|"Because it hurts."| |Chapter 6. Part 7.|
A/N: WARNINGS: Always pay head to the warnings in the first Chapter, they ALWAYS apply... This Chapter has some sex scenes between Sam and Jessica and an extra, super sad ending.. SERIOUSLY! You may need tissue..
~0~
As he watched the nineteen year old Sam board the next bus that would eventually take to another bus station to wait for another bus that would eventually take him to a life away from abuse, he felt a new wave of anger rise up in him… The bus ride would be a grueling three days long because of changeovers and departure times of whatever new bus Sam would be boarding, when if he had been driven there.. Or if he had, had HIS OWN DAMN CAR to drive himself there, it would have taken a measly twenty-six to thirty hours depending on how many stops were made and for how long was taken at each stop… But NO!..
Past Dean had only seen how he was being abandoned NOT how his little brother could really use a ride… No.. He had never thought about how his little brother could really use a car of his own back then, especially when considering how he was pretty sure getting from one end to the other of a GIANT campus hadn't been exactly easy on his kid brother… No one had allowed Sam to have even that small amount of independence, John Winchester had his own truck and Dean had been given the Impala… But what had Sam had back then?... Who had even thought about how Sam should get to have his own vehicle too?
When Present day Dean really thinks about it… Sam's never really had a vehicle that he could call his own except that one time when he had been soulless… Which how can THAT count, because it hadn't really been 'SAM'S', Sam's, now had it?.. And even if it could count, it had lasted all of five seconds of him having his big brother back in his life before the poor car was totaled… And Dean has worked with worse… He could have fixed it till it was as good as new again… But he hadn't even cared to try or to even ask to try because he was too busy feeling happy over something of Sam's being destroyed because it meant that Sam would have no choice but to ride with him…
Oh… Wait there was when he had known he was going to die and he told Sam that the Impala was going to be his… Present day Dean wants to scoff at himself because all of six seconds after finding Sam he was reclaiming ownership of the Impala back, but not before ripping out Sam's Ipod jack with the accusation of 'douching' up HIS car, but he hadn't really cared to think about the damage that he himself might have caused to the lighter port where the jack had been plugged into, because when he had ripped out the Ipod jack, the car had technically still been Sam's because Sam hadn't actually given the Impala back to him, he had only offered to let him drive, but the second the last traces of Sam actually owning the Impala had literally been ripped out, the Impala had become HIS again, and of course he hadn't thought to give two fucks about how he might have damaged Sam's Ipod jack… He had basically been all like "Thanks for staying alive to take care of my car, but this whole proof that you had the nerve to actually have your own existence in MY SPACE, while I was dead, thing has to go, 'bye-bye', now." and when he had come back from Purgatory Sam had just handed over the keys without question and the first thing Dean had done was start in on how the inside of the Impala had smelled like dog as if he had been entitled to attack any kind of sign that Sam had, had any sort of happiness when he hadn't been around to have control over it.
God.. He really was an asshole, wasn't he?
But as he looked back on a few things he realized that it was more than just Sam not ever really having a vehicle of his own that he was pissed off about… Because as he really thought about it… He couldn't think of one single thing that was actually Sam's that HE hadn't in some way shape or form taken over at some point as if it were his too like he was entitled to it.. From Sam's clothes to Sam's laptop.. Sam didn't really have anything… Not one thing that was actually HIS that he got to keep because someone always came in and either took it away, told him he couldn't have it, broke it, infected it with viruses or wore it like it was theirs and not his… It was disrespectful.. Oh god… He's never once really shown his brother's personal possessions or personal space any real respect, yet he expects Sam to just jump up and show him unconditional respect no matter what sort of asshole he's making himself out to be. He has always had a thing for taking what little control Sam had in life over anything, away and making it his own as if Sam wasn't 'allowed' to have a say or control over his own life or belongings unless DEAN allowed him a small measure of that control so he could feel like 'a big boy' every once in a while, but other than that Sam had no real rights to his own life or belongings.
Oh dear god.. He really had become his father and Sam had indeed suffered because of it….
Present day Dean watched as a very exhausted nineteen year old Sam made it to his destination with only minutes to spare before he had to be at Orientation. The poor kid basically fell asleep on his feet as he waited in line for a key to his dorm but thankfully, since his last name started with a 'W', he was practically at the end of the line anyway so no one noticed and if they did, they probably understood how he felt cause they were just as far towards the end of the line as him.
The nineteen year old finally got his key, text books and 'Welcoming' packets from the oh so helpful RA's and book clerks at the table so he was finally able to trudge tiredly to his dorm and crash into the unclaimed bed without even caring that it wasn't made… Because it wasn't like he had sheets and blankets he could put on it anyway… All he had was just a medium sized duffle bag full of clothes a couple of notebooks, one package of pencils and a picture of his mom and dad that he had, had no choice but to sneak out of his father's belongings or else he wouldn't even have anything to remember his family by… He would have grabbed a picture of Dean too… Except… There weren't any pictures of Dean that weren't in his father's journal, so if he had braved trying to snag one, it wouldn't have taken long for his father to notice it missing, which would have lead his father to tearing through his duffle bag and discovering the picture of his mom that he had basically stolen… He shudders to think of what would have happened and he knows for certain that the beating he would have gotten would have gotten someone put in the hospital and possibly more than one person dead . But he feels like a traitor because it feels like he had chosen a memory of a mother he never got to know over a memory of the one parent who was actually THERE for him as he had grown up… He wishes he had been brave enough to risk taking a picture of Dean, anyway, despite what the consequences might have been… It would have beat feeling like a traitor any day of the week.
But, he had no way to go back, no way to try to steal one of those memories to keep just for himself… So he has to hold the memories that he does have close and always keep them burning bright in his mind so he never forgets that Dean was THERE… Because a memory is all he's going to get… He's never going to see Dean ever again…
Now he really wishes he had risked stealing a picture.
It's with thoughts like these that he surrenders to a giant black wall of unconsciousness with tears, still streaming down his face.
When he wakes up he feels numb and floaty but he's so used to feeling like this that it hardly even registers beyond a small sigh of relief, because right in this second he can't feel the pain and he knows to be thankful for what little reprieves from the pain that life so mercifully allows him to have.
He knows that when the pain ebbs back in that it will consume him until everything is clouded behind a misty grey, foggy wall of oppressively heavy sadness.
It's best not to think of those things in times like this… it's like inviting trouble right in and offering it dinner and a place to stay the night.
He wants to go without the pain for as long as possible.
But it doesn't take long before something reminds him of Dean, of the only little piece of 'home' that he always carried in his heart. His one and only tie to a mother he never really got to know and a BEFORE that he never really got a chance to live in.
He wonders what life might have been like in that BEFORE, the great big BEFORE, the one where monsters were things that were only in movies that Dean would have been too young to see at only four. Was his father a good man back then?, Was he a good dad?.. He doesn't remember how old he was when he had first noticed the hate lingering in his father's eyes that seemed to be reserved only for him but he o with knows that once he had, that, that had been one of the things he had always noticed from that moment on.. But sometimes he thinks he remembers a time when his father looked at him without hate clouding his gaze, but the memory is fuzzy and seems more like a dream than reality and it hurts to think that that memory might be nothing but a vaguely happy illusion because now he has to question every single memory of the man that he has. Like all the times his father had sounded fondly amused as he scolded him and Dean for rough housing in the living room. Had the man been fondly amused by BOTH Dean AND him, or just Dean? Had the man even ever really notice that he had, had TWO SONS? Or had John ever only saw Dean and 'that other kid who was the reason their life was hell and who would never be Dean'?
Just who had he been to his father? Just who had he been to Dean? Now that he was gone from them for good, did they ever even think of him at all?, Did they miss him at all? Even just a little? Or were they happy to finally be rid of the hideous black spot in their lives?
After he completed school and got a job as a lawyer.. If he found Dean and asked him to come share that dream they both had, had as kids, would Dean just see the burden that he never wanted to bear as he laughed in his face before telling him to get lost?
He chastised himself for thinking such things, it would be well within his family's rights to be glad to be rid of him, he is the reason their lives were ruined after all.
All he could do was keep striving to accomplish the goals of graduating and getting a good paying job as a lawyer and hope that the four years between now and then would give Dean's and his father's hearts enough time to grow even just a little fond of him and that it would be enough time to heal old wounds, like all the clichés say. Because, then maybe. MAYBE he could save BOTH of the remaining members of his small family by helping to provide them with the support they'd need to leave hunting and start over.
