Hearing that familiar chuckle makes Sam feel a million times better. It was all good, Dean wasn’t just saying that, he had meant it. It was going to be a long ten hours sitting here wondering what he’d done for a month.

A few hours later he’s finishing off a breakfast burrito when a shadow falls over his table. Sam looks up and sees a man that looks familiar but he can’t place him.

“Sam, you’re still here?” the man asks.

“Who are you?” Sam asks, the man’s face looks surprised and then wary. Sam realizes he’s seen his picture before, it had been on Amelia’s desk. “Oh hey, you must be Don, I remember seeing you in Amelia’s pictures. It’s nice to finally meet you,” Sam says extending a hand to shake, then remembers he’s already been introduced, a few hours ago, last night at the house, this man’s house, where he lives with Amelia. Sam’s short term memory is apparently shot to shit also.

Don doesn’t take Sam’s offered hand to shake, just frowning at it instead. “Listen, I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to do here, dude. But she chose me, and that means you need to stay the hell away from her.”

Sam knows for a fact that Don is wrong, that Amelia had chosen him actually, but he doesn’t want to make things worse. He stops himself from saying what he wants to and does the right thing instead. “I know, Don, I’m not here to steal her from you, I got in a bad fight, I mean-obviously look at me. And I basically woke up here in Kermit, on your front porch. Probably because it was familiar, who really knows though. I’m sorry, please don’t take it out on her.”

“I wouldn’t-why would you say that? I’m not taking anything out on her, I love her, I love Amelia,” Don says.

“Good, that’s good, she always talked about you, how much you’d loved her. We got each other through a hard time, I thought I’d lost someone too. It all worked out, we’re with the people we’re supposed to be with. Well, I was up until pretty recently. But it’s all good, I’ll be out of town in a few hours, and I won’t be back, okay?”

“Okay, that’s good, Sam. I…uh, I’m sorry for being a dick about it,” Don says.

“Like I said, it’s all good, dude, I get it. She’s a woman worth fighting for,” Sam says, conscious of re-using Dean’s recent phrase, ‘it’s all good’, even though it’s really really not.

“She is, she really is worth it. Just thinking about her, coming back to her, when I was stuck in an Afghanistan POW camp, that’s what got me through.”

“I’m really glad you came back to her, Amelia only deserves good things,” Sam says.

“Just, don’t come back again. She gets this look when she talks about you, and I…” Don trails off, and Sam understands that this guy knows, deep down he knows that he was Amelia’s second choice and that Sam was number one.

“I swear I won’t, Don. She’s all yours, I’ve got my person, and she’s got you.”

“Your person, is she coming for you?” Don asks.

“He is, yeah, he’s driving to pick me up, it’s going to be another eight hours of waiting though,” Sam says.

“You should come home with me for lunch. Amelia’s at work, but her lunch break is pretty soon, and you can hang out with Riot for a while.”

“That’s a really nice offer, Don. But I don’t want to get in her face again, it’s probably better for everyone if I just hang out here and wait until my ride comes.”

“I insist,” Don says, pulling Sam up from the table with an arm under his elbow. Sam scrambles to pocket his new cellphone.

Sam goes against his better judgement and goes along with him instead of resisting. Even though it is really weird that just a moment ago, Don had been telling him to leave and never come back and now he all of a sudden wants him to hang out at his house? Sam’s wish to see Riot again wins out, he’s really missed having an awesome dog like him, and it was still hours until Dean was going to even be close to getting to Kermit.

“Sure, why not, I didn’t get a chance to say hi to Riot last night,” Sam says.

He follows Don back to his vehicle, an older Ford F-150. “Was this your truck before?”

“Yeah, my dad kept it running while I was gone,” Don says, turning onto their street.

All the houses are so familiar, Sam remembers walking Riot past them at least twice a day, waving to neighbors and meeting other dogs. It had been a little suburban fantasy for a few months. He’d probably been more attached to that than to Amelia herself. Sad but true.

Don unlocks the front door and waves Sam in ahead of him. The door is closed, the hallway dark and something hard hits Sam on the back of the head and he’s gone-again.

Part Two