A/N: Not sure where this came from, but I had the urge to write about the night Sam left for college. Unbeta'd, as always. Let me know what you think!
It's bright, the night Sam leaves for Stanford. The sky is painted black, splattered with stars and the moon is full and shining and it feels like opportunity and fear and freedom.
He steps out of the house with a duffel bag and a crumpled acceptance letter, his father's final words ringing in his ears and thinks that this isn't how it's supposed to go but maybe that's okay, maybe he can still do this. He has to do this. So he heads off into the night, vision blurred but not by tears because Winchesters don't cry but he's not a Winchester any more, not really, so does that make it okay?
It isn't far from here, the bus station. He knows, because he made sure to find out when they rolled into town. He knew this was the town, the town where he'd finally have to come clean about college. The town where he would finally break free from hunting. He's pretty sure Dean already knew, there isn't much his brother doesn't know about him, but it came as one hell of a shock to Dad.
"You what?"
Sam swallows down the fear inside him, forces away the panic and the dammit-Sam-what-are-you-doing-you-can't-do-this and says, "I got into Stanford. A full ride."
"College?" John's expression is stony and Sam knows they're going to do this the hard way and God, can't his dad ever just listen, all he wants is a bit of normal -
"You're not going."
There it is. The order Sam expected but hoped naively would never come. "Like hell I'm not."
"You can't just leave, Sam." John is raising his voice now. Any minute there'll be shouting and Sam knows how much his brother hates shouting. Dean is standing silently, watching. Sam wishes it didn't have to be like this. "There's work to do. People are dying, every day. Or had you forgotten?"
"Guys, come on-" Dean tries to break in, but he cuts himself off, apparently at a loss for words. Finally, he pleads, "Don't do this."
And Sam just looks at John, wonders why it's always a choice between his sons and strangers, wonders why he always chooses the strangers, wonders where his dad went and why he sent this drill sergeant in his place. Really, there's nothing he can say. He wants his own life. He wants normal. He wants to not be condemned for wanting something for himself, just this once. More than anything, he doesn't want to hurt Dean.
He doesn't say any of this. Instead, he says, "I can still help, during breaks and stuff... it's just college, it's not forever."
"Hunting doesn't take breaks, Sam!" John is the first to shout, which makes a change. "There are things out there, killing people, right now. The thing that killed your mother is out there!" There's silence for a moment before John steps forward. "Or does college mean more to you than any of that?"
Yes. College means a hell of a lot more to him. He needs this, needs it like he needs air because he's suffocating here in his big brother's shadow with his dad's constant pressure and the endless training and hunting and fighting and he's tired. He feels anger well up inside him and he welcomes it because being angry is so much easier and dammit, if John's going to push him, he's damn well gonna push back.
"Mom wouldn't have wanted this for us!" The words fly out of his mouth before he can stop them and then he just keeps going, digging himself deeper and deeper, digging for freedom. "You really think she'd want us to be raised like this? Like warriors?"
"You shut your mouth!" John is mere inches away from him now, shouting and furious, madder than Sam has ever seen him, eyes bright with something that is definitely anger, only ever anger when he looks at Sam. "You don't know what she would have wanted! You don't know," he snarls.
"Yeah," Sam sneers. "I don't. Because I never knew her. She's dead, and she's not coming back." He picks up his duffel and slings it over his shoulder.
"Neither are you."
"W-what?" Sam stares at him, blood pounding through his veins, anger and exhilaration making him breathless.
"I mean it, Sam." John's voice is steady, the fury just barely contained beneath his words. "You walk out that door, you don't ever come back."
Sam's stomach drops, his breath catching in his throat and he thinks that that's it, he's done because he can't just leave his family, can't just walk out, he can't abandon them -
- and he can't stay with someone who would say that to him, someone who would rather disown him than let him go to college. And that's the clincher.
"Okay."
"What?" That's Dean, staring between them in shock, and Sam glances at him, tries to say it all with one little look – I'm sorry, I'll miss you, please be okay – before he turns to the door. He can't say goodbye, he can't do it, he doesn't care how weak it is of him, so he just opens the door and steps out into the night, both miserable and the happiest he's ever been in his life.
They both watch silently as the door slams closed. John is breathing heavily in the aftermath of the fight and Dean doesn't think he's ever hated either of them so God-damn much because all they have to do is get along, all they have to do is bend a little and they could work something out but they're both so friggin' stubborn and now Sam is gone.
"What the hell?" Dean turns to glare at John. "Seriously, what the hell was that? Do you even realise what you just did?" he demands and relishes the flicker of pain that flashes across John's face because dammit, he deserves this hurt just as much as Dean does because he cannot lose Sam.
"Watch it, Dean," John warns and Dean just glares, tries to direct all of his anger and hurt and dammit-Sam-how-can-you-leave-me-like-this into one look, tries to burn through John's skull so that he can see his brain and find out what the hell their dad was thinking. "Your brother's made his choice. He chose to left."
A tiny, broken noise escapes from Dean without his permission. "And you let him."
It's bright, the night Sam leaves for Stanford. There's something fundamentally wrong about that, Dean thinks, because how can it be bright when the world is ending, when Sam has just walked out on them?
He slams the door behind him and heads straight for the Impala because he has to catch up with Sam, let him know that that stupid God-damn rule doesn't apply to him, that he's not allowed to just leave Dean behind. He floors the gas pedal and before he knows it he's pulled up beside Sam on a filthy pavement in some backwater town, his brother's stunned face staring at him in the darkness.
Dean rolls down the window and for a long moment they just stay there, looking at each other. Then -
"Full ride," Dean says. "That's really something."
And Sam gives this wet little laugh and says, "Yeah," and Dean gives him a ride to the bus station because Sam might be a whiny little bitch who's leaving him behind but Dean doesn't want him to miss his bus. This is big for Sam. He needs this. He needs this taste of normal. And he's right, college isn't forever, and Dean's going to see his brother again because unlike John he isn't a friggin' idiot who thinks that geeky little brothers are dispensable.
Sam needs this. He'll come back to Dean, eventually. He always comes back to Dean.