Hell, if they'd let him, he's sure that, barring them committing a Felony that could be proven in a court of law within the next four years, he could get most if not all of the infractions on their criminal records expunged just by using the few things that he already knew about Law and he's certain that by the time he's ready to take the B.A.R. Exam and get his License he'll be well versed in every Loophole that he could exploit to clear his brother's and father's names of most of their 'misdeeds' that they had done and most likely would still do over the next four years, out of necessity to do 'the work' they did and to keep themselves afloat. Which would mean that, in four years, he hopefully, really would be able to help them obtain legally legitimate means to live and support themselves, if they'd give him the chance to help them, come four years from now, that is.
Part of him knows that it's probably all just a pipedream, but part of him believes in that dream anyway, part of him HOPES that he can eventually, truly, help give his family a life outside of hunting, so, he will not give up on that dream.
~0~
Over the next few weeks the nineteen year old Sam manages to impress all of his Professors and most of his peers and by the time his Second Nine Week Classes start he's making enough money as a Tutor to keep himself afloat for when the Holiday Breaks hit and his Grants and Scholarship won't cover his meals, and he splits that money in half, half to keep himself fed over the Holiday Breaks and the other half to save and add to for when the longer Summer Break hits and he'll not only have to pay for his meals but his housing as well as his Grants and Scholarship wouldn't be kicking back in till that coming Fall Semester.
When Thanksgiving Break hits, his roommate, Brady offers him a place to go to celebrate Thanksgiving, but as it is, Sam feels too caught up in the depression of missing his own family and he doesn't want to spoil Brady's Holiday so he politely declines and when the week long break ends, Brady comes back different. Brady is no longer studious and keen to stay on his education and career tracks and is instead, seemingly only interested in partying and getting drunk and sometimes even high. It only takes two ditched classes before Sam starts pouring himself into trying to figure out a way to help his friend, but Brady doesn't seem interested in the offered help, Sam has heard the horror stories of kids coming into College raring to tackle the world only to fizzle out and buckle under the pressure before falling prey to the temptations of becoming a slacker who's only interested in partying and hooking up. He thinks this is what's happened to his friend and he tries his best to be as supportive as possible without getting drug in too deep, but when Brady comes back DANGEROUSLY drunk for a fifth night in a row, Sam figures that it might be smart to start going with Brady to at least be there to cut his friend off before he gets so drunk that he's actually risking dying in his sleep from aspirating on his own vomit.
Getting more involved than he had intended ends up taking a bit of a toll, his grades take a small backslide, but it's enough to worry his Professors, when one of them ask him what's going on with him he explains about his roommate Brady and how he's just been caught up with trying to help keep his friend from flushing his life down the drain. He gets some sage advice to focus more on keeping himself from flushing his own life down the drain and he takes it to heart and knows that he has to pull back from his involvement in Brady's problems, because he had done all he could and now he has no choice but to let Brady find his own way.
He goes to one more party with Brady out of duty to their dwindling and increasingly strained friendship and it's there that things, seemingly, take a turn for the better.
Brady gets pretty drunk and he gets to where he's stumbling around and embarrassing not only himself, but Sam as well, but Sam finds that he's not Brady's only friend here and he's not the only one who's embarrassed for Brady's sake. There's a few other people who have known Brady over the course of the Semester who have also seen the change in him and eight of them, Sam included, get together to get Brady's drunk self back to the dorm and on the way back to the dorm, Brady drunkenly makes introductions and Sam meets seven of Brady's other friends, Josh Ludwig, Nathan Roberts, Kelly Watson, Marissa Fulton, Rebecca Warren, Shawn Chambers and Jessica Moore and when the six of them get Brady back to the dorm, they ply Brady with coffee till he's sober enough to hear them out during the impromptu intervention and by the end of the night Brady is crying because he's "just been going through some stuff" but he won't elaborate what that 'stuff' is, which leaves Brady's friends to merely theorize what all might be going on with Brady.
But still as it is, Sam feels horrible for thinking about giving up on his friend, especially if he's "going through some stuff" and apparently he's not the only one, Jessica, Nathan and Josh are the only others out of Brady's friends who don't just get up and walk out with the declaration of being 'so done' with Brady's crap… But apparently just the four of them sticking around is enough, because a few days and a few interventions later, Brady starts getting his act back together, well, mostly… He doesn't quite quit partying or getting sloppy drunk, but he keeps it to the weekends like a normal college kid who's enjoying their newfound freedoms, that and Brady also manages to get his grades out of the proverbial toilet, which puts Sam at enough ease that he allows himself to start cutting the apron strings again so Brady can begin to relearn how to keep control of his own life without him there to act as his training wheels. But now that he, Nathan, Rebecca, Josh and Jessica have spent so much time together trying to keep Brady from Self-Destructing, all four of them have become really close friends and Sam starts realizing that, yeah he likes his other 'new' friends, but he likes, LIKES, Jessica and maybe wants to be more than her friend and he really wants to ask if she might feel the same way too… So once it's clear that Brady doesn't need all of them constantly there to help keep him from falling back into his worst habits, Sam finally asks Jessica if maybe she'd like to go on a date with him and when Jessica grins and says "Only if it's a 'DATE' date.", Sam feels like he's on cloud nine when he says "Yeah.. I'd really like to go with you on a 'DATE', date…", to which Jessica had replied "Pick me up at seven."
It was only till about an hour later that Sam wanted to smack his head on a concrete pillar as he remembered that he doesn't have a car to take Jessica anywhere.
Thank everything that's holy that he has kung-fu level internet searching skills, because another hour later and he has a list of all the places that are within walking distance of the campus.
Walking.. Walking was good, walking was romantic.. Right?..
"I'm so screwed." Sam groaned as he let his head thump on the table beside the keyboard.
That night when he gets to Jessica's dorm and knocks on the door he's sweating bullets.
He feels like a walking cliché as he stand in the hall fidgeting nervously, trying to work up the courage to knock on the door.
And he had thought asking her out would be the end of the scary stuff.
But now he's suddenly terrified that everything will go wrong and that by the end of the night he'll look like a complete jackass who Jessica will never want to speak to or maybe not even want to look at, ever again.
When Jessica answers the door, she's beautiful.. She's wearing jeans and a tee shirt, stuff he sees her in all the time.. But she's done something different with her hair. It's hanging in loose ringlets around her shoulders, adorning her with a golden halo as the light bounces off her hair… Sam's so awestruck by her beauty and that she had actually said yes to going out to dinner with him as more than friends that it causes his heart to start racing so frantically that for the first few seconds all he can hear is the sound of his blood rushing through his eardrums, but his eyes are tracking her mouth and he knows she just said something.
Oh, god… What did she just say?
What did she just say?
He's so busy freaking out that he missed what she said, that he doesn't hear what she says next and all he can do is stand there dumbly, with his mouth hanging open and feeling like he'll burst into tears at any second, because it's just like he had feared, he's making an ass of himself.
"I.. Uh.." He stammers nervously as he tries to just go with it, he feels like his whole face is flushed and he's sure he's redder than a stop sign from blushing so furiously.. "I was hoping.. Uh.. There's this place just off campus called Jade Palace and I was hoping you wouldn't mind.. Walking there withmecauseIkindadon'thaveacar." Sam said the last part in one rushed whoosh of run together words.
Jessica just looked at him with a bit of playful mischief twinkling in her eyes as she said "Sam.. I've known you for more than two weeks.. I kinda already figured out that you didn't have a car a while back."
"Oh…. I.. I.."
"Sam?.." Jessica asked sweetly "Are you, nervous about going on an actual 'DATE', date with me?"
"This is my first actual date." Sam confessed nervously.
Jessica's eyebrows shot up in surprise "Really?"
Sam nodded.
"Can I tell you a secret?" She asked shyly.
Sam nodded again.
"This is my first actual date, too."
"Really?" Sam asked with a nervous gulp.
Jessica's grin grew even wider as she blushed and gave him a nod in reply before saying "And you know what else?"
"What else?" Sam asked with a weak croak as if his voice was trying to strand him and leave him to flail then drown.
"I was nervous about our date too.."
A breath of relief wooshed out of him so fast at hearing that, that it left him light headed "Really?"
