AN: After the amazing response to 'Ten Commandments', I'm feeling pretty good about posting this one. It's been Jossed, I'm pretty sure, but that's the beauty of FF. I wrote it a while back and was waiting to gauge the fandom. I love it like Dean loves pie. Yeah - that much. Sort of a Sam character study, but with plot, if that makes sense. Enjoy.
Just As Sam Knows
Sam has an idea, and it's so unbelievable that he can't actually voice it. Can't tell Dean and won't tell dad.
He wants to go to college.
No. he wants to go to a good college, and get a real education, all in the same place.
Sometimes the vision of it consumes him. He's wandering through a sun-filled quadrangle, books in his bag and his arms, surrounded by people who are there because they want to be. He's walking softly through dim libraries where the books stretch out endlessly in front and behind and over his head.
Then again, sometimes it's like a nightmare, taunting him with what he can never have. It's too hard.
There are too many barriers. Money is the most obvious, because there's never enough anyway, but Sam thinks he can maybe remedy this – with a scholarship of some kind, he has the grades to try, at least.
The more pressing problem is that he doesn't even have a goddamn fixed address, so how the hell is the whole process even possible?
Answer: it's not… at first.
Sam lets it simmer and boil and grow inside him until he has to do something, and if Dean and Dad weren't so obsessed with anything else, they might've noticed. Sam wants this so bad, he knows it's going to take all his knowledge. Of schoolbooks and facts he learnt so easily, of how to write the perfect essay, everything he knows about Dean, and everything he knows about Dad.
This is the part that Sam knows he will hate forever.
He lies to Dean, to get him on board. He uses Dean against his father, because Dean is the only weapon that works.
I'm so sorry Dean.
He tells Dean he wants to complete high school in one place. Please Dean, just six months or so, so Sam can be a little bit normal when he graduates. and because Dean knows how important Sam's education is to him, he agrees, just as Sam knew he would.
Sam is a little scared at how good a manipulator he is.
So when Sam brings it up with their Dad, it inevitably turns into a fight, and when John turns to Dean for backup, he's not there.
Sorry Dad, I'm with Sammy on this one.
So John agrees reluctantly, after Dean brings up the compromise (which Sam came up with, but of course couldn't say, because from Sam it's premeditated and therefore mutiny and treachery – which it is, although no-one but Sam knows it) to do it from a town in the middle of the country so it's as close as they can get to anything that might (and inevitably will) come up. John (and Dean, or John and Dean and Sam) can sort of spoke outwards from there. When Dean says it, it sounds just like a military strategy (just as Sam knew it would).
So, it's done.
They settle, and Sam begins work on fixing problem number two in his plan. Applying. He can't get letters sent to the tiny shack of a house they have (which is just like a motel really, because John insists they're ready to go at a moment's notice, so Sam is still living out of a duffle bag), so he does something he hates.
He heads out early one night when Dean and his Dad are in Florida and hustles some pool (just because he doesn't do it doesn't mean he can't). He gets in fine, no questions asked, and come out with several hundred dollars – enough to rent a local post-office box downtown for six months.
After that, it's almost too easy.
He writes essays in the library (Dad and Dean suspect nothing, just as Sam knew they wouldn't) and fills out transcripts with as many honest details as he can. He fills out every financial aid and scholarship form he can get his hands on, and gets recommendations from his English teacher, who loves him (they always do, laughs Dean).
And then it arrives.
It's big, and heavy, and has Stanford University in the corner, and he almost bursts into tears right there in the middle of the post-office, but he stops himself, closes the box and locks it. Then he does something else he's never done before.
He breaks into his school, and he sits in the dark deserted library, his only light falling from the skylight above the center desks, because Dad and Dean are at the little house for this whole week, and they'll be there if he goes back. Dad in one room and Dean in the other and Sam will have nowhere to shake and tremble and clench his fists in the knowledge of what he has to do next.
He tears open the envelope with such care, just like he opens his presents, and Dean would laugh at him (just rip it open, you freak).
