Disclaimer: If you think I own it, you've got a bigger imagination than I do - so go do something productive with it!
A/N: Another bit spawned by a title and then, of course, the rest followed. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Season 1, "Bloody Mary".
Summary: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." (Thomas Jefferson)
LAUGH, I NEARLY DIED
Living in a car, in a life where a motel room anyone else would call cramped was the only place he could spread out, didn't mean much in the way of privacy. Until he went to Stanford, he didn't really know the comfort in that – in not having to hold any of himself apart. In some ways that was stifling, and in others, liberating; at Stanford it was the same, only in reverse. And Sam learned for the first time that he could have privacy, have secrets, and keep them close like jewels or open sores.
He brought that knowledge back with him, and both brothers seemed content to let it lie, let the changes be what they were and adapt around them, relearn one another in a way they'd never had to before.
It was working, or good enough, for awhile.
And then there was Bloody Mary Worthington, whispering sweet nothings – you killed her you dreamed it would happen – in his ear.
Sam could still feel the blood, hot as tears, spilling thickly down his cheeks.
But there are some things I need to keep to myself.
And he kept his hold on the secret too, despite his brother's . . . request? Demand?
Sam had seen the streaks of blood on Dean's face, too. Known that four years apart meant there would be secrets between them, that with their lives, people would have died. But Sam's secret bled sluggishly into his dreams, not just death but murder.
And later, he figured that it made sense, and was surprised his brother didn't pick up on it. That was what Mary saw, after all – secrets plus death equaling murder in the simplistic arithmetic of vengeful ghosts.
For all that he was pre-law, Sam couldn't convince himself that extenuating circumstances made a difference.
Fin