Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
This takes place when Sam is 15. Set somewhere after the events of the flashback in 7x03 but my timeline is probably a little off so sorry about that.
This will be a short story, only 2 chapters.
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"Dammit, Dean!" John hissed. He lowered the phone away from his ear for a moment before bringing it back up to relay his commands. "Stay put and try not to cause any more trouble. I can be there in two hours."
John ended the call with his eldest son and turned to face Sam. Sam was sitting quietly on his lumpy motel bed trying to finish a book he had checked out from the library before it was time to speed off to another dumpy motel in another crap town. It was late in the summer so John was trying to squeeze in as many hunts as possible before the school year started and he was slightly tied down. Each new school meant more paperwork.
Dean was nineteen now and had been out of the public school system for a while. When John told him to get his GED, the boy hadn't uttered a word of opposition on the matter. Sam on the other hand, refused to consider it and was determined to stay in school as long as possible. Sometimes John thought the boy did it just to drive him up the wall.
"Alright, you're holding down camp for tonight. Dean and I will be back before noon tomorrow if everything goes according to plan. Sit tight. Keep the door locked, and be on alert. Understood?"
"Is Dean ok?" Sam asked.
"Understood?" John repeated.
"Yes, sir." Sam spat out.
"Dean is fine. He's just an idiot," John turned his attention away from Sam but continued muttering under his breath, "I send him on a simple salt and burn and in less than twelve hours he manages to get himself arrested."
John shoved a few items into a duffle bag and headed for the door.
"Be ready to roll out tomorrow morning," John instructed and with that he was out the door. Not a minute passed before Sam heard a key in the lock and watched as his dad came striding back into the room.
"Why the hell wasn't the chain on this door Sam?" John asked in a raised voice. "I thought I raised you better than this."
"Sorry," Sam mumbled. He slid off of the bed and over to the door so he could slide the chain into place once his father was gone.
"Came back in to tell you there should be some money in the pocket of Dean's jacket. In case you get hungry. Only the vending machines and the mini market in the lobby. I don't want you wandering around alone at night."
"It's four in the afternoon."
"Sam –"
"Alright, fine. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not a kid anymore dad. I know the drill."
"Good." John looked down at his son. Sam had always been a bit of a runt, but now with his messy hair and collection of tiny scrapes and cuts thanks to the poltergeist they had just taken care of, he looked even more like a helpless kid.
"Now, lock this and keep it locked." John commanded. He shut the door and once again Sam was alone in the motel room.
Sam quickly slid the chain into place. He listened as his dad fired up his truck and peeled out of the motel parking lot.
The hours passed slowly. The light peaking in from behind the closed curtains was growing dim and soon it started to rain.
Sam finished his book and decided he was hungry enough to start figuring out what to eat for dinner. He took a quick inventory of the kitchenette: a stale donut, two pieces of left over pizza (claimed/licked by Dean), and an open package of ramen noodles without a seasoning packet. Sam was convinced that Dean made the best ramen noodles, but it was only because he would use multiple seasoning packets for one packet of noodles. This often led to an excess of bland noodles, which was a real disappointment.
Sam decided to try his luck with the vending machine a few doors down. He reached into Dean's coat pocket and pulled out a small wad of ones and fives. Much to his surprise he also pulled out a seasoning packet for ramen noodles!
"Sweet!" Sam exclaimed. He set the money down on the small table and took the seasoning over to the little counter where he already had a bowl set out in front of the microwave. He ripped open the packet and shook out the contents. Only…it wasn't chicken flavoured seasoning…it was a condom.
"Gross! Dean!" Sam shouted out to the empty room. Sam discarded the unwanted item and it's wrapper in the trash and grabbed the money off of the table.
It was raining outside so Sam walked quickly from his room to the covered vending machine area. He was deep in thought regarding the choice before him when he heard a loud steady knock. Sam turned to see a pretty dark haired girl standing in the rain and pounding on the door to a room not far from his. Sam had noticed her before, how could he not, especially with Dean for an older brother. Dean had pointed her out when they first checked in, but had decided she looked too young.
"Jailbait, Sammy…Ah, it pains me." Dean had said gripping his chest in mock-heartache.
She had caught the two brothers looking at her once in the parking lot. She was buying a drink from the vending machine and they were loading up to head out for the hunt. Dean offered a cocky smile and casual wave, Sam turned red and slid into the backseat of the impala to hide. She smiled and shook her head at them with a little laugh.
