Sam stood by the window and watched.
"What is wrong with you Sam? Jess has been looking for you all over and you are just standing there all alone by the window."
Tony was not a friend, but who cared. There was a party going on downstairs and after a few drinks, everyone was everyone's friend. But Sam was not thinking about Tony or even Jess. He just stood there and watched the lone figure making its way out of the backyard. The figure was male and he limped slightly with one hand protectively hugging his abdomen.
Sam watched until the figure disappeared behind the Orange trees. He sighed and just for a moment regretted where he stood and what he saw, but then with a deep sigh, he collected himself and walked down the stairs following Tony.
"Poor man, I think he is bleeding."
"Hum, but I am glad he left."
"I know that feeling. If not for you angry grandmother's ghost I wouldn't even have known that people like him exist."
"Yeah, anyway, I am glad it's all over."
The voices died down but they echoed in his ears. Sam felt his stomach churn and for a minute he thought he was going to be sick. Then he stood up and walked casually down the stairs. After all, what he saw was not new to him at all.
Jess came and joined him and he grabbed a bottle of beer from Namiko. His Standford buddies milled about him and the world was safe and warm. Here they are in the middle of Texas for a wedding and what better excuse than that to be eat drink and be merry. The music throbbed and Jess laughingly pulled him to the center of the room where the chairs have been cleared and people were dancing.
But there was one noise that was missing. Something he knew all his life and he was waiting to hear again. It's almost 30 minutes since he saw the man limping out of the backyard and he still didn't hear it. He didn't realize when his heart started pounding so hard but now he was practically sweating.
"Sam, are you alright?"
"Just need some air sweetheart, will be back in a moment."
Only after he stepped out he wondered why he was even standing there for thirty minutes wondering if he should do this. He has changed; the past two years were the best in his life, but they were not the best for him. He had changed to something he himself couldn't recognize and now that he thought about it, he wondered if even he liked what he saw.
His legs were automatically picking up pace as he reached the back yard. The roar of the Impala should have been heard long ago and the more he thought of it, the quicker he walked. Behind the lights from the porch only darkness stretched. The orange trees stood like silent sentinels keeping in the warmth and light. He took a deep breath and started running. There was no sound except for his sneakers pounding on the gravel. There was nothing there, and yet there was no relief, he just knew he has to check just a little bit further and sure at the bend, like a benign monster looming out of hell, the black Impala rose in his line of vision.
Sam cursed hard at his own weakness, cruel fate that made him stand by the window right at that moment, all their forefathers and Dean. The frosted window hid almost everything but still Sam couldn't bring himself to say that name. It took him a while to realize that there was none in the front but only a second to cast his eyes to the back and see a form huddled in the back seat.
Sam yanked the door open and saw that figure huddled, shivering and bleeding. For a minute Sam wanted to kick the figure for how pathetic it looked but the next instant he felt like shooting himself for the thought. He knelt down in the hard gravel and shook the leather clad shoulders. There was no response. With difficulty, he turned the figure around and blinked back tears. That face he had seen almost everyday except for the past two years looked so dead. The smell of alcohol was overbearing and the figure itself was lax. The only sign of life was the slowly seeping blood from the rag that stuck loosely to the blood soaked shirt.
Sam fumbled in the pockets of the leather jacket wondering how it can still smell like leather after soaking up so much blood in its life time.
The dim lights of the motel made Sam angry, but they were not at fault for reminding him of a life gone by. Gritting his teeth Sam pulled out the unconscious figure and irritably pushed the man over his shoulders, though tempered with remnants of tenderness, and walked inside the dingy motel room. He did not regret tearing off the tattered shirt. The wound was deep, but it was the type that would heal with care. Anger flared again and he took a deep breath to keep it in check.
He didn't want to look closely into why he was angry, so he concentrated on cleaning and patching up the wounded man for the next 20 minutes. All done, he was just about to convince himself to leave when he heard the dreaded word spilling from the deepest recess of Dean's unconscious mind.
"Sammy"
In the morning, Sam went to the car, the least he could do is clean it up as much as he can, or so he told himself. Sometime yesterday when he left the party a curious voice kept talking in the background and now it was boldly pointing out that he just couldn't stand the sight of Dean, a reminder of the life he left behind.
