Warning: Contains Sam/Dean and Sam/Jess! Please do not continue if you can't handle gay incest and/or a het relationship!
Silhouette
Sam wasn't sure whose idea the party had been. It wasn't his, and he was reasonably certain that it hadn't been Jessica's idea either. Like him, she favored smaller gatherings, hanging out at the bar with just one or two friends or sitting on the couch watching a movie. Not that he begrudged anyone their party, either. He had a lot to celebrate – his awesome LSAT score, for example, and absolutely charming his way through his Law School interview, for another. It was a great excuse for one of those huge, insane, obnoxious parties.
Sam just wished it wasn't at his place.
"Where did all these people come from?" he asked Jess, once he had saved her from doing that whole hostess mingling thing. She hated mingling, and as her boyfriend it was his solemn duty to remove her from any awkward conversations that lasted longer than ten minutes.
"I don't know," she replied, "but they all say they're friends of yours."
He quickly scanned the crowded room, noting a familiar face from his classes here and there. Mostly, though, they were all strangers. Some of them were dressed in costumes, too, even though Halloween was over. Fortunately, they also seemed to have brought their own beer. "Some friends," he muttered to himself. "I hope the neighbors don't call the cops," he said, a bit louder so that Jess could hear him.
"I wouldn't worry about that, baby," she told him, then turned and pointed.
And there they were. He wasn't surprised to see those three guys, not really. What surprised him was that they were still actually enrolled at Stanford. "That's convenient. So, when our stereo turns up missing again, we don't even have to go looking for it. We can just stop in next door and get it back."
Jess slapped him on the arm, but it was playful. "Do you think any of these people would notice if we slipped away for some private time?"
He bent his head to kiss her. "Depends, how long are we going to take?"
Sam never got a proper answer, because Little Becky came up then and pulled Jessica away, and after that some guy shoved a plastic cup of golden-brown liquid that smelled like alcohol and something questionable in his face. He was off in the bathroom, dealing with that cup in the most sanitary way he could think of – turned out someone couldn't hold their beer as well as they thought – when the party went silent.
Sam's first thought was that someone had gotten hurt. His second was pulled out of him by years of training, that there was something supernatural in his living room. His third and fourth thoughts combined the first two and then dismissed them. He had precautions in place, a lot of them. Jess was safe.
Of all of the people he hadn't expected to make an appearance at his party, Dean was just about last on that list. But somehow the laws of nature and reason had been bent to accommodate the Winchesters once again, because there Dean was, bruised and battered and very much there, bleeding out on the rug.
"Sammy," he croaked, and then his eyes rolled up in his head and he went limp.
***
Quick bedtime story.
Once upon a time there was this boy. He wasn't like other boys. When the other boys left school, they went home to hang out with their friends and avoid homework. This boy had no friends, and homework was one of his favorite things.
The other boys had delicious dinners prepared for them by their mothers, they washed up and said grace before eating, and at night they went to sleep, feeling safe and secure. This boy had elbow macaroni and marinara made by his brother, heated up in a crusty soup pan and served in chipped and mismatched dishes. He had training after dark, had to practice hand-to-hand combat until he was exhausted. When he slipped into bed and fell asleep, he didn't feel safe and secure. He hadn't felt safe and secure since he was eight years old.
This boy knew he was different, but he tried not to care. He had what was important to him, had clean clothes and a roof over his head. Some things he even shared with the other boys, like soccer, and homework. Sometimes this boy pretended he was like those other boys.
Sometimes, the universe made it clear just how different he really was. This boy made plans, long-reaching and important plans. He knew what it was going to be like leaving everything he knew behind, but that was the way things were, and the way they had to be.
One day, this boy woke up and he realized that he was in love with his brother.
So he ran away from home.
***
Some whirlwind force inside of him took control. Dean was there, Dean needed help, and there were far too many people standing around watching. Priorities first, though. Sam couldn't see the wound that was bleeding, but he was also pretty sure Dean had a concussion as well.
"Jessica," Sam said, finding her in the crowd, "there's a first aid kit on the top shelf of the closet. Bring it here."
