A/N: Hi, it's been a while, WTE is killing me. I was just in a mood and this slipped out, I hope you enjoy. Have a lovely rest of your day!
Sometimes it hits him just how fucked up everything is. He'll take a look around at the crappy motels, the music in the Impala turned up too loud, the way they're always drifting, how Dad never is around, and sometimes it all conglomerates into a single point and smacks him the air right out of him like a soccer ball to the stomach.
I'm not normal.
It stings, every time; he doesn't have a mom, he knows how to shoot a gun and speak Latin and throw knives with chilling accuracy and he's in middle school.
He thinks if it weren't for Dean he'd either be dead by now or he would have run away, maybe he'd be in foster care or have a family and a home. Maybe it'd be different and when he is in the dark he wouldn't look for movement in the shadows or strain his ears for creaking floorboards.
So, at night, he thinks. He fantasizes about the life he wishes he could have. The white picket fence, a non-offensive two-story light-grey-colored house, a blonde wife who loves him and invites family over for the holidays, a car that doesn't stand out on the road.
But it always hits him that his life is fucked up, sometimes at three am when he's deep in fantasy land, by his dad getting up to sharpen the knives or check the salt lines.
And it aches. He wishes he never knew about monsters, that he'd never figured it out and that Dean kept him in the dark for the rest of his life. He wishes he didn't have nightmares detailing his own death a thousand different ways, or worse, the death of his brother. He always wakes up from them, face wet and only subtly gasping, like even in his trauma his brain knows not to disrupt the family sleeping.
In high school, sometimes it'll hit him during class. He'll hear something that distantly sounds like a werewolf howl and panic because he doesn't have a gun with silver bullets on him and he has to excuse himself to the bathroom to slide down against the cool tile wall to recalibrate his breathing until he feels okay again, or in the middle of a Calc exam his fingers will stutter over the calculator and he'll freeze, mishearing the teacher's high heels clicking across the floor as the cock of a gun about to be fired.
He does his best not to worry Dean with it.
But it builds and builds inside of him until he applies for college and Bobby forwards him the letter from Stanford and he opens it and sees they've offered him a full ride.
And the walls all break. Tears slide down his cheeks and he cries, reminiscent of how he does after nightmares: with quiet abandon that somehow doesn't at all affect the knot in his chest. Because now he has a choice.
And now it hits him how fucked up this is, telling his family about it, the way that any other family in the world would be proud, would be celebrating with him, would maybe even have tears in their eyes and it would be the best night of his life.
Instead he gets cold eyes and sharp words and "Never come back" and silence. He gets an envelope of cash whose front reads "For when Sammy leaves." He gets an aching heart, two duffle bags and a backpack, and a drive to the nearest bus stop.
He wants to say "I'm sorry," or "Come with me," or "Thank you," or "Please."
Instead he gives silence and is left with four heart wrenching sentences.
"I knew you were going to leave, I just didn't know when. Well, I guess now's the time. Make the most of it, Sam. And if you forget everything that you went through before you step onto that campus, I wouldn't blame you." The "Sam" stings, and Dean gives him a smile, the one meant to dazzle women at the bars they sneak into or happen upon anywhere, the one that always made him think Dean could be a movie star, the one that looks genuine unless you're Sammy Winchester and he's your brother and you can see that he's breaking.
He knows that if he opens his mouth that he'll stay.
So instead he presses his lips together, tears his gaze from his brother, and looks out the front window of the Impala for a minute, the dark horizon and street lights turned on, bathing everything in an orange-yellow glow under the night sky.
Through the heavy feeling that sets upon him, he lifts an arm and opens the door, finally looking out into the cold night.
It hits him how fucked up this is, again, that all he wanted is normalcy and all he gets is his world turned upon its head and the brother he thought would never leave his side is about to drive away as he stands in a deserted bus stop with bags around him.
He wants to yell, to scream, to tell Dean goodbye, order him to turn around, but instead he keeps silent as he watches the Impala turn around and drive away, the familiar engine noise dwindling in the otherwise silent night.
It hits him how fucked up this is, and with everything he's ever known on the chopping block he adds his brother and the "my" from his name and slices his entire identity right down the middle.
He's Sam Winchester now. A normal guy just trying his best to get away from his overbearing military father through the route of college avoidance. He gets straight As, he's a nerd, and he likes cross-country running. He's an only child.
With that, Sam squares his shoulders, turns around, and with his bags begins to board the bus that pulls up, headed vaguely west; an apology, a scream, and a question unwanted still lingering on his lips.