"Yeah.. But then I remembered that you're still the same guy I've known and been friends with these last few weeks, that you're still the same guy that I really wanted to be more than friends with. And suddenly I wasn't nervous anymore, because I know that I already know you well enough to know that I can't screw things up between us, because I've never been anything but myself around you, and you already liked me just fine. That you actually liked me enough to ask me out even though you already knew what the real me's really like."
"I like real you.." He felt stupid for saying it, but it was the only thing he could think to say.
"And I like, real you, too.." Jessica replied sweetly as she put her hand in his and laced their fingers together and with that they walked together, hand in hand off on an adventure that was a first for both of them…
Come February 2003, Sam and Jessica are already pretty serious about each other and by the time Summer hits they've decided to get an apartment on campus together.
When the next Fall Semester began, heralding in Sam's Sophomore year at Stanford, Sam really began to come out of his shell even more.. Sam had, had friendships that he had gotten to keep going for more than a year and having friends that long gave him a newfound sense of security as he wasn't afraid of having to move away from those friends. Which, really made a difference to just about everything in Sam's life, and the fact the now, twenty year old Sam was actually able to be himself for the first time since he was eight (well, mostly, there was still lots of secrets he had no choice but to keep), meant he was no longer so withdrawn which made him less of a target for bullying.
Sam had only needed a chance to actually get to grow into his own person.
It hurt as Present day Dean realized that the way he and their father had made Sam live, had made the boy more of a target for someone looking to prey on a lonely, withdrawn child that clearly hadn't really had anyone to go to. People like all of the school bullies that Sam had, had to deal with, that he never told anyone about, people like the bastards who had singled Sam out because of how 'alone' he had obviously been, had made them assume the child wouldn't be missed by anyone who would really care to actually do much about his disappearance and then there was Sam's own father who had used the isolation and alienation he himself imposed on the kid as a means to get away with hitting him, with running his physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health into the ground because he had known the boy would never tell and he had been smart enough to keep anyone from catching him in the act, save for only one time, by someone he had immediately cut out of Sam's life so that Sam would continue to feel like he had no one to turn to. And if Dean were to be honest, he had been abusive towards Sam too… Because he had been an ADULT for four years before Sam had turned eighteen, which meant that every time he had taken a cheap shot at that child's self-esteem, every time he had brow beaten the kid over fighting with their father, over running away, over him just being SAM over the four years it had taken Sam to join him in adulthood , he had been abusing a CHILD, no 'basically' or 'technically', because it was cut and dry, that, THAT was the truth, he hadn't just been an asshole to Sam, he had been a child abusing asshole to Sam for four years of Sam's life. And then he had wanted to act all hurt because Sam had left him behind to go to College?, He's lucky that Sam had thought about keeping the two eldest Winchester men out of jail when instead the kid could have been well within his rights to use everything he had, had at his disposal to get his ABUSERS thrown under a jail the first second he had, had a chance.
Present day Dean watched as the twenty year old Sam hung out with Jessica, Rebecca, Nathan and Brady in the library, the five of them were having a 'riveting' conversation about The Iliad because apparently all of them had Humanities, they just didn't have the class at the same time or on the same days, but they did, all, apparently have the same assignment. Sam was fervent that there was solid Lore that backed his theory that Helen hadn't loved neither Menelaus nor Paris but both had felt entitled to her because of her beauty. Menelaus had felt entitled for he had 'won' the 'right' to be her suitor while Paris had felt entitled to just kidnap her and claim her as his because of the promise Aphrodite had made him. But neither of them deserved her, because both of them only wanted her for her beauty, neither of them had loved her and she hadn't loved either of them.
Brady made the debate that Helen had loved Paris and had chosen to dishonor her marriage vows to Menelaus.
And Sam had come back with a few historical facts that according to several accounts Helen had only been SIX YEARS OLD when she was forced to marry Menelaus and not even seven yet when she bore her first child.
"That's impossible, a girl that young can't have kids." Nathan had interrupted with his own debate.
"Actually the youngest mother on record was barely five when she gave birth, meaning that some sick bastard raped her when she was still just four years old and because she had a Precocious Puberty, that bastard managed to make her pregnant when she was still just a baby herself." Sam growled in reply "So it's actually very possible that Helen was around seven years old when she gave birth to her first child, and since Paris took her after she had been married to Menelaus for a little more than two years, that means she was only just eight years old when Paris kidnapped her and took her from her home and her two children that Menelaus had fathered."
"You're forgetting something though, Sammy.." Brady chimed.
"Don't call me Sammy." Sam stated in an annoyed huff as he rolled his eyes.
"All throughout the Iliad whenever Helen is talked about, she is talked about as a WOMAN, not a girl."
"That's because back then, the second a girl had her first menses she was considered a woman, no one would have cared how young she was, they only would have cared that she was old enough to marry off to some rich and skanky suitor who was looking to bed a child… Why do you think so many MEN continuously referred to her as 'the most beautiful woman in THE WORLD'?" Jessica asked sounding irritated by Brady's ignorance as she waved a sheet of notes in his face. And when Brady shrugged she added "Well don't you think they might have thought she was the most beautiful because she was so young, yet capable of bearing a child so they no longer had to keep their perverted lusts in check when it came to trying to be the one to win the right to have every sick bastard's wet dream lying in their bed?"
Sam was a bit taken aback by Jessica's impassioned response but he agreed whole heartedly. His notes on the subject were the ones, Jessica was waving around after all. But not everyone felt the same. Brady made the mistake of huffing out a laugh as he said "So you're saying that in class tomorrow, you'll debate to defend a WOMAN who brought about the ruin of more than one nation on the basis that everyone around her were basically baby rapists that wanted her because she was still just a little girl when she got her first period?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Jessica hissed as she slapped her hand on the table angrily, making Sam instinctively flinch at the sound and motion, at first he had thought no one noticed, but then he looked over and saw Jessica's worried eyes gazing at him questioningly.
Sam gave a nervous cough and tried to cover up his reaction and the librarian's 'shushing' of Jessica's 'outburst' helped provide sufficient distraction that kept her from actually asking why he had flinched the way he had.
Brady leaned in and stated "Well there's no proof that Helen was only a child when she married Menelaus which means there's no proof that she was just a child when she ran away with Paris and abandoned her husband and her two children, so your debate will only be based on theory alone."
"Actually, according to certain accounts it took eight years for Agamemnon and Menelaus to even get to Greece and another nine years just to end the war. If Helen had truly been the 'most common', not the most 'abided by' age of marriage, which was like, sixteen back then, then by the end of the war she would have been over thirty years old and it's unlikely anyone would have still saw her as 'the MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD' at that point, yet, when the war ended and Menelaus went to kill her, Helen dropped her robes and he was so captivated by the need to possess her beauty that he dropped his sword, which I think means it's pretty likely that Helen was still very young even after seventeen years." Rebecca chimed in as she looked at a set of notes in front of her.
"That actually makes a lot of sense. She would have been like, what?.. Twenty-four, twenty-five at the end of the war instead of almost into her mid thirties if that was true." Josh added with a thoughtful look.
Rebecca nodded and Nathan leaned in and said "Well, there is the rumor that he stayed his sword because of her beauty.. BUT- and this could help support both Sam's theory that everything that Paris did with Helen was against Helen's consent- there are other less well known accounts that say Menelaus dropped his blade because when Helen dropped her robes, she was showing him bruises and scarring that proved she hadn't willingly been bedded by Paris and it was Menelaus' guilt over not having been a much better man than Paris, as he had once left similar marks on her flesh, that made him drop his blade and take her back home where according to some accounts he did try to be a better husband, and I'm guessing the fact that Menelaus would have been older and more mature by then might have helped with that, especially with hindsight being twenty/twenty and all."
"Yeah.. And then Helen just jumped in bed with some other sap, talked HIM into killing poor Menelaus and then after a couple of years in adulterously, wedded bliss with that guy she finally got hers in the end when a Fury found her at a river and hung her from a tree as punishment for her crimes. The End.. Why does any of THAT even matter?" Brady asked.
"It matters when we have to have either a defensive or oppositional debate based on one of the main Characters of The Iliad prepared for our next Humanities class." Nathan replied with a roll of his eyes.
"And all of you are going to base your debates in the defense of Helen?"