She didn't say anything, just jumped to do what he asked of her. There would be fallout from that later, he guessed, but later would come later, and he had other things to worry about.
Next, he locked eyes with Becky. "I need you to find a bottle of alcohol and bring it here. It doesn't matter what kind, just as long as it's clear and high-proof. Got it?"
"Got it," she echoed, and then bolted into the kitchen.
Sam looked around for Zach or Adrian, but there were too many people around and he couldn't see them. He thought he caught a glimpse of Zach's goatee, and pointed him out of the crowd. It wasn't Zach, just some guy who looked kind of like him, but it didn't matter. Getting everyone out mattered. Getting Dean's bleeding to stop mattered.
"You," he said, and pointed at the guy again. "You, get these people out of here. Now." Right then, Jessica reappeared with the first aid kit in hand, and he opened it up and pulled out everything he was going to need. "Becky!" he yelled over his shoulder, "I need that alcohol!"
She reappeared, too, holding out the bottle of Armadale that they kept in the freezer. It pained him to use it for such a thing, but it was Dean.
He cut Dean's shirt from hem to neck. It was soaked with blood, and when he pulled it away from his skin, Sam noticed five neat little holes, right over his heart. That wasn't the source of all of that blood, but Sam opened the bottle and poured it over his chest anyway.
Dean lurched forward, gasping and clutching at the wounds, and it was then that Sam noticed that he still had the amulet. After three years and some change, that was right up there with Dean's dramatic entrance, completely unexpected.
"I got you," Sam said. He pushed everything but the here and now out of his mind and eased Dean back to the floor, pulling off his layers in the process. There was more blood, but mostly a lot of bruises, in various stages of healing. There was a fresh one blossoming around his shoulder. His face was swollen under one eye; that was going to be a real shiner in a few days, but no more open wounds.
"Sammy," Dean said again, and his eyes fluttered shut. Still conscious, just pained.
"Where'd it get you?" he pressed. The blood was coming from somewhere, and Sam was wary of rolling him over without knowing details, first.
Dean gestured with one limp hand over his shoulder. "Claws," he managed.
"I have to roll you. On three, count with me."
"One," Dean whispered.
Sam log-rolled him over on his side on one, before Dean had a chance to tense up and make it hurt more. It was a familiar ritual, something that he didn't even think about before doing. Habit or instinct, or something in between because Dean was there, intruding into his safe little boring life.
He looked down at his hands and found that they were coated in his brother's blood. The Armadale vodka, that he had been saving for a special occasion, bore a red handprint on the neck. Jess and Zach and Adrian and Becky were all that was left of his party, and they were just standing there, watching him at work. All of them wore the same expression, and Sam could hear it, the chanting childhood voices – Sammy's a freak!
"Sam," Dean said, urgency in his voice, and it snapped Sam back to what he was doing. Claw marks on Dean's back, three long ones, trailing from his shoulder to the small of his back. Bad, but not hospital bad.
Sam sighed in relief. He didn't know what he would have done if Dean needed the hospital. His friends were there, Jessica was there, and Sam knew that Dean Winchester had never bothered with insurance. And he knew that he couldn't pay the bill with his own credit card, the one under his real name, that he paid off monthly and everything.
"We should call 911," Adrian said, breaking the silence. "Get an ambulance."
"No," Sam said, and he was surprised at how steady his voice was. Inside, he was shaking like he was going to fall apart. Jess knew him better than anyone there but Dean, and she must have sensed something because she touched his shoulder. He started to reach up to catch her hand, but remembered the blood at the last moment. "No ambulance, no hospital," he said. "They can't do anything for him that I can't do myself." His mind was already reeling with the things he needed. Most of it was in the kit. The curved needle, the surgical thread, triple antibiotic ointment and sterile water flush.
"You can't honestly think you can do this," Becky said, her voice halfway between a sob and a moan. "Not on a complete stranger!"
"He's not a stranger," Sam said. He swallowed, then forced himself to continue, "He's my brother."
***
Dad used to call it going to surgery, and for good reason. It was a messy process, sewing up those gashes, and it took a lot longer than Sam could remember it taking before. Out of practice, he guessed. Once he was done, he enlisted Zach and Adrian to help get Dean wrapped in a clean sheet on the couch. Dean's eyes were only half open, but when Sam pressed him, Dean rattled off his name and age and place of birth to show he was still with it.