Now she wasn't smiling, and she definitely wasn't laughing.
"Mom?" The girl called out. "Mom, if you're inside please open up."
There was no response from inside the room. The rain was coming down hard and even though the girl hadn't been knocking for long she was already soaking wet.
Sam tried to focus back on his dinner decision, he didn't want to seem nosy or like some kind of rude onlooker.
"Mom!" The girl cried out. She continued knocking, but the intensity of her pounding died down until it was just a gentle tap.
Sam finally decided on two packets of Pop-Tarts, a small bag of pretzels, apple juice, and a soda. After making his purchases he cast a sideways glance at the girl. She had given up knocking was now sitting in the rain with her back against the wall.
"Hey, uh, are you okay?" Sam asked. He approached her cautiously, trying not to come off as creepy or invasive of her privacy.
The girl looked up, surprised to see somebody next to her. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand like a tired little kid, and tucked some loose wet strands of hair behind her ears.
"Yeah, sorry. I'm fine." She said, trying to sound confident in her answer.
"Got locked out?" Sam asked. He shivered a little as he spoke.
"Yeah," the girl started chipping away at her nail polish. "So stupid. I always have my key on me, but of course today I leave it at home…and then it rains."
"Maybe you could ask the guy in the lobby to open it up for you." Sam suggested.
The girl just shook her head in the negative.
"Do you want me to ask for you?"
"No," the girl said. She smiled up at Sam and her smile made his knees shake a little, "That's really kind of you to offer. But…it's not that I'm too shy to ask, it's just…well the guy at the desk is a creep. I don't really want him knowing I'm in my room alone…if you know what I mean."
"Oh," Sam said. His eyes wide. "That sucks."
The girl just laughed.
"Do you think your mom will be back soon?"
"No," the girl sighed. "On Friday's she does this thing where she tells me she's going to therapy and then comes home the next morning smelling like she was swimming in tequila all night."
"I..I'm sorry." Sam said.
"Ugh, it's fine. I'm the one who should be sorry. I don't know why I'm telling you my whole life story. Plus, it's fine. I'll be fine. Maybe she will come early this time."
The girl looked out at the empty parking lot, and then back up to Sam.
"Is your family gone too?" She asked.
Sam knew it was never ok to tell strangers that he was alone, no matter how harmless they appeared, but he couldn't help the words from falling out of his mouth.
"Yeah, I'm alone for the night. My dad and brother should be back around noon tomorrow."
"Cool."
Sam nodded and continued to stand in the pouring rain. He knew what he was about to say next broke just about every motel rule John Winchester had in place, but he said it anyways.
"If you want, you can wait in my room until your mom comes back." Sam blurted out in one fast gush. "But I mean only if you want. Just because it's raining."
"I don't even know your name," the girl said with a smile. The boy in front of her was obviously shy and just trying to be polite. He looked so young there was an innocence in his eyes that was hard to look away from.
"Right, no of course," Sam said, "I wasn't trying to be creepy, but it's kind of impossible to say 'hey want to come into my motel room' in any context without sounding like some kind of pervert I guess. Not that I think –"
"Hey," the girl laughed a little, "it's fine. I know what you meant and I was just teasing you a little. It's actually super nice of you to offer, but are you sure it would be ok?"
"Yeah, it's no problem." Sam said, although he was sure John Winchester would be saying otherwise.
"You're sure?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"Ok," the girl grabbed her purse, stood, and followed Sam down to his room. "I'm Jessie by the way."
"Sam."
Sam opened the motel door and let Jessie inside. He did a quick visual sweep of the room and was happy to see no exposed weapons or weird hunting paraphernalia.
"You know, it's not a regular thing for me to just stroll into a strange man's hotel room," Jessie said taking a seat at the little table. She set her purse down on the table and started emptying the contents to let them dry out; lip-gloss, compact mirror, gum, cell phone, etc…
"Well I'm not really a man, uh strange man, well I mean I'm kind of just a kid. Not like a little kid. I'm fifteen."
Jessie laughed at the redness that had taken over Sam's face.
"You're funny Sam," Jessie said. "I'm sorry if I'm making you nervous. I don't mean to. So…are you and your family staying long?"
"No, we leave tomorrow."