Equipped with rags and a bucket, he started wiping the seats until his foot stepped on something square. Fumbling beneath the seat, Sam pulled out an old tin chocolate box. It was one of those cheap chocolate boxes that said 'Swiss' despite having nothing to do with anything beyond the borders of America.
The rusted hinges creaked to reveal a surprisingly sparkling interior covered carefully with aluminum foil. Sam sat down heavily. His mouth open, he looked like a man who had seen a ghost. He did see a ghost, the ghost of his past life. Two chocolate wrappers, a tooth, a lock of curled hair, a small baby shoe, a letter in a neat scrawl and an underwear of his. He looked like a fool sitting on the gravel ground beside the car holding a tin box to his chest and laughing and crying at the same time. Thankfully, there was none to witness the apocalyptic alteration in perception that Sam was suffering from.
Dean woke up and started on a stretched, but quickly abandoned it with a grimace. He had no idea how he got to this motel room and he had no idea who wrapped his wounds. The last time he was conscious, he was depressed, dirty and dying of pain. He heard a door open and turned.
This time, he sat up quickly despite the pain.
"Sammy."
Sam just stood and stared at his brother.
"Good to see you Sa…."
Dean's voice trailed away as Sam brought the tin box to the front. Sam had one foot behind just in case Dean decided to get angry and pry the box from him. Sam had all the questions ready if Sam decided to clamp up. But Sam had no idea what to do with tears. In fact, until he saw it, he would have laughed if someone had put Dean and tears in the same sentence.
"May I have it back Sammy?"
Dean was not even looking at him. He just stretched his right hand in front of him like a naughty child asking for candy he was caught stealing in the first place. If not for the tell tale gruffness of his voice, Sam would have smacked him. But life was changing by the moment for Sam in the past few days and so he just silently walked up to the bed on which Dean was sitting head bowed.
"No"
"Please Sammy."
"No"
"I, I won't, I am… sorry Sammy, but Please."
"No"
"Please Sammy, I never wanted you to know Sammy. I, I wont ever cross your path Sammy, please."
"No"
"You can have the Impala Sammy, but please Sammy."
Sam did not reply. He was too busy wondering how pathetic it is that Dean equates the stupid car to the most valuable thing he has to offer. But Dean; Dean was drowning while Sam was thinking.
"I am not stalking or anything Sammy. I just took them for… for… to remember you by Sammy, please Sammy. You never have to see me again Sammy. I promise man, I really never ever wanted you to know…"
Sam mind that was just stepping into Dean's rambling was sharp enough to notice when Dean said he neednt see him again. Sam smiled, of course, Sam needn't see him, but Dean will be there, just outside the range of his sight. Just the number of Sammys he had heard in the past few minutes was enough to justify that.
Sam looked at the content of the box; they had a history to them. The first chocolate a four-year-old unwrapped on his own and gave to his older brother, the first chocolate a young boy bought for his brother with money he saved, the first time the young boy trusted his brother to give him a hair cut, the first shoe that took the young boy to his first school, a silly love letter a teenager wrote to a pretty girl but never delivered, and the only thing a young man left when he packed his bags to leave his life behind.
Somewhere between the chocolate wrappers and the underwear, a sweet young boy had become an angry young man and Dean had not minded that. Hell, Dean did not mind the cruel man sitting in front of him. There was something earth shattering about that to Sam.
Dean was sitting still by now. If not for the tears dropping on his jeans making a dark patch, Dean could have very well turned into a stone.
"Why do you want it Dean?"
Dean looked up, to see genuine curiosity in Sam's eyes.
"Because that's all I have?..."
Sam thought of a hundred different things about Dean constantly. But here was just one simple fact that he had missed. That fact was that Dean will never be disappointed in life because he never expected anything at all. Dean thought that he deserved nothing and so wouldn't mind begging for an old tin box with junk. All the while Sam was wondering how to make his life worthwhile, the answer was right in front of him. If he can bring some happiness to this selfless man who had given his life without question to his father and all those invisible people and most of all to his brother, then there seemed to be nothing better Sam can do in his life.
"I will give you something better Dean."
The startled watery green eyes that looked up at him had so much light in them that even the darkest corners of Sam that were rusting in self loathing and pretentiously living shone with love in an instant.