Jessica saw the others off without Sam. He couldn't think of anything to say that would make what had happened seem remotely normal, so he didn't even try. He just started cleaning up. The rug was a total loss, as was most of what Dean had been wearing. Sam made a mental note to find the Impala and get some fresh clothes for him.
Jess came up behind him. He could feel her there, her lean, slender body only inches away. "So," she said. "I guess we're not getting the security deposit back."
"It's only blood," Sam said without thinking. "I'll get it up."
"Sam?" Jess asked, and he turned to face her. Her hair was a mess, falling in her eyes, but she was still beautiful. Even with her brow wrinkled up. "Do you hear yourself? 'Only blood'?"
"Jess," Sam said, and reached for her. Now that there weren't any more wounds or bleeding to focus on, he had started to shake. She let him take her in his arms, let herself be an anchor for him. "Jess," he said again.
"Jesus, you're freezing. I think you're in shock."
That made Sam laugh. He suspected it was true, but not for the reason she thought. "I can't believe he's here," he said. That part of his life was over, or so he thought. Seeing Dean again was strange, raised up all of those old feelings he had buried deep in his chest. "I don't know why he came to me," he confessed. "I'm the last person he wants to see."
"Why is that?" Jess asked. Her eyes searched his, and he could see her trying to make sense of it all, and failing. It wasn't fair; she wasn't supposed to see any of that. Dean was a part of his old life, and that was better off buried and hidden and forgotten.
"I left him behind," Sam answered simply.
***
Jessica went to bed, leaving Sam to clean up the remains of the party. It didn't matter to him, he wasn't going to sleep anyway, not with Dean passed out on the couch. In the dim light, he didn't even look real, too pale and bruised to be entirely human. Sam had a sudden jolt of electric fear, wondered if Dean had died hunting and was haunting him.
Which was impossible. Sam had the place salted down, had pulled up carpet and flooring to do so. He had protective runes etched into baseboards, doorjambs, under the fridge. Any kind of protective sign he had ever seen or heard about, he had hidden somewhere in the apartment.
Dean was real, and Dean was alive. Sam went over to the couch, reached out and pressed his fingers against the warm metal of the amulet. He wasn't sure why Dean was still wearing it. If it had been him, Sam would have ditched it long ago, but maybe Dean had more faith in him than that.
"Sammy?"
"It's Sam," he returned, and sat next to his brother. "You okay?"
"I've been worse."
Sam shook his head. "What got you? The claw marks look too big to be a werewolf."
"Wendigo," Dean said, and then pulled himself up into a sitting position. "I was trying to get these kids away when it got me."
"So you drove all the way down here to get patched up."
Dean pulled the sheet closer around his shoulders. "It was in Colorado."
Which was still a long way to drive, and didn't make any sense. Why go to Sam for a patch job? Why not a local hospital? Why not get Dad to do it? "Where's Dad?" Sam asked at last.
"Wish I knew. He was in Jericho, about two weeks ago. Pulled some EVP off a voicemail he left me, found something weird going on. Almost came to you for help."
Sam stood up. "I'm out," he said. "I've been out for a while, now."
"I know."
There were so many things he could say, and there were so many questions Dean left unasked. The room felt too small with Dean sitting there, and Sam had the irrational urge to run away again. Instead, he turned to his brother and held out his hand. "Where's the Impala? I'll get your clothes."
"Don't remember where I parked. Close, I think."
"I'll find it."
"Her, you asshole." But he handed over the keys.
***
The night felt more dangerous than it had in years. Sure, Sam knew what was out there in the dark, but at Stanford, he could push it all to the sidelines. Even with the nightmares about Jess burning on the ceiling, he could ignore it just a little. The protective symbols helped with that.
But Dean...
Sam shook his head, made his way down the stairs to the street. He hoped that Dean hadn't parked too far away. He suspected that he hadn't. When he crashed into the middle of the party, Dean hadn't really looked like he was capable of walking at all. Combination blood loss plus concussion.