"Oh," Jessie said, sounding a little disappointed. She looked down at the wet spots they were creating on the carpet with their dripping wet clothes.
"What about you?" Sam asked. He set his dinner down on the table and took a seat.
"I don't know how long we'll be here for. We were only supposed to stay a few weeks while my mom sorted things out after the divorce, but it's been like three months now and I don't really see us leaving anytime soon."
Sam didn't really know how to respond to that so instead he opened up his treats and offered them to Jessie. She refused at first, but Sam insisted. Jessie downed the drink Sam gave her and then asked if she could also get some water.
"Sorry, I think I'm just a little dehydrated." She said.
"No problem," Sam stood. He opened the fridge for one of the water bottles the motel supplied, but there were no waters left, there was only a twelve pack of beer. "We don't have any bottled water. Is tap water ok?"
"What, you aren't going to offer me one of those beers?" Jessie teased.
"I mean, if you want one…" Sam reached for one, but Jessie spoke up declining.
"Tap water is fine." Jessie said smiling while Sam filled up a cup for her. "So you're here with your dad and brother?"
"Yeah, we're just, uh, doing a little family road trip before school starts up again." Sam had told this lie so many times that it seemed to roll right off his tongue with no trouble whatsoever.
"Cool," Jessie said. "What grade are you going to be in?"
"I'll be a sophomore."
"Nice," Jessie smiled big and her teeth chattered, "I'm going to be a junior, which is great because then I can finally try out for the varsity cheer squad."
"Cheerleading…that's cool." Sam said. He could image how excited Dean would be to hear this information. Dean didn't seem to miss anything about high school except for the cheerleaders.
"Yeah, it's weird. Growing up I never thought I'd be 'that girl' who loves cheerleading and wants to be the prom queen, but cheer really is fun. What about you?"
"I'm not a cheerleader," Sam said. Then realized how stupid that sounded and wanted to die of embarrassment.
"I figured that," Jessie laughed, "I mean what do you do in school? Track, soccer, student council, you know?"
"Yeah, uh. I don't really do anything…except school."
"Oh, well maybe this year you can try something new!"
Sam nodded and the two teens sat in an awkward silence for a few moments until Sam couldn't take it any longer.
"So, uh, I'm kind of freezing." Sam said.
"Me too." Jessie rubbed her forearms trying to warm up.
"I think I'm going to change into some dry clothes. Do you…want any?"
"No…it's ok." Jessie said.
Sam walked over to his duffle and pulled out some t-shirts and basketball shorts.
"Ok, well if you change your mind later you can use these. I don't mind." Sam grabbed a dry outfit and went to the bathroom to change. Once behind the closed door he stripped down and stared at this face in the small bathroom mirror.
"There's a girl in my room," Sam whispered to himself. "A really pretty girl. An older girl. A girl Dean wanted to make out with. She's in my room. There's a girl in my room."
Sam took a few deep breaths and tried to remain clam. So far things hadn't been too embarrassing. A few conversational errors, but nothing major. Plus, it wasn't like anything was going to happen. She was beautiful and funny and going to be a junior, and he was…well he was just Dean's dorky little brother.
Sam dried off a little and put on the fresh clothes. He opened the bathroom door and took a step back out into the main room.
"Do you – Gah! Sorry! Sam cried out. He tried to cover his eyes while spinning around and managed to trip on his own feet and go crashing down to the floor.
Jessie finished slipping Sam's dry shirt over her bare skin and then turned and looked down at Sam with his hands glued to his eyes. Jessie burst out laughing.
"Are…you…are…are you okay?" Jessie managed to ask between laughter.
"I'm so sorry!" Sam exclaimed, "I didn't know!"
"Sam it's fine, it's not like you even saw anything. You only saw my back." Jessie couldn't wipe the smile off of her face. Sam was so easily embarrassed. "It's no big deal."
"Are you? Can I open my eyes now?" Sam asked.
"Yes!" Jessie said.
Sam opened his eyes and saw Jessie dressed in a pair of his basketball shorts and a plain black t-shirt. Then he looked past her and saw that she had draped all of her wet clothes over the chairs. Sam's fifteen-year-old male mind couldn't help but notice that ALL of her wet clothes were hanging over the backs of the chairs.
"I decided to take you up on your offer." Jessie said.
"Cool," Sam said, trying to hide his embarrassment.