Sam nodded while Nathan replied with a sympathetic sounding "Helen's easily one of the most debatable characters in the book if you actually care to do any research in areas outside the book… But, no I'm debating in the opposition against Clytemnestra, despite the fact that I'd rather debate in the defense of her character, but Professor Dinklage wanted me to try something different, something more challenging than my normal stances for when I go into the debate against her."
"I also have to do an oppositional debate and I picked Paris pretty much for the same reasons he picked Helen as his character to debate in the defense of." Josh stated with a shrug as he gestured at Sam.
"What about Agamemnon?" Brady asked "He wouldn't have been drug into a war if it hadn't been for his brother's wounded pride."
"For a debate to work, there has to be enough solid ground for TWO SIDES of the debate… And someone debating in the defense of Agamemnon would lose most, if not all their ground if they went with the debate that he was drug into the war by his brother. Because Agamemnon had his own agenda and he actually egged Menelaus into going to war over Helen so he could have the armies that all of Helen's suitor's controlled behind him to help him get to his own agenda.. There's not a lot there to defend honestly, almost everyone would agree he was scum simply because he so very readily sacrificed his own child just to achieve his own goals." Nathan stated with a shake of his head. "And if killing his own daughter wasn't enough, look at how many times he disrespected Achilles, first he lied about promising Iphigenia's hand to him in marriage, then killed Iphigenia which was like a huge dishonor to Achilles, then Agamemnon took Briseis from Achilles just to lord his power over him."
"Yeah, if you were going to debate in the defense of one of the aggressors Odysseus is always a good call, cause you have a whole nother book worth of stuff to use to build the character's defense. Which you'd really need a lot of material since all debated whether for the opposition against or the defense of, a character will all be held against Professor Dinklage."
"Nah.." Brady stated with a wave of his hand "The debates are only allowed to go five minutes so that everyone'll have a turn cause class is only two hours long, so all I'd have to do is find a defense that'll hold water for at least five minutes and I'm as good as gold."
"You do realize that you'll not be only graded by how long you can keep up your side of the debate, but by whatever materials you have on hand to actually back the theories behind your side of the debate, right?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, yeah.. I'll make pie charts and graphs and crap.. Whatever it takes to make my information look legit.. It really won't take a lot to show that Menelaus also had his own agendas and was just using the fact that Helen ran away to Troy as an excuse to gather his big brother as well as several armies behind his 'cause' and go wage war." Brady stated "What about you two?" He gestured to Jessica and Rebecca. "Where'd you guys get your material?"
"Well.. Actually, it's all Sam's.. HE'S the one who did all the research, he just lent us his notes so we could have an idea of how to better formulate our own notes." Jessica replied "I only used his notes to get an idea of what the structure of a defense might look like. But I'm arranging to debate in opposition against Zeus' character."
Rebecca held up her sheet of notes. "It just helped to see the notes of someone who's Pre-law so I could better understand how this mock debate thing would go.. I still don't know who I'm picking to debate in the defense of."
"But you guys had stuff readily available in the defense of Helen too.." Brady trailed off as he looked at Josh and Nathan in confusion.
"Dude.." Josh said with a shake of his head "My chosen Character to debate in the opposition against is Paris, finding stuff out about Helen was gonna be a given.."
"I found stuff about lore on Helen too." Nathan stated "She was Clytemnestra's sister after all.. And there were a lot of parallels between the Characters.. If I were being honest I think that Clytemnestra's biggest beef with Helen was the fact that Helen's first husband was left alive to go to war for her when Paris kidnapped her, while Agamemnon killed Clytemnestra's husband when he kidnapped her, subsequently leaving him free to force her to marry him before he raped her, while Paris was able to rape Helen all he wanted, but, he was not able to have a binding marriage to her as her first husband was still alive.. Basically Clytemnestra held a grudge against her little sister because her little sister still had a chance at being rescued from her captor, while she was chained to her own through a marriage she didn't want."
"That and her daughter Iphigenia was killed just so the men could have enough wind to sail the rest of the way to Troy all because of Helen." Brady said with a sneer.
"Well, actually according to Sam's notes, there's accounts that say Iphigenia was actually Helen's daughter and according to Sam's theories, Helen saw that Iphigenia had an early menses at only four months old- which is actually medically possible, as according to Sam's notes there is a girl who is on record for being the youngest ever to have a menses cycle at only three months old- and she feared that her daughter would meet the same cruel fate as she had, so she faked her daughter's death and begged Clytemnestra to take her daughter as her own so that their father wouldn't be able to marry her off at such a young age as he, not Menelaus, was actually the father of Helen's first daughter and he would have had the right to marry her off like chattle.. And so Clytemnestra took Helen's daughter and renamed her Iphigenia and pretended she was hers and Agememnon's daughter… And what's really sad is that Menelaus probably wouldn't have batted an eye over the fact that Helen's first daughter being conceived by Helen's own father would have meant that Helen was actually pregnant by her own father before they were married or the fact that his marriage to Helen was just a way to cover up her father's shameful and incestuous deed, because as long as he had possession over Helen's beauty, he wouldn't have cared what happened to her body, so long as he always had her conveniently within reach… There's even an account that says Menelaus actually offered Paris the use of Helen's body every night for the first week he was under Menelaus' roof.. So it's clear he didn't mind other men using his wife, just so long as he was the one who got the status boost for being the one to possess her." Rebecca replied with a shrug "I think maybe Clytemnestra resented Helen for several things, but when it came to Iphigenia, I think she had actually tried her best to do right by not only her sister, but the child her sister had trusted her to keep safe and to raise as her own. And there is the possibility that her resentment or hatred of Helen and the idea of going to 'retrieve' Helen, was simply all an act to keep attention shifted away from the idea of sacrificing Iphigenia as much as possible."
"Plus she did have other children to think about and hating Helen was a popular stance amongst most everyone who was there to wage war to get her back into Menelaus' possession. So acting like she hated Helen would have probably felt like the safest stance to take in terms of getting people on her side. Which we all know worked out for her, to a degree in the end, because she was able to bring about the deaths of both Agamemnon and Cassandra and she had, had all of the allies she had made on that island during that time basically backing her play.. Heck, some of those allies even provided men to help make sure that her play went off without a hitch and she was able to remarry AND keep her remaining children safe from whoever might have tried to retaliate against her or her children for her hand in killing Agamemnon." Nathan added… "What?!" He asked sounding surprised "The best way to prepare a good opposing debate is to know what all sorts of things Professor Dinklage might use as a good defensive debate."
Brady looked perturbed "Who's judging the debates anyway?.. I mean it wouldn't be fair if Dinklage is going to debate against all of us, plus be the judge… She can just declare herself the winner."
Rebecca brushed her bangs to the side then leaned across her books and notes and whispered "There's going to be three other Professors who'll judge.. From what I gather, one's the Professor for English Literature, one's from the Drama Department and the other one's from the Law School here on Campus."
"But that can change." Jessica chimed in. "It could always be different Professors to do the judging, so it's best to be as prepared as possible.. I mean, it is counting as half the grade for the entirety of our Second Nine Weeks, after all and honestly, I'd rather do enough work to prepare for a five minute debate than have to write a five page essay any day of the week."
"I think I'd prefer the essay." Brady stated with a groan "I have no idea how to do a debate and I don't want to have to learn how to do a debate.. It's not like I'm Pre-Law, so I don't need to learn how to do that crap."
"Actually you do need to learn how to formulate both sides of a debate, because I know for a fact that you'll have to do at least one debate in English Lit before the end of the Semester." Nathan stated.
"Ugh…" Brady groaned with more dramatic flair "There too?.. WHY?", he whined.
"Because it turns out that learning how to debate is a pretty central necessity to almost any career.." Nathan replied "I mean think about it, Brady… You're a business student you'll eventually have to learn how to pitch sales, how to establish marketing and to be able to do that, you'll have to readily know how to debate at a moment's notice to either defend your sales or marketing plans or to oppose someone else's plans to give yourself a better chance at being the one to get your plans through to the next stage of development. Classes like Humanities and English Lit are required courses for almost every Major, BECAUSE they help people learn how to structure both sides of a debate by actually assigning mock debates throughout the courses of the classes.. Get used to it, dude.. Cause next Semester, there'll be even more mock debates to tackle, and they'll be more difficult because by then we'll be expected to already have knowing how to debate down pat, we're actually lucky that Dinklage eased us into it the way she did."