When Sam reached the bottom of the stairs, something touched his shoulder, and instinct reared its ugly head. Sam spun around and broke the nose of one of his neighbors, all in one smooth motion. If Dad had seen the move, he would have scowled and made Sam practice it another fifty times, but the great klepto Kevin seemed pretty impressed.
"Sorry," Sam said, and was maybe even a little sincere about it. "I'm a bit on edge right now."
"On edge?" Kevin demanded, still clutching at his bleeding nose. "Try fucking psycho!"
"You shouldn't be sneaking up on people in the dark, anyway," Sam pointed out, quite reasonably, in his opinion. "You're lucky I'm not a chick. Jess would have crushed your balls in a heartbeat."
"Fuck you," the guy sputtered, and then wandered off into the night. Presumably to go to the ER to get his nose fixed up. Or file a police report.
"Great," Sam said to himself. "Just what I need."
He shook his head and dismissed it for the moment. Which, when he thought about it, worried him more. Living in the "real" world, actions like that had consequences. He couldn't just blow out of town the next morning and be done with it. He was there to stay. There was going to be a huge fallout over everything that had happened that night, and it wasn't going to end well. Sam added a possible chat with the police to the list. But still, there were other things he needed to worry about.
He found the Impala easily enough. Dean had parked the car on the street, but one tire was up on the curb, more proof that Dean shouldn't have been driving. Sam unlocked the trunk and pulled out the familiar duffel. He rifled through it, making sure there was nothing there that would raise Jessica's suspicions. No knives, no gun, nothing.
Then Sam slid behind the wheel and turned the Impala on. It started up with the familiar roar of the engine, and he had to sit there and breathe for a while before he was steady enough to drive.
He couldn't deal with it. It was too much. The collision of his two lives was going to drive him insane. Somehow, just by being there, Dean was dredging up everything he had ever been before he left. That was a Sam that Jess couldn't see, that he had never allowed her to see. It was safer that way, for both their sakes.
He parked the Impala, locked up, and then walked back to his apartment. Dean couldn't stay. That much was clear. Sam had already risked too much as it was; he didn't need to add fuel to the fire.
But he couldn't send Dean out looking the way he did. Someone needed to look after him, and if Dad was gone, missing, whatever, then Sam needed to step up and look after his family.
***
When Sam got back, Dean was sitting up on the couch, his eyes pressed shut. There was no color in his face at all, and Sam had seen that combination enough times to know that he needed to grab a bucket. He rubbed circles on Dean's back as he retched, careful to avoid the giant claw marks.
"I'm okay," Dean managed to say, once he was finished with the dry heaves. "Really."
Sam didn't say anything. If that was what Dean wanted him to think, fine. But Sam didn't have to acknowledge it. He got a glass of water from the kitchen and made Dean rinse out his mouth. The only good thing about it all was that there was color in Dean's face again. Sam laid his hand across Dean's forehead, just checking. He was warm, he was coated in a thin layer of sweat, but he wasn't feverish.
"I got your clothes," he said at last, and turned to the duffel. He pulled out Dean's favorite blue shirt, so old and faded that it was no longer actually blue, and a clean pair of boxers. "But first, I should check everything."
Dean nodded, but slowly, and that just made Sam worry about his head and the concussion. So he reached out, took Dean's head in his hands and gently felt up his scalp for the lump. It was high on his head, above his ear, and Dean moaned, long and low, when he touched it. There was a little bit of blood, mostly dry but tacky in some places.
"Not hospital bad," he said, more to reassure himself that Dean would be fine, that he had made the right decision.
The claw marks, now those looked bad. The stitches were uneven in places, but the bleeding had all but stopped. Sam covered the stitches with gauze and tape as a precaution. He allowed his hands to linger on Dean's back, next to a scar that Sam didn't remember. It was faint, blurred with age, but looked to have been a nasty piece of work. Hospital bad, he pronounced to himself.
He wondered how it had happened, if Dean was alone for that hunt as well.
Dean allowed Sam to ease him into the shirt, his movements stiff. His back had to hurt, had to hurt a lot, but Dean barely made a sound. Toughing it out for the sake of his little brother, like always. The amulet glinted in the dim light, and Sam reached out again to touch it.