"So…want to watch some TV?" Jessie asked. There was no couch in the room and the chairs were being used as drying racks, so Jessie took a seat at the foot of Sam's bed. Sam hesitantly followed suit.
"It's broken." Sam said apologetically. "I tried to fix, but it's not just loose cables or something simple like that."
"Man that must suck."
"It makes the evenings kind of boring, but it's also kind of nice because at least this way Dean and I don't have to fight over what to watch." Sam's lips twitched up in a smile when he mentioned Dean.
"That's your brother right?"
"Yeah, he's pretty great. But he has terrible taste in TV."
"Really?"
"Yeah, he likes all the stupidest crap even if he wont admit it." Sam said.
"That's funny. Do you like having a big brother?" Jessie asked.
"Yeah, Dean's…" Sam smiled, "Well Dean can be a real jerk sometimes, but even when we're mad at each other it's like… like we're not really mad. You know? He looks out for me. Teaches me stuff."
"Sounds nice, having a brother like that, like an instant friend." Jessie smiled. "I don't have any brothers or sisters."
"Oh," Sam said, not sure what else to say about that. They both looked to the black screen of the television.
"Sorry again about the TV," Sam said. "I don't really know what else we can do. I mean I have a book, but just the one, and uh I don't have another kinds of entertainment."
"Hey," Jessie exclaimed. Her face lit up with excitement and mischief, "I know what we can do..."
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John slammed the drivers seat door shut and fired up his truck.
"I gave you a simple order. A simple hunt, and you get thrown in jail?" John shook his head in disappointment.
"I didn't know she was the Sheriff's daughter. How was I supposed to know her dad would put me behind bars for –"
"You were supposed to be here taking care of a vengeful spirit." John boomed, cutting off his son.
"I did take care of it." Dean said. "And then –"
"You didn't feel the need to mention that on the phone when you called me from the station?" John demanded. "Dean, I drove down here because I thought that thing was still in the wind. If you had told me the ghost was handled when you called, I could have come in the morning with Sam and saved gas money. Now we're down here for the night and we're paying for two rooms. Ours and Sam's."
Dean sat in silence. His dad was right, he should have mentioned the fact that the ghost was taken care of, but he was in jail and wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking he wanted to be home.
"I should drive you back to the Sheriff's department right now, let them hold you for the night. Teach you a lesson. But then, I guess we've tried that before haven't we? Doesn't seem to do much." John continued. "Look, Dean, you want to mess around with the Sheriff's daughter? Fine. I'm not one to give you a lecture on immorality. But you should know better than to get caught. Jail means a paper trail. In our line of work, it's best to stay out of jails, prisons, and wanted lists. You won't be able to pass for an FBI agent or forest ranger if the local police recognize your mug from their bulletin board. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." Dean said.
"Good, now which motel are you checked in at?"
"Quality Sleep," Dean said, "but if we need to drive back tonight, we can just pick up the impala and go."
"No," John sighed, "I'm tired, and honestly I could use a break from Sam's attitude for a few hours."
"Is Sammy ok?" Dean asked, suddenly concerned.
"He's fine," John sighed, "I will be glad when that boy grows up and learns to accept his responsibilities without complaint."
"Yeah, well he's just a teenager. Angst, you know?"
"I guess." John shook his head. "Sometimes I don't know what to do with that boy. It's like he feeds off of contention."
"Sammy's just stubborn." Dean laughed and added, "But at least the kid walks the straight and narrow."
"Meaning?"
"Well, I've never exactly been a choir boy. But Sammy…I mean he's fifteen and alone for the night. Are you worried about him drinking the booze you left in the fridge? Calling up some girl? Sneaking into a bar?"
"Guess you're right." John let out a single chuckle.
Dean laughed a little too. The thought of Sam as some macho daredevil lady-killer was a foreign one. Dean was sure Sam would find his angle some day, and it would be more on the sweet and sensitive side. Sam could work those puppy dog eyes of his and he had a way with words. He was just an awkward teen now. Dean smiled as he remembered a phone call Sam made only a few months ago, asking for help talking to girls. Dean hadn't let that drop for a few days. Teasing Sam about chasing tail. He would have kept ribbing his little brother, but he figured whatever Sam had tried hadn't worked. After they left that town with the disappearing kitsune, Sam was even more sullen than usual. Dean figured Sam had made a move and got shut down. Rejection, always a tough thing for a teenage boy.
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