Something Great (Stanford Sam/coda to 1x08, 670 words)
OK so this is something else cross-posted from elsewhere. I hit 10k followers on my Tumblr page so I wanted to do something to celebrate. I got people to prompt me episodes from each season and I'm going to make or write something to go with each one. The first was Bugs, 1x08. I made a gifset, here, but I also wrote this (Tumblr post is here):
Free, Sam says to himself as he hurries down the pavement, free at last. He’s happy. Of course he’s happy. He’s gonna do it, really do it, right now, gonna get on the next damn bus out of this shithole town and schlep himself and his duffel bag all the way across the continent. Stanford. He’s seen the brochures, pored over the pictures online. Big and bright and sunny and clean. Full of normal people - clever people, interesting people - but normal people, who aren’t gonna look at him sideways for wanting to do normal things like play sports and read books and make something better of himself. And it’s sunny there, not fucking grey and miserable like it’s felt for the past six months, sunny and California and he’s going to go to the goddamn beach. O-kay.
Until this afternoon he’d been more’n half-sure it wouldn’t ever happen, too scared to tell Dean or Dad what he was doing, too scared every single day of this summer and the weeks had crawled by and he still hadn’t told them and every morning he’d woken up and thought I’m gonna tell them today and every night he’d gone to bed knowing he was chicken-shit worthless and didn’t deserve to leave anyway. And. And then he’d come in today from his lawnmowing job and Dad was back, sitting at the table looking thunder-heavy at the wall and his hand on the table, resting on his gun, and in front of it the folded up letter Sam had been carrying in his bag for the past six states. Sam had honest to God thought Dad was gonna shoot him, just for a moment, felt a sharp jerk of fear across his chest and thought Dean’s gonna be furious but of course that didn’t happen. And of course Dean was furious, but not at Dad; had stalked out of the kitchen with his arms folded to look on silent and accusing while Dad let rip and Sam dug out from deep inside himself all the accumulated misery that had got him here in the first place, all the fights and the squabbles and the constant, suffocating pressure of being somebody that he hated and not even doing that well. Fuck you, he’d said, straight to his Dad’s face, fuck you for never even seeing how unhappy I am.
Christ, Dad had said, all we ever hear about is how unhappy you are, Sam, not much of a fucking hunter if I missed that one. This is ridiculous and you know it’s ridiculous. You need to stop being such a baby and get real. Look at Dean.
Fuck you, Sam had said again, Fuck you and fuck Dean, livid at his brother’s silent support for their father, livid with Dean for his flip-flopping concern for Sam’s wellbeing and his constant, wearying coaxing to suck it up and be happy and just let everything be okay. I can’t, Sam thought, I just can’t do it any more, and he’d gritted his teeth and jutted his jaw and grabbed his bag from the couch beside him, left there in readiness for the next fucking day on the road, and spun around and groped for the door handle through eyes that couldn’t quite see.
If you go, John had told him, don’t you ever come back.
Shows how much his Dad knows him, saying that; or maybe it does show exactly how much Dad knows him and shows, too, how utterly done he is, how glad he is to get Sam off his back at last. Because there’s nothing that could have prompted Sam out of that door faster than the kind of horrible ultimatum that’s kept him pinned down so long.
So. He did it, slammed the door behind him on his family and strode out down the road, and here he is and he’s nineteen years old and alone in the world, and he’s gonna be really fucking happy just as soon as he can stop crying, okay?
Free, Sam says to himself as he hurries down the pavement, free at last. He’s happy. Of course he’s happy. He’s gonna do it, really do it, right now, gonna get on the next damn bus out of this shithole town and schlep himself and his duffel bag all the way across the continent. Stanford. He’s seen the brochures, pored over the pictures online. Big and bright and sunny and clean. Full of normal people - clever people, interesting people - but normal people, who aren’t gonna look at him sideways for wanting to do normal things like play sports and read books and make something better of himself. And it’s sunny there, not fucking grey and miserable like it’s felt for the past six months, sunny and California and he’s going to go to the goddamn beach. O-kay.
Until this afternoon he’d been more’n half-sure it wouldn’t ever happen, too scared to tell Dean or Dad what he was doing, too scared every single day of this summer and the weeks had crawled by and he still hadn’t told them and every morning he’d woken up and thought I’m gonna tell them today and every night he’d gone to bed knowing he was chicken-shit worthless and didn’t deserve to leave anyway. And. And then he’d come in today from his lawnmowing job and Dad was back, sitting at the table looking thunder-heavy at the wall and his hand on the table, resting on his gun, and in front of it the folded up letter Sam had been carrying in his bag for the past six states. Sam had honest to God thought Dad was gonna shoot him, just for a moment, felt a sharp jerk of fear across his chest and thought Dean’s gonna be furious but of course that didn’t happen. And of course Dean was furious, but not at Dad; had stalked out of the kitchen with his arms folded to look on silent and accusing while Dad let rip and Sam dug out from deep inside himself all the accumulated misery that had got him here in the first place, all the fights and the squabbles and the constant, suffocating pressure of being somebody that he hated and not even doing that well. Fuck you, he’d said, straight to his Dad’s face, fuck you for never even seeing how unhappy I am.
Christ, Dad had said, all we ever hear about is how unhappy you are, Sam, not much of a fucking hunter if I missed that one. This is ridiculous and you know it’s ridiculous. You need to stop being such a baby and get real. Look at Dean.
Fuck you, Sam had said again, Fuck you and fuck Dean, livid at his brother’s silent support for their father, livid with Dean for his flip-flopping concern for Sam’s wellbeing and his constant, wearying coaxing to suck it up and be happy and just let everything be okay. I can’t, Sam thought, I just can’t do it any more, and he’d gritted his teeth and jutted his jaw and grabbed his bag from the couch beside him, left there in readiness for the next fucking day on the road, and spun around and groped for the door handle through eyes that couldn’t quite see.
If you go, John had told him, don’t you ever come back.
Shows how much his Dad knows him, saying that; or maybe it does show exactly how much Dad knows him and shows, too, how utterly done he is, how glad he is to get Sam off his back at last. Because there’s nothing that could have prompted Sam out of that door faster than the kind of horrible ultimatum that’s kept him pinned down so long.
So. He did it, slammed the door behind him on his family and strode out down the road, and here he is and he’s nineteen years old and alone in the world, and he’s gonna be really fucking happy just as soon as he can stop crying, okay?