"I can't believe you still wear this," he said to Dean.
Dean batted his hand away from it, grabbed and pocketed it into his fist. His expression was fierce, the look he would get right before blowing some son of a bitch monster away, but he didn't say anything about it. "I'm tired," he pronounced, and then settled back in on the couch.
Sam got an extra blanket from the linen closet. He tucked it around Dean's shoulders, gently, and watched his face until the lines of tension melted away.
"Just like old times," Dean mumbled into the pillow, "isn't it, Sammy?"
"It's Sam," he replied, even though he was pretty sure Dean was mostly asleep. "And no, it's not."
***
Jess found him in the kitchen in the morning, gray light slanting through the windows. He was on his laptop, the one he had worked so hard to afford, just tooling around. Maybe looking at the Jericho disappearances, since Dean had mentioned it. Jess poured herself a cup of coffee and sat across the table from him, wearing that same expression she'd had before, her eyes searching.
"What?" It came out sharper than he intend, and he winced at the sound of it.
Jessica shrugged and looked down at her coffee, but she had that set in her shoulders, like she was about to rip him a new one.
"I'm sorry," he said, before she could start. Yeah, he was pretty sure he deserved whatever she was about to dish out, but there was a reason behind it all. "I'm just upset, seeing him. You know how it is."
That seemed to be exactly what he should not have said, because her head snapped up and she was glaring. "No," she said, "I don't know. Because you never tell me." She gestured to the living room with her coffee mug. "Your brother – Dean – crashed our party in the middle of the night covered in blood, and instead of calling an ambulance, you stitch him up yourself."
"Jess..."
"No, let me finish." There was that fire in her eyes, the flash that made him fall in love with her. "I want answers. No evasions, no lies, no half-truths or sudden silences or getting up and walking away. Sam, we were together for almost a year before you told me you had a brother. For the next six months, I thought that the reason you didn't talk about him was because he was dead." She set the mug down with a heavy thump. "So talk. I'm listening."
Sam shrugged. What she said was true, all of it. He had relied on his friends and their ability to fill in the blanks for him, so he wouldn't have to talk, just smile and nod and look a little awkward. He was guilty of avoiding the direct questions, too, but there were some things that Jess just didn't need to know.
"Talk," she said again, but with more force.
"I don't know where to start," he confessed. Even if he started at the beginning, there was only so much he could say on certain topics before he came off as lying, delusional, or both. "There're a lot of beginning points, but I guess I'll start with me. I was seven when I realized our family wasn't like other families." He hesitated there. He'd never told anyone outside the family anything like the truth before. It was the big unspoken family rule – don't talk about the family business with civilians. It took a few deep breaths before he could continue onward, "We moved around a lot. Dad worked a lot of odd jobs and long hours, and he left us to ourselves when he couldn't take us with him."
Jess nodded and looked down. He'd said some of that before, the little bit she'd managed to pry out of him when she saw the picture of Mom and Dad together. "Your mother died when you were just a baby."
"I don't remember it, but there was this fire. Our house – the one in the picture? – burned down. Not having a mom, that was one of those things that made me different."
"What else?" Jessica probed. Her eyes were fever-bright, intense, and he knew she was soaking up his every word like a sponge.
"We weren't," he started, then hesitated again. "Sometimes the things we did weren't exactly legal—"
"I think you've said enough."
Sam turned at the sound of his brother's voice. Dean leaned against the doorframe, pale and washed out, but his eyes were fixed on Sam, absolutely furious. Sam ignored the look and jumped up to help Dean to the table. Dean shrugged off his first attempt, but wasn't steady enough to shake him off again.
"Let go of me," he snarled. Sam ignored that request until Dean was seated at the kitchen table. But even when Sam let go, Dean didn't shut up. "I raised you better than that. You don't go talking about the family business with some girl."
Jess stood up and took her mug with her. She dumped it in the sink without rinsing it, a habit that usually irritated the piss out of him. "Sam," she said, her voice deceptively even, "I'm going to head off to class." She then lifted her head to fix him with a look. "We'll finish this later."