"I wasn't eased into anything." Brady huffed "I'm pretty sure I was just thrown into the deep end when I wasn't looking."
"And let me guess. You can't swim?" Nathan asked jokingly.
"Hell, no.. I'm drowning here, man." Brady replied with a smirk.
"That's because you're making it out to be a bigger deal than it has to be. Think ninth grade history class.." Josh trailed off with a wave of his hand "Remember that project we had to do on Abraham Lincoln's presidential debates?"
"Yeah.." Brady rolled his eyes, "But that was different I didn't actually have to do the damn debates myself I just had to write about them."
"Wait.. You guys went to high school together?" Sam asked jovially, he'd never actually met people who were friends that had got to be friends for THAT long and he'd never thought about how long Brady might have known Josh, Nathan, Rebecca or Jessica before they had become roommates."
"Yeah, we've known each other since we were both in diapers." Josh replied with a nervous laugh.. Then something, haunted and grieving flickered through Josh's eyes.. "He must be thinking of how off the rails Brady had, went a few months back. That must have been a hard time for him if he's been Brady's friend all that time." Sam reckoned as he studiously went back to his pile of books to continue his diligent research on the character that he had chosen to debate in the defense of as Brady let out a huff and said "Man, I should have just went to clown college or something. I bet they'd never make me learn this stuff there."
Sam did his best not to show how distressed he was over picturing Brady as a clown. He hated… no LOATHED, clowns. They terrified him, still to this day. And as he looked over he had to fight off a wave of panic as he imagined Brady dressed in all those bright colors with all of that.. clown makeup.. covering his face.. Sam shuddered and forced himself to refocus on his books instead of the frightening imagery of Brady dressed as a clown, of clowns in general, really.
Two days after the study group, everyone but Brady had Aced their debates and almost all of Sam's friends credited him with being their biggest source of help when it came to studying and helping with writing notes. And having people treat him as if something he had done, had been not only good and right but USEFUL as well, had given Sam a sense of self-worth that he had never gotten to feel before.
~0~
There are days when Sam gets the uncanny sensation that he's being watched or followed and just as it's about to drive him to the edge of paranoia, the feeling disappears and every time it does, a deep and longing ache to see Dean and his dad fills the void it leaves.
But then he has to lock down all of those feelings of longing and homesickness. Because his dad had made it clear that if he had left he was to stay gone and he doesn't want to risk reaching out to Dean before he has something in place to offer his big brother as some kind of 'out' from the hunting life. So he resists all urges to find his long forgotten cell phone (the one he had brought with him, the one that still had a number his dad and Dean would recognize… Or he hopes they would) and he buries his paranoia down deep and ignores the fact that he honestly believes that he caught a glimpse of a big black beast of a truck with someone who looked remarkably like his father in the driver's seat driving past on at least two occasions. Because it's probably just the fact that he actually misses the man that he saw him when he can't have possibly really been there. And of course, he lives in such deep denial that he refuses to acknowledge that if that were true, he'd be seeing Dean EVERYWHERE, almost all of the time..
Well, there were all those times he's heard the unmistakable beasty roar of a classic muscle car and had turned around feeling elated as he expected to see the Impala with Dean smiling at him from behind the wheel, only to turn around and see that the car was just some classic Corvette or Camaro that did not have neither Dean nor his dad sitting in the driver's seat or passenger seat or back seat (because he'd always find himself scanning all the occupants of the car.. just to be sure), but they couldn't count because they hadn't actually conjured up the image of his brother's face, despite how much he missed him.
But.. Maybe because he had seen so little of his father growing up, his face was actually easier to conjure up images of, because maybe he had seen so little of the man that almost any generic male face with gray-blue-green eyes and a strong jaw line covered in scruff could look like his dad's face. Whereas with Dean's face, he knew almost every freckle on Dean's face, he knew exactly what shade of green Dean's eyes were, so not 'just any' face with green eyes and freckles could possibly look like Dean, unless it was Dean as he knew Dean's face to well to try to replace it with the face of someone else who simply looked 'close enough' to Dean's description… Yeah.. Okay… So Sam KNEW he would know DEAN if he were to actually see HIM, so maybe that was why he was thinking he was catching glimpses of his 'dad' and not 'Dean' in random places at random times…
Sometimes, being with Jessica gives Sam rose colored glasses when he looks back on his own past. Jessica, hadn't exactly had a happy childhood and her horrific tales of an abusive father make Sam start rethinking his views of his own father. Because as it turns out, there are worse parents than John Winchester in the world as there were at least SOME LINES that he knows for a fact that his father would have never crossed.
Hearing Jessica talk about how horrifically she was abused makes Sam wonder, if what he went through as a kid even counts as abuse. Yeah his father had hit him a few times, but he'd never put him in the hospital and the marks that his father had made never left physical scars like the ones Jessica bore on her left shoulder blade.
He starts thinking, that maybe he had judged his own father too harshly especially in light of the proof of what real abuse looks like. No wonder his dad had taken his leaving so personally, the man probably hadn't appreciated knowing how his youngest son viewed him as abusive.
Hearing Jessica speak of the nightmare of a childhood she had endured made him afraid to tell her of his own past, he was afraid that she might hate him the second she found out how wrong he had been when he had ripped apart his relationship with his own father, over the misconception that the man was abusive. He feared that if he told her of such misgivings that she'd see him as just a stupid little boy who had no idea what real abuse felt like.
So he was the rock she could confide in, but when she asked him about his own family, he could only tell her the very few 'civilian friendly' stories that his life had held, because he hadn't wanted to outright lie to the girl he was falling in love with, but he knew he couldn't exactly be forthcoming with the shadier and scarier details of his life before College either.
He felt a twinge of sadness because, for all she knew, he could be a psycho who could turn out more abusive than her father could ever dream of being and yet she always backed down rather than pushing for actual answers about his past. He sometimes wondered if she didn't think enough of herself to even worry whether or not the man she was living with might turn out to be abusive. Which broke his heart even more. He knew that he'd never hurt her, but she didn't know that, not really. How could she?, She hardly knew him.
It made him worry that maybe he could never be good enough for Jessica because she deserved someone who could be completely and unabashedly honest about themselves and their pasts, someone who wouldn't so selfishly hope that she'd be fine with settling for only half truths about his family and childhood for the rest of their lives together.
He hated himself each time he secretly felt grateful that she wouldn't ever press for too many details when he wasn't forthcoming with an abundance of elaborations such as , what his family's 'business' actually was and what sorts of 'unlawful' activities the 'work' most often entailed along with the details of why his family had traveled so much and just why most of his stories never included his father (because his father hadn't really been around to include), as well as just why every time he and Jessica had sex, he would end up crying every time he climaxed, much to his embarrassment.
Every time she passed up the opportunity to press for answers, over the next couple of months, part of him would breathe a sigh of relief while another part of him felt his heart break for her and he found himself praying to god each night, not only for the safety of his brother, but that the woman he cared for didn't press for answers out of fear that he would hurt her. Because it would kill him if Jessica was afraid of him.
It always felt like a fine line. He was constantly torn between the desperate need to just pour his soul out to Jessica because he truly had fallen in love with her and knew she deserved the truth, and the knowledge that even if he did take that leap he still wouldn't deserve her, even if she believed him, because ONE, he had lied (well, omitted too many truths) for so long and TWO, he had been trained from the age of NINE YEARS OLD to be a killer and the real truth of the matter was that he really shouldn't be lose to just roam around society freely, he was probably more dangerous than Charles Manson ever could think to be, yet there he was free to go to College, free to get some pretty, innocent girl like Jessica involved in his screwed up life, that she knew nothing about.. No.. He really didn't deserve her. He knew that he didn't deserve her and the nightmares he'd been having about her lately only served to prove that he really didn't deserve to even be around her, yet he loved her anyway, despite knowing how bad he probably was for her and even though he didn't know why, he couldn't help looking at engagement rings with hopes that he could maybe prove himself wrong about all of it, that maybe he could be honest with her and that he could be good enough to be everything she deserved in a husband, that she deserved to have in the father of her children.
But he couldn't help falling deeper and deeper in love with her with each passing day and he couldn't slow down his rapidly increasing thoughts of getting married to Jessica and starting a family with her no matter how often his logic kept telling him not to 'rush headlong into things'….
