What the hell has gotten into you, Sam?

Sam taps his pencil mindlessly on his blank notebook and looks out the classroom window to the rolling hills below. The football field and the bright orange stands that rise high around it. A gym class is out on the turf, taking turns running laps around the track. Sam watches them with curiosity. The guys have broken off into their own group. They push each other and run circles around the cluster of girls who are jogging at a near stagnant pace. The girls' ponytails swishing over their thin framed shoulders. One girl, the same one from the parking lot earlier, brushes a single hair that has caught between her lips and laughs at something another girl has said. Sam can't hear it but he imagines that laugh is bright and crisp as spring air. He extends his neck just a bit, his eyes trailing after her. She's rounding the corner of the track when she looks back over her shoulder and straight up at him. He recoils in his seat, mortified. But of course she didn't see him staring. There's no way she could see him from across a field and into a second story window. Even though the logic of his reasoning is sound, he has a hard time convincing himself of it's truth. Those piercing blue eyes, sweeping back, looking up, meeting his…

What do you have to say for yourself, Sam?

A throat clears and Sam jumps to find Mr. Weatherby standing over his desk, looking down at him over the rim of his glasses with an unamused sternness.

"W—what?"

"Your essay, Sam? Don't have anything to say?"

Sam oggles at the blank sheet of paper in front of him. His mouth is suddenly very dry. "Oh, um. I was just planning out my argument."

Mr. Weatherby raises a unruly caterpillar thick eyebrow. "For your essay on the taxation system of the Ottoman Empire?"

"Yes. Right, well…"

Noticing the shifting eyes of the other students, Mr. Weatherby drops his voice. "Just stop by my desk after class, would you, Sam?"

Sam nods, slumping down into his shoulders as he hurriedly tries to conjure up something noteworthy to say about the fucking taxation system of the Ottoman Empire with little avail.

With half a page worth of essay and the classroom cleared out, Sam approaches Mr. Weatherby's desk. Mr. Weatherby takes the paper from him, gives it a quick glance, and slides it to the side, folding his hands in front of him. "Is everything…okay, Sam?"

"Yes, everything's fine," Sam says just a little too quickly.

"I know you must still be adjusting to things here, Sam. But, and I don't think it should come as much of a surprise to you, but you're the brightest student in class. You're always so attentive. You just don't seem yourself today."

Sam thumbs the strap of his backpack on his shoulder. He could tell Mr. Weatherby that he isn't himself today. That he's disappointed his father for the umpteenth time. That while everyone else his age is trying to make sports teams and going to movies on Friday nights he has to do salt and burn training with his uncle Bobby. He could tell him that last year he broke his leg fighting a Wendigo with his dad and how he had to tell everyone that he fell down the stairs. He could tell him how he longs to ask the pretty blonde girl to the homecoming dance at the end of the month, but how he knows he won't be here long enough to attend it anyway. He could tell him that he's tired. That he is so very, very tired. But instead he says none of this. Instead he simply feigns a smile and says, "I'm fine. Really."

Mr. Weatherby makes a contemplative sound in the back of his throat and shifts his jaw, unconvinced. But he knows better than to pry. "Well if you ever need to talk about anything, just let me know."

"Will do," Sam says, knowing full well that he won't.

In the hallway Sam walks through the crowd in a fog. Kids his age chatter afternoon gossip at each other's lockers and talk sports and who's older cousin was going to sneak them beer that weekend. Sam feels utterly disconnected. He can't name a single one of his classmates let alone consider himself to be one of them. He had taught himself long ago to give up on trying to fit in. The world of blissful ignorance of the supernatural was not one that he was privileged enough to live in and that was that. Still, since he'd started high school, the sting of this felt sharper than ever. Everyone around him was gearing up for the bright future that lay ahead. A world of unknown possibility. A world Sam's father was never going to allow him to know. He was a hunter. He always would be a hunter. It didn't matter how often they argued over it. When his father snapped on the overhead light in the dead of night, waking him and Dean, telling them that it was time to go, he went. But these days his feet feel leaden with each step in line that he follows.

"Sammy, Sammy, Sammysammy…" Dean sweeps in from around the hallway corner and punches Sam in the shoulder cheerily. "Man I got news for you."

"You finally learned how to spell assassinate without laughing?"

"Funny but no," He circles Sam excitedly, punching faster at his scrawny arms as the two continue down the hall. "There's. A. Party. Tonight."

Sam tries to pull himself out of his brother's range, but Dean is almost a head taller than him and quick on his feet. He swats at Dean's fist. "Dude, quit it. What are you talking about, party? Where?"

Dean lets his hands fall, smile still wide on his face. "Don't be a bitch. And where do you think? At Bobby's, doy."

Sam's whole face gives way to sarcastic disbelief. "Yeah? And how are you managing to pull that off?"

"It just so happens that I got a call from Bobby. Rufus called him for backup on a werewolf case about an hour north." Dean flings an arm around Sam's shoulders and throws his hand in a wide arch in front of them. "That leaves you, me, and a whole house just aching to be filled with hot chicks."

Sam wiggles from under his weight. "You saw Dad's note, Dean. No girls."

Dean scoffs. "Dad's never going to know. Neither is Bobby long as you keep your girly little mouth shut." When Sam still looks unconvinced Dean continues, "Come on, Sammy. We got to live a little, don't we? Don't we owe it to ourselves to have a little fun every now and again? You know all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

"I still don't see how you plan on pulling it off."

"You just leave it to old Dean, I've got it covered. All you need to do it speed the word. I want this to be the biggest blowout this town has ever seen. It's going to be legendary, Sammy."

Sam sighs unenthusiastically, but with that hopeful if not slightly overconfident smirk on his brother's face, he can't help but smile a little himself. He shakes his head slowly. "Whatever you say, Dean."

Dean beams, "That's the spirt. This is me here," he says, ducking towards his history class. He walks backwards as he calls, "I'll see you after school. Don't forget, tell everyone you know."

Sam stands in the quickly emptying hallway and looks around. He has no one to tell.