Dean waited until she was gone, then leaned in close. "There's nothing to finish," he hissed.
Sam got to his feet. "Let me see your back."
Dean turned in his seat, leaned forward so Sam could peek under the bandages. "This is your life now, huh?" he said at last. "Playing house at college?"
"You wouldn't understand," Sam replied, and winced at the wounds. It looked worse in the light. The stitches were tight along Dean's back, but the gashes had been wide and there wasn't much he could have done. The wounds were dark pink, swollen, but that was to be expected. He went and fetched the first aid kit and pulled out the sterile saline and the triple antibiotic ointment. "How's it feel?"
"Like you butchered me," Dean grunted. "You're out of practice."
"I haven't had anyone to stitch up in a while." It all came back quickly, though, and with it Dean's bitching and moaning. Sam swabbed down the line of stitches, dabbing gently so as not to make it bleed more. Dean held his tongue, but his back was straight and tense, both signs that it hurt more than he was letting on. Sam smeared the triple antibiotic on in a nice, thick layer, coating everything that was remotely red. The last thing Dean needed was an infection on top of those giant claw marks. "How's your chest?"
Dean put a hand over his heart. "Fine." It was clear as anything that he didn't want those marks touched, not by Sam, at least.
Sam took his seat again, let out a low puff of air between his lips. "Dean, why are you here?" The six million dollar question, and Dean had better have a good answer.
Dean shrugged.
"That's it?" Sam demanded. "That's your response? You crash my party, I have to sew you up and incidentally do it in front of my friends and my girlfriend, and you don't have a reason?"
"I didn't think about it," Dean said.
Sam threw his arms up. "The great Dean Winchester breaks the epic glacier standing between us, all because he didn't think about it?" He shook his head. "I don't buy it."
Dean looked kind of indignant. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I don't buy it. Dean. Why are you here?"
There was a long moment where nothing was said. Too much time and distance had happened for Sam to read his brother's expression or guess at his state of mind. In a way, he missed that old closeness, when they were more like two halves of one being than brothers. But he also knew that staying would have been a dangerous thing. For him. For Dean. For the family.
Dean looked away.
That hurt, more than Sam expected. "Can't you just tell me?" he asked.
"No. You left."
The raw hurt in those three words knocked Sam back a bit. He knew he had hurt Dean, hell, leaving had hurt himself as well. But it had been years. More than enough time to grieve. Or maybe not, he thought, as he watched the line of his brother's shoulders, high and stiff, as he got up from the table and stumbled back into the living room.
Maybe it would never be enough.
***
Sam left Dean asleep on the couch. He wasn't exactly certain if Dean would still be there when he got back home, but there were important things he needed to talk about with Jessica. He was a little nervous about having the discussion outside of their apartment, but he hadn't had a nightmare about her in a few days. And outside, away from Dean, he was a lot more likely to actually say what he needed to say.
He cornered Jess as she was leaving her Abnormal Psych lecture. "Winchesters don't talk," he said.
"Sam, what—"
He cut her off. "Even with each other, we don't talk. Jess, I need to tell you. I don't want to, really, I don't. But I need to tell someone."
They found a little coffee shop, managed to score a private booth. Something in their expressions must have broadcasted the need, because Sam had never gotten a booth there, ever. They got their privacy, and Sam stared down at the creamy swirl of his milk steamer and tried to figure out how to start.
"Sam," Jess said.
Pleading or comforting, it was hard to tell which. He wanted to lift his head to look at her, but it was hard enough to start already. One look at her, and he'd want to pretend he was normal, just for her. Just so she would be happy.
"Mom was pinned to the ceiling," he confessed. "When she died, the fire? That's where she was. Dad saw her there. Something was holding her up. Something killed her."
And it poured out of him, the weapons training, melting down the silver into bullets, the thing in his closet, everything. He must have sounded crazy, he must have, so he talked faster to get it all out before she ran screaming from the booth, or called him a freak, or something. He told her about his nightmares, of her burning up on the ceiling, of feeling her blood dripping on his face and the taste of the smoke and how it felt so real. And he told her about the salt, the protective symbols, the wards. He showed her the scar on his arm from the nest of werewolves when he was fourteen – his first kill.
