Sam's shoulder hurt from where he had slammed it against the axe. His knees hurt from where he had slammed them against the ground. His neck twinged from the lousy pillow he was using, and his feelings were hurt from being relegated - again - to the kiddie bed.
OK, technically it wasn't a kiddie bed, it was just a roll-away bed, an extra bed for a motel room that only came with two real beds. It wasn't the bed that made it 'kiddie', but the location - pushed against the far back wall, under the attached coat rack, and opposite the bathroom door.
Swanky. Real swanky.
He turned over - again - and bunched up the pillow and tried - again - to find some comfortable way of lying on the bed so that maybe he'd finally fall asleep. He'd laid down a couple of hours ago and hadn't even come close to being tired.
Dad and Dean both were asleep, over in the 'grown-up' beds. There were times when hearing them breathe, late at night, in a darkened motel room, comforted Sam and made it easier for him to drift off into sleep, knowing they were nearby and he was safe.
Right now though, it grated like sandpaper over metal. All the usual sounds of nighttime in a motel room seemed amplified and annoying and conspiring to keep Sam from ever falling asleep again. Traffic roared past on the interstate just beyond the motel parking lot, other motel patrons' evening activities echoed through the thin walls. And of course - the faucet in the bathroom drip-drip-dripped with regularity and zeal.
Maybe Sam shouldn't have had coffee with dinner and then taken the Excedrin for his assorted aches. But he liked coffee with dinner because Dean had coffee with dinner, and Excedrin was the painkiller he came across first in the first aid kit. Only, all that caffeine added to the sleep he'd had in the backseat of the car this afternoon was equaling a really long night of no sleep at all.
At least Dean had let him sleep without the sling & swath of the ace wrap, so Sam could get comfortable. Reasonably comfortable. Sort of comfortable.
Not deadly uncomfortable anyway.
It wasn't fair. Sam punched his pillows and turned himself over on the lumpy mattress. Again. It wasn't fair that Dad and Dean could sleep anywhere, anytime, any ambient noise. It wasn't fair that they could shut off the day and the hunts, the monsters and the dangers, the nights and the nightmares, while Sam's brain seemed always to whir on with what happened, why it happened, how it could maybe happen differently next time.
But more and more lately his brain whirred on with how his life was, how it wasn't, and how he wanted it to be.
And not-sleeping on a hard roll-away bed outside a bathroom with a dripping sink was not how he wanted it to be. He briefly considered putting a towel in the sink to dull the drip, but he knew from experience that as soon as the towel became saturated, the 'drip, drip, drip' would turn into 'splat, splat, splat'. That would be even worse.
He tried to imagine himself away at college, in a dorm room, with a dripping sink and indeterminate roommates. Dorm rooms weren't grand palaces after all, they were cramped and uncomfortable. Roommates were sloppy, loud, and inconsiderate. It probably wouldn't be much different than sharing motel rooms with Dad and Dean.
Only instead of digging graves and burning corpses, hunting werewolves, black dogs and poltergeists, living off diner food, bad coffee and fake credit cards, he'd be researching literature, writing response papers, studying all night, eating student union food.
Without Dad.
Without Dean.
Sam tried to imagine himself in a room with people who weren't his family.
He tried to imagine that he was in a college dorm room and Dad and Dean were hundreds or a thousand miles away, hunting something dangerous and clever and fast.
And dangerous.
That would be the hardest part. Not being there to share in or mitigate the danger. Yeah, Dad and Dean were older and more experienced and if ever Dad got hurt, Dean usually did the patching, and if Dean or Sam got hurt, Dad usually did the patching. Still, Sam had done some patching, and even if he didn't, he felt better when he could be there when one of them was hurt.
He always felt better too when he didn't feel good when Dean and Dad were there, or close enough to be there when Sam wanted them.
If he left them to go to college…
That was the problem wasn't it? To walk into the world waiting for him out there, Sam would have to leave behind the only world he'd ever known.
And that would be hard.
Even if the only world he knew came with a sink that drip-drip-dripped incessantly.
He grumbled and turned himself over and hurt his shoulder and he spat out a curse.
"S'm?" Dean called, tiredly and softly. "Y'right?"
""Can't sleep…" Sam called back, just as softly.
"Shoulder?"
"No…sink's dripping."
"Guys…" Dad's sleep-deep voice broke in. "Is this something that can wait for morning?"
"Sammy can't sleep." Dean supplied.
"Y'all right?"
In the darkened room, Sam could see that Dad pushed himself up to look over at him.
"Sink's dripping." Dean supplied again as he turned himself over.
"Sink?" Dad asked, sounding confused or annoyed, or maybe a little of both.
"Just - the bathroom sink is dripping, is all." Sam said. "It's keeping me awake."
He knew a dripping bathroom sink had to seem a ludicrous foe to a man who was used to getting up in the middle of the night to tangle with spirits, werewolves, and other literal monsters. He expected Dad to rumble an order to go to sleep in spite of it.
But Dad got up from the bed and walked toward Sam, and Sam sat up, wondering what was going on, what Dad was going to do or say, but he only walked into the bathroom. He flicked the light on, reached under the sink and turned the knob that shut off the water, flicked the light off again and walked back to bed, ruffling Sam's hair as he walked past.
"Remind in the morning that I shut that off, okay?" He asked and went back to bed.
Sam laid back, listening to the dull quiet filling up the room. Dad and Dean fell right back to sleep, judging from their breathing, and Sam gave a quiet laugh at that. Of course they were asleep. The monster - a dripping sink - had been identified and neutralized. Job done, mission accomplished, game over. Nothing left to do but fall asleep again.
In the quiet, Sam's bed seemed more comfortable, the pillow wasn't as lumpy anymore, and the blanket was warm. His body relaxed, his mind finally stopped whirring, and he joined his family in sleep.
To be continued…