And even his and Jessica's conversations lately have been leading to their hypothetical future 'together', he would hint (okay more than hint) at how he'd like to spend his life with her, how he'd love to have a family with her some day and she would always 'hint' that she would like those things too.. They'd both get so into it that they'd end up naming there hypothetical future children.. Jessica was partial to Angel for a girl and Oswald for a boy… But then Sam would HAVE to burst both of their bubbles by bringing up the fact that he'd want to wait till he could afford a proper ring to which she would reply that she's be happy with a ring from a quarter machine, making him wonder if maybe she might already be ready to move onto something that was more than just hypothetical. And then he would chicken out, not because of his normal fears either. But because he knew that if they just dove in without being better prepared that they might end up drowning in a sea of unknowns and he knew that if he was ever going to be the husband that Jessica deserved, then he was going to have to think responsibly, he was going to have to have a responsible plan place.
But he couldn't help the tug.. Couldn't fight the pull and each day brought new thoughts of 'happily wedded bliss', so much so that he let go and allowed himself to just go with it. Because maybe these feelings he'd been having, the inescapable need to rush into taking the next step with Jessica were 'meant to be'…
Yet he couldn't get passed the nagging feeling that there was something unseen, just out of eyeshot, propelling him (pushing him) to act faster than what he had first intended.
So, maybe out of sheer stubbornness and out of spite for the feeling of being propelled into rushing he began to drag his feet. Because if it was 'meant to be' then there was no reason being married and starting a family couldn't wait..
BUT.. Every time he thought about waiting, the stronger the feeling of needing to rush would 'nudge' him from out of nowhere again.
Seeing this made Present day Dean wonder if a 'Cupid' might have been involved with how rapidly Sam's and Jessica's relationship had been moving and Angie looked over at him and nodded as if to say that he was right on the money. An angel, had made Sam and Jessica fall in love and had made sure of the rapid progression in their relationship, which just proved to present day dean, that 'Brady' had been working with at least one angel to ensure that Azazel's grand scheme would go as planned… And of course Sam didn't know or even think that something from his 'old life' might be involved with how rapidly his relationship with Jessica was progressing towards marriage before either Sam or Jessica had even had a chance to graduate college, because Sam was just twenty-one years old and he had never been in love before so he didn't know that what he was feeling wasn't exactly 'normal', he didn't know that the constantly conflicted feelings were anything other than 'cold feet'..
Present day Dean watched as the need to just jump into the deep end with both feet and without a life jacket overtook Sam once again.
But Sam was stubborn… Yes. He did love Jessica, but he did not want to just rush into asking her to marry him without being ready…
First Sam had to research how him and Jessica getting married might affect both of their Grants and Scholarships, then he was going to have to find a Work Study he could qualify for so he could get more credits plus some work experience so he could get through Law School faster than he had, had planned and then hopefully straight into the work force right after he got his License.
He tried not to get too ahead of himself, because part of him knew the odds of Jessica leaving him (more like running from him screaming) the second he told her the truth about his family were high, but at the same time he was not going to ask her to marry him unless she knew the truth about him first…
As much as he knew how high the odds of her leaving him before he could even properly 'pop the question' were, he went ahead and spent all the money he had saved over the last couple of Semesters on a ring that he had, had his eye on for a while now, just in case she did give him a chance to ask her to marry him and he hopes that if he does get a chance to ask her, that she'll say 'Yes.', because he does love her and he wants to be the one that gets to have the privilege of spending the rest of his life with her.
Logically he knows he's rushing into things (he had been hoping to have an actual job before asking Jessica to marry him) and that making the plan to possibly get married so soon, alters the goals he had originally set out to achieve, but he loves her and he's willing to take a leap of faith and hope that everything will work out in the end.
He hides the ring at the back of the closet shelf behind a teddy bear he had won for Jessica at a carnival during their second 'official' date because he wants to wait till after his Law School interview to ask her.
A week before he is scheduled to have an interview with the law school on campus, Jessica talks him into letting off some steam by going to a Halloween party. He's not fond of Halloween, but he loves her, so he goes and he even lets himself have a good time with Jessica and a combination of all of their friends…
After almost everyone else dispersed it was just him, Jessica and Nathan, when Jessica proposed a toast to him and the fact that he had gotten a perfect score on his LSAT's and it means more to him now, than if the toast had been made in front of all the others, because Jessica is the woman he loves and Nathan is the closest thing he's had to a best friend outside of Dean.
The three of them do a bit of celebrating, then Nathan bids them farewell and Jessica gives Sam a smile that says she's ready to leave the party, but not ready to 'stop celebrating' just yet and he can't help the anticipation and arousal that tingles low in his belly, because he loves how Jessica 'celebrates' their happy moments in the bedroom.
And when they get to their door, they're a mess of tangled limbs and clothing that they're trying to shed before they even get into their apartment.
At some point they make it to the bed, and like magic, they're down to their underwear. Jessica makes her way down the plane of Sam's body and stops to playfully nibble on his abs, which tickles.
Sam guffaws in genuine laughter as he tries to roll away and protect his ticklish middle, but Jessica won't have any of that. She straddles his hips and keeps him in place so she can taste, nibble and tease him at her discretion. Sam loves it when she takes control like this, it makes him tingle and ache in all the best ways and he never wants this feeling to stop.
Jessica works her way back up and nibbles at his ear, under his jaw then she nuzzles the underside of his chin with her nose as she breaths in his scent.
Sam threads his fingers in her hair and cups the back of her neck, gently requesting her mouth to meet his and she obliges. Of all the things he loves about Jessica, he loves just simply kissing her the most.
When she pulls back he looks up at her and she looks down at him and Sam is mesmerized by how beautiful she is, how kind and gentle she is and his heart fills with so much love he feels like it will burst and he finds that he can't wait to ask her to marry him.
"Hang on a sec… There's something that I really want to ask you.." He whispered as he shifts them to where Jessica can settle beside him and he could slip out of bed.
He had been planning to wait.. But now that urge to rush into asking her to marry him was all consuming. He started to pull down the teddy bear at the top of the closet so he could get to the ring behind it..
"Sam, wait.." Jessica suddenly sounded nervous as she clamored out of bed.. "I have something I have to tell you.."
Suddenly Sam was taken aback. "What?" he felt his heart plummet, because he was suddenly terrified she might want to break up with him.
She must have caught his shocked and scared expression "It's nothing bad.. I promise.. I just… Uh… I wanted to wait until after your interview next week so that we could have even more to celebrate.."
"You saw what was on top of the closet shelf didn't you?"
"Maybe.." Jessica said looking embarrassed.
"And?.." Sam was full on panicking now.. she had seen the ring..
"And.. I want you to ask me next week, so when I say yes, we'll have even more to celebrate, cause I have no doubt you'll ace that interview."
"Oh my god, Jessica!" Sam exclaimed as he scooped her up and spun her around.. "You just made me the happiest guy on the planet!"
"Sam… You're supposed to pretend I never saw it!.."
"But I can't.." Sam whined "Why can't I give it to you right now?"
"Cause I know that you wanted to wait until at least after the interview for one, and for two… I kinda want us to be wearing a bit more clothes when you ask me… What?! Proposing in your undies wouldn't have been your smoothest of moves, Winchester."
"Oh really?"
"Really… You wanna ask me to marry you, you gotta bring you're 'A Game', Mister.."
"Oh consider my A game brung…" Sam stated jokingly "I'm gonna buy you flowers and take you out to a nice fancy restaurant and I'm gonna get a violinist to play your favorite song.."
"Oh, so you are gonna earn that yes after all then, huh?"
"You better believe it." Of course what Jessica didn't know was that he'd already made reservations to one of the fanciest restaurants in town, plus preparations for an up and coming violinists to play Jessica's favorite song over a week ago..
"And I'll spend the rest of my life giving you my best and trying to earn every single yes after that."
"Mmm... I like it… Maybe you can work on earning a yes now.."
"Sounds good to me.." He replied in a husky voice as Jessica began to remove his boxers.
Before Sam knew it they were both naked and back on the bed..
He is so tender and gentle with her as he caresses her, because she deserves no less than to be worshiped and he intends to gently worship every inch of her for as long as she will let him.
He runs his hands up her sides and as goes to cup her breasts he looks up in silent question to see if this is okay. They've made love several times since being together, but he always, always watches where he puts his hands and he always asks for permission, because he knows that she has triggers all over her body and he doesn't ever want to be the one that sends her mind back to a place she feared she would never escape the first time.