"Stop," she said, finally.
He knew it was coming. The milk steamer was cool and untouched and scabbing over on top. He marveled that it had taken her that long to understand how damaged he was. "I love you," he whispered, miserable.
"Sam," she said again.
"There's more," he said, before she could tell him that she never wanted to see his freaky face ever again. "Things I've never told anyone. Things that I've barely let myself think, Jess. I didn't leave Dean because of the hunting."
And finally, finally, he lifted his head to look at her.
Her smoky eyes were wide. "You're in love with him," she said, and hearing it from someone's mouth like that, hearing it from hers, was too much.
He stumbled to his feet, searching blindly for the door. He thought he could hear Jessica calling after him, but the blood was rushing in his ears too loud to be sure. It didn't matter anyway, he realized, and the thought stopped him short. Jess didn't want him, she couldn't, not after everything he had just told her. And Dean...
Dean would never take him back anyway.
"I am so, so fucked," he said to himself.
"Sam?"
Sam started, turned to look at Jess, surprised that she had followed him. "You don't have to say anything," he assured her. "I already know."
Her eyes were big and sad, her brow wrinkled up in that way that made him want to kiss it smooth again. "I'm sorry," she said, then bit her lip, like she was unsure what else she could say. "Thank you, though. For telling me. For letting me see the real Sam Winchester."
He looked down. "I'm sorry he's such a mess."
And she touched his face, lifted his chin up so they were looking each other in the eye again. Her eyes were wet, but no tears had spilled out just yet. "I just wish I'd gotten to know him earlier."
He nodded, and turned away. "Good-bye, Jessica."
***
Dean was still there when Sam got back to the apartment, but Sam didn't have the strength to be surprised. He had to pack up, to get away from Jess and Dean and the lie his life had been.
One thing his childhood had taught him was how to only take what was absolutely necessary. He started with the picture of his parents off the dresser, wrapped it up in a hoodie, and dug his old duffel bag out of the back of the closet.
"What are you doing?"
Sam didn't look at Dean. He couldn't bear to, just kept his eyes on what he needed. Shaving kit. First aid kit. His hidden knife. "The apartment's in Jessica's name. She'll let you stay until you're back on your feet."
"Okay. Where will you be?"
"Away," Sam answered. He packed his laptop, some clothes, just the essentials. "I have to go away." He only looked up to check around, to look over the walls and tables and clutter that had accumulated in the two years he had spent in that apartment. He didn't need any of it. It was just that, clutter.
Sam wasn't exactly satisfied, but he slung the duffel over his shoulder anyway and turned. Dean was standing between him and the door. Dean, who was too pale in some places and too flushed in others. Dean, who was watching him silently, one hand wrapped around the amulet.
"I have to go," Sam whispered, helplessly.
"No," Dean said. "No, I didn't come here just to be left again, Sammy."
"I have to," he repeated. He started for the door, but Dean blocked him. He was really too weak to be doing much of anything, but there he was, stubborn as always, standing between Sam and the door.
"No," Dean said again. He released the amulet, and it swung against his chest, right over those five little holes over his heart. "I won't let you go. Not this time."
Dean grabbed him by the shoulders and held on tight. Sam tried to fight, but even in his weakened state Dean had a fundamental advantage. Dean pulled him in, wrapped his arms around Sam like he was never going to let him go ever again.
Sam let the duffel fall to the floor.
"Sammy," Dean whispered. It was a plea and a prayer and a lifeline, all at once.
Sam kissed him. Dean kissed back.
Somehow, it was okay.
***
Here's the end of the story.
Sam never finished college. He dropped out, two months into his senior year, to return to the life that he had hated as a child. He ate bad food, lied to good people, and – in the end – saved a lot of lives. He never stopped loving Jess. That was something he would keep forever. Her friendship meant so much to him, was what kept him going some nights. And then there was Dean. Dean, who was everything to Sam he shouldn't have been. Parent and lover and partner and anchor.
Maybe it wasn't normal.
But it was a happy ending anyway.
Finis.