I'm so sorry Dean.
And there it is. Dear Mr. Winchester. He's been accepted to Stanford, and when he reads further through, he does cry a little - tips his head back so the water runs into his hair and not his shirt, because he's done it. All the arguments (no, dad, we have to stay another week, I have finals in two days), all the extra hours in scattered libraries (so, I'll just pick you up from the nearest nerd-house, huh Sammy?) all the deceptions (please Dean, I want this) have paid off. He has a full ride. A scholarship, real and true in front of him. It's a door, and he's been pushing it for sixteen years, and now – it's open, wide and inviting, with everything he's never had and always wanted. Right. There.
But he has to wait.
He needs to take this one day at a time.
So he does. He's goes back to the post office first thing in the morning; all the necessary forms completed, and posts them with the last of his hustled money.
That night, he waits for Dean and John to leave, then heads to the same bar as last time and hustles himself some living money.
He does this every night for the next two weeks, while Dean and Dad hunt something bad in Seattle. Of course, after a few days it stops actually being a con and becomes an out-and-out challenge to beat him, but it's as if he can't lose. There's something burning bright inside him, and it is by this that he saves. Enough for the bus fare he will inevitably need, and enough for the basics once he gets there.
Then the only thing left to do is the hardest part.
Telling Dean and Dad.
It's not asking, because he's had enough.
I'm not sorry Dad, not for wanting this.
He finds Dean as they get back, clambers into the Impala before he can get out, and sits quietly.
Sam?
I'm sorry Dean, I'm so sorry, but I had to. I'm sorry.
Then he leaves, to tell his Dad, and Dean is left confused.
Sammy?
When Dean has gotten inside, it's getting ugly, just as Sam knew it would.
His Dad is beyond furious, asking how and why and where and when saying how dare you and why would you and how could you and all these other things that all mean no. Just as Sam knew he would.
When Dean cottons on angry, shocked, but he gets past it fast, and just ends up emotionless, locking everything away, just as Sam knew he would. his borother stands in soldier mode by the door, watching the battle.
So Sam does exactly what he's planned; he goes to his room and shoulders his duffle bag. It's all he needs now.
I'm sorry Dean.
It's when Sam walks out into the kitchen again that his plans fall apart, because his Dad isn't ready to hit him, or shoot him, he's just… sitting. With his head in his hands as Dean stands by the door, back against the wall, flipping his keys around his forefinger, as if nothing was wrong. As if he hadn't just learned his own brother betrayed him.
Sam improvises, because his plan and ended there, with no room for a this sort of ending. It just faded out, as if his brain didn't want to compute what was going to happen. In his head, it was supposed to end with a happy glow around his success and a violent family farewell, and he's angry at himself for not knowing the truth, and he yells it into the silence.
You want to know how Dad? I lied and I conned and I was secretive. All the things you've always wanted me to do, and I got a scholarship for it. A full ride somewhere far away from here and all the crap we do.
They fight more and more and more, but soon it's evident that Sam will not lose this one, he's not going to let himself, so when John looks down at the table in defeat, Sam falls into a furious silence.
His Dad doesn't look up when he speaks.
If you go, Sam, don't come back.
Dean's keys stop spinning, and Sam closes his eyes for a second, only the briefest moment, because it hurt.
Goodbye Dad.
I'm sorry for hurting you.
Dean walks out behind him as he leaves, but before Sam can start walking down the wet road, Dean stops him with a gentle hand on his shoulder and steers him to the Impala.
When Sam gets out at the tiny, dirty bus station, he says it again.
I'm so sorry Dean.
Dean thinks about this for a moment, shoulders tense. Then he socks Sam in the jaw, a hard one. Sam saw it coming (just as he has been trained to do) and offered no resistance. Dean pulls Sam into a hug, for only a minute (no chick-flick moments, Sammy), then he's gone, and Sam is on the bus to California.
When he stands in front of Stanford sixteen hours later, he is more alone than he has ever been.
Just as he knew he would be.
He didn't know he'd be this scared.