Jessica takes a deep breath as if she's bracing herself, then she nods and helps guide Sam's hands to her breasts where she deliberately places his thumbs over her nipples.
Sam circles the slowly stiffening buds with the pads of his thumbs. "Like this?", he asks in a whisper that would almost sound shy, if it didn't sound like pure debauchery as Jessica slides herself down on his erect manhood and pulls a moan from him in the last second.
"Yes.." She whispers with a relieved and immensely pleasured sigh "Just like that."..
He and Jessica are both still young, so when they go to take a shower, they end up making love in the shower as well and when they have both reached yet another climax together, they climb out and exhaustedly make their way back into the bedroom where Sam pulled on some sweats and a tee shirt and Jessica pulled on some boy shorts and her favorite 'Smurfs' shirt as she can stand to have her stomach and legs exposed when she sleeps, but she hates to sleep with her shoulder blades bared, then they snuggled together under the covers and drifted off to sleep…
Present day Dean, watches as the scene fades to grey, but then a noise comes out of nowhere and the grey is instantly flooded by colors.
Sam's senses are still sharp, even after more than a couple of years.
Sam creeps cautiously towards where the noise had come from. He's expecting just about anything from bird that might have gotten in through the open window to an angry spirit or a burglar.
He sees a shadow pass in front of the door and so he tucks himself against the wall and hides in shadow as what he's assuming to be some kind of prowler or thief enters the room.
When the man (at least he's sure it's a man, because according to his experiences in life, it could be any number of things) passes him, he steps out and tries to grab him (it?) from behind, but the man's reflexes are quick and the next thing he knows he's fighting a shadow. For one wild second he thinks he (it) doesn't have a face and that maybe this is some new messed up dream, because the shadow is built just like..
He's flung to the floor which throws him out of his thoughts and the shadow leans in and the outside light reveals a face..
"Whoa.. Easy tiger.."
Sam couldn't believe his eyes, he couldn't believe his ears..
"Dean?"
The twenty-six year old Dean gave a chuckle…
"You scared the crap out of me.." Sam said, sounding indignant..
"That's cause you're out of practice.."
The twenty-one year old Sam proved his big brother wrong by rolling them and pinning Dean.
"Or not.." past Dean said with a huffed out half chuckle then he groaned "Get off of me."
For someone who had been missing his big brother for so long, Sam went from happy to worried, to a little pissed then geared it down to indignation all within the blink of an eye as he asked "Dean, what are you doing here?"
"I was looking for a beer."
Sam's went from feeling indignant back to pissed "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Okay.. Alright.." Past Dean was now the one who sounded indignant. "We got to talk."
"Uh.. The phone.."
"If I had called would you have picked up?"
Sam had never felt so hurt in his life, his big brother's words were like a punch to the gut.
Of course he would have picked up. He always would have picked up. In fact he kept his old cell phone charged for just in case Dean ever did call. But he didn't get a chance to say any of that, because light poured into the room and Jessica stood in the doorway..
"Sam?" Her tone was inquisitive, but there was a hint of fear there to that only Sam could recognize. He knows who she had thought had gotten into their apartment. And Sam wants to remind her that her father can't find her now, her mother's parents had made sure of that when they had gotten her away from the bastard and whisked away to the other side of the country.
But before he can reassure her, he has to get Dean out of ear shot because he knows how Jessica feels about the things she's told him and how she wants those things to stay between the two of them. So he makes a quick introduction "Jess, hey.. dean.. This is my girlfriend Jessica.."
"Wait… Your brother Dean?"
"I love the Smurfs." Past Dean states as he adopts the cocky swagger he used to use all the time to try to pick up women "You know, I got to tell you.. You are completely out of my brother's league.."
Past Dean hadn't seen how uncomfortable his 'harmless flirting' was making her… He hadn't even realized that his statement could have been taken two different ways and as Jessica nervously said something about putting on more clothes Present day Dean wonders if she had wanted to cover up because she had felt insulted that someone she hadn't even known had just basically told her she wasn't good enough for Sam, or if she was wanting to cover up because she was suddenly afraid that this guy who Sam claimed to be his brother, who was looking at her like a lion looks at a raw lamb chop, might suddenly assume her lack of skin coverage might seem like an invitation to just attack her right then and there.
And as Past Dean shook his head and replied "No, no, I wouldn't dream of it.. Seriously." It's a wonder she hadn't taken off running , but it had spoken volumes of her level of trust in Sam.. The 'Cupid' must have hooked her good and proper.
It had also spoke volumes of Sam's trust in his big brother.. Apparently he had trusted his big brother to dial it down.. And Past Dean had.. He had dialed it down, he had just been a bit of a jackass before he had realized he needed to dial it down because he was trying to hit on his little brother's girlfriend, right in front of his little brother, and had clearly made her nervous and uncomfortable.
Present day Dean was looking back on that time and realizing he had not only been an ass of EPIC proportions but he had also been a horrible human being for not even trying to consider how or why his openly flirtatious behavior might not be something all women would welcome. He looks back on that time and wonders just how many women had thought he was creepy, how many women had given him a fake phone number because they had been too afraid of openly rejecting him because of how aggrieve his flirting could sometimes seem.
Dean had told Jessica that he needed to 'Borrow her boyfriend." To talk about some 'private family business'
And Sam had stood firm as he said "No. Whatever you want to say, you can say in front of her.", in all honesty, Sam had been hoping that Dean would start an outpouring of talk about Ghosts, Werewolves, something supernatural, because then the secret would be out and Jessica would know, because if he were to be honest. He still wanted free from all that and he wanted Jessica to understand how he had cut those things out of his life, but he would never cut DEAN or his father out of his life, even if they refused to leave hunting. And he had been hoping that the secret would come out, that Jessica would finally know and understand and that she would still love him and want to be with him.
But then Dean had said that their dad had been 'on a hunting trip' and he had 'been gone for a few days' and suddenly Sam didn't want to drag Jessica into the middle of a talk about an actual ACTIVE hunt… Because he could handle Jessica hearing Dean asking for his help with a hunt that hadn't begun yet, but he couldn't handle Dean talking about a hunt that was already ongoing, a hunt their father had disappeared during, because he knew how the details he'd be comfortable with Jessica learning so quick off the bat would hinge on what the next words out of Dean's mouth were going to be and whether or not their father had possibly done something so illegal that he couldn't risk Jessica being drug into it and charged for 'Aiding and Abetting'. Because he's pretty sure she'd be pissed at him if his father's antics landed her in a cell just because she had known too much about something the illegal the man had done.
So he asked her to excuse them, saying that he and Dean needed to go outside.
When Sam learned that their father was indeed just simply 'missing' and that Dean wanted his help finding the man, Sam became aggravated. Because their father was always 'missing' and he was always fine. And hearing Dean say that he just knew that something was wrong. That their father was 'in trouble' this time he just knew it made Sam pissed, because their father didn't have the right to do this crap to Dean. John Winchester didn't have the right to disappear on Dean and keep him worried for weeks and Sam knew that this was just another one of his father's ways of ditching his son while keeping that son loyally, and eagerly, waiting in the wings for when he needed to use him… And worse than that, their father had let dean start hunting ALONE, as if hunting period, wasn't dangerous enough as it was their father had let Dean, his own son, go it on his own… Yes, Sam knew that his father had a goal, but when getting to that goal proved to require that he put his own children in harm's way.. Well.. Nothing should have been worth risking the safety of his children… Not even bringing his wife's killer to justice.
Why couldn't Dean see that all, their father cared about was how he could use him?
God.. He did not want to have to go searching for his father, because one, he was certain that the man truly was held up drunk somewhere, and two, he really wanted Dean to see he had other options.
But then Dean had said that he didn't want to 'do this' alone.. And he knew that if he did say no, that Dean would not consider any other options, that Dean would go off into the hunt their father was last on, and he would go alone.
Sam could hear his father's voice telling him he would be the reason Dean died, echoing in his mind and he was suddenly plagued by flashes of that same old nightmare.. His brother being ripped apart by an invisible monster…
"What was he hunting?"
Dean showed him pictures of all the hitchhikers that had gone missing and then played the voicemail recording that was loaded with E.V.P., and Sam had instantly known… Their father had been hunting a ghost…
So, Sam had agreed to go on the one condition that he got brought back before that coming Monday for his Law School interview.
Then he went up and started packing..
"Wait, you're taking off?" Jessica asked sounding confused "Is this about your dad?.. Is he alright?" Now she sounded worried and maybe even a little afraid..
"Yeah.. You know, just a little family drama.." Sam replied as he sarcastically thought to himself 'my dad just probably got himself eaten by a monster or locked up in jail and that's only if he was sober enough to stand up long enough to cause a nuisance to either a monster or to cops, but it's no big deal, really'..
"But your brother said he was on some kind of a hunting trip.."
"Oh, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin.." Sam says nonchalantly as he tries to make his father's drinking problem seem like it's really not such a big deal "And he's probably got 'Jim', Jack' and 'Jose' along with him. We're just gonna go bring him back. "
"What about the interview.
"I'll make the interview.. This is only for a couple of days.."
"Sam.. I mean.. Please.. Just stop for a second.. You're sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine.."
Jessica seemed very tentative about the words she chose next "It's just.. You never even talk about your family and now you're taking off to spend a weekend with them and with Monday coming up.. which is kind of a huge deal.."
"Hey.. Everything's gonna be okay, I will be back in time I promise." Sam told her before giving her a kiss on the cheek and heading out..
"At least tell me where you're going!.." Jessica called after him.. But Sam had to get out of there before he spouted more lies to cover up for his father's illegal deeds so he had darted out, pretending to have not heard her calling after him…
~0~
Being back on the road with Dean made Sam feel nostalgic. He had missed the unique smell of the Impala's interior and as much as he had complained about it, he had missed the sound of his brother's music.. And as he sat there looking through his brother's tapes he asked Dean 'how' he had paid for the 'food' and the gas and wasn't surprised when Dean confirmed that he and their dad had still been conducting credit-card scams.. Dean had stated 'All we do is apply, it's not our fault they send us the cards.".. Sam really wanted to retort "Explain that to the judge when you get sentenced to prison for Credit-card fraud and possibly even Identity Theft..".. But instead he had settled for asking whose name Dean had used on the applications 'this time', because he'd need to know it for later when he stood as defense council for Dean and their father should a 'Bert and Hector Aframian' actually exist as the Identity Theft would get them more time than the credit-card fraud and adding the two illegal offenses together… The thought made Sam shudder, Dean and their father were looking at a lot of time in jail if they were ever caught and didn't have a good lawyer to defend them.. Thank god he was well on his way to becoming a lawyer because at the rate Dean and their dad was going, they'd be needing one pretty soon… Then Dean had called him 'Sammy' for the umpteenth time in just the last few hours, and it had struck a nerve that was raw for reasons he couldn't explain "You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve year old.. It's Sam..", the music had been cranked up to an eardrum bursting level as Dean childishly claimed to not be able to hear him as they pulled away from the gas station.
When they got closer to the town they were headed towards they caught sight of a bunch of cops gathered at a bridge. Dean pulled to the side of the road, figuring it was worth checking out and when he grabbed a box full of fake badges, Sam was flabbergasted. This was so much worse than Sam had first thought.
Not only were Dean and their father still committing credit-card fraud, but they were also still committing felony level offenses such as Impersonating A Federal Officer and Dean wasn't leaving him a lot of options other than to go along with it.. Which served to remind him just why he had wanted away from hunting. Because not only was he running the risk of watching his family die, but he was running the risk of watching them get carted off to jail too.. Oh, not to mention he was risking his own life and his own freedom as well, every time he let himself get drug into a hunt.
His point was proven when the next day, Dean was hauled off to jail leaving him in the precarious position of calling nine-one-one and reporting 'shots fired' over on Whitefield Road.. Later when dean jokingly said "Fake nine-one-one phone call, Sammy, I don't know.. that's pretty illegal." Sam had simply replied "Don't I know it." and well, Dean would never have to know that he had actually shot off a couple of rounds into the night sky just so he wouldn't exactly be lying when he called it in…
When Constance popped up in the middle of the road, he had slammed on the brakes, making Dean panic. But he couldn't reassure his brother because suddenly Constance appeared behind him and demanded he take her home. He been afraid as he told her 'No.'... Because she couldn't hurt him, he had never been unfaithful, but then she had somehow taken over the Impala and had used it to drive there herself after locking a panicking Sam inside with her and taking him along for the ride despite how many times he tried to open the door and fling himself from the speeding car. And then he tried talking her down, because talking is his strength and so is listening, he hopes to get through to the part of her that was once human.. Saying "Don't do this.", and he had felt her sadness as if it were his own as she said "I can never go home.", he knew how she felt, then he realized "You're scared to go home." she disappeared and Sam knew that she was readying herself to attack him.. He tried telling her that he had never been unfaithful and she had simply stated "You will be.", as she climbed on top of him and started forcefully kissing him against his will before she started trying to rip out his heart causing him to scream in anguish because it felt like she was ripping away something more fundamental than just his heart, it felt like she was digging away at his ability to love, it felt like she was trying to rip out his soul and he was so sure that even dying could never hurt as much as she was hurting him right then… Suddenly shots rang out and the driver's side window shattered, causing Constance to flicker ever so slightly before she reappeared full force and started trying to dig his soul out all over again. More shots rang out, causing Constance to vanish temporarily.. But long enough for him to get the Impala started and put in Drive..
He gave a growl "I'm taking you home." Right before he gunned it and drove the Impala straight into what had once been Constance's home and then watched as the spirits of Constance's children drug her into the afterlife and even after she had tried to kill him he still couldn't help hoping that she and her children had found peace and happiness in a place they could be together as she hadn't been in her right mind when she had done what did and Sam didn't believe she deserved to go to hell for crimes she had committed in a moment of insanity.. Plus something about a 'case' where a distraught parent drowned their children in a moment of insanity struck a chord with him for a reason he couldn't quite put his finger on but he knows that certain things about this 'case' had almost felt personal in a vague way..
The ghost that had caused all this trouble had been taken care of, but now Sam was more confused than ever.. Because his father had never taken off in the middle of a hunt except once.. He shuddered at the hazy memory of his father slapping him for the first time then thundering away at him, for causing the death of a good hunter, someone who had been worth more than he could ever hope to be worth… He knows there's something about that time that he had forgotten, that he should remember and it's like an itch he can't scratch out, like something is blocking him from remembering something important.. But he can't stay focused long enough to pick at the slowly forming cracks in the barrier, because his father had left in the middle of a hunt… His father wouldn't have done that unless something of epically major importance had come up and from what he knows about his dad, HUNTING is the only thing his father seems to consider as truly important.. So it had to have ben a bigger hunt, which meant one thing, his father had some kind of real lead on the thing that had killed his mom…
Present day Dean looks back on that time and realizes how intuitive his little brother was.. But sadly.. Sam had thought their dad being hot on that "thing's" trail meant that 'the hunting life' was about to be over for good, because Sam had believed that his father would find the thing that killed their mom, then kill the thing that had killed their mom and then their father would quit hunting, would give up chasing things that could gut him or his big brother for good and maybe settle down, which Sam had hoped would mean that Dean would settle down.. Boy had Sam been wrong.. Things had turned out so far from what Sam had imagined back then that it wasn't funny..
When Dean dropped Sam back off at his apartment, Sam had been tempted to stay on the road with Dean until they found their dad.. But Sam wanted to be on the sidelines for if their dad or his big brother did something that would require getting bailed out of jail, so despite how badly he wanted to be with his family, he bid Dean goodbye, because he could not go back to hunting, he had other things to think about, like how to help his family transition away from hunting when they were finally ready to give it up.. And god, he was hoping that they would BOTH be ready to give it up, soon…
When he went into the apartment, there was a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen table with a note that read "Missed you! Love you!"
Sam smiled as he grabbed a cookie and began to nibble on it.. He finally felt like everything might turn out okay after all as his dad was sure to quit hunting after the thing that killed his mother was dead, which meant that both his dad and his big brother would be safe, and he had his Law School interview in just a few hours and then a romantic dinner to get ready for and a proposal to make that he hope Jessica's answer would still be 'Yes.' To…
He felt lighter than he had in a very long time as he went into the bedroom and heard the shower running and saw the steam billowing from the cracked open bathroom door. He closed his eyes and plopped backwards, feeling truly happy for the first time in what had seemed like forever.. But that feeling hadn't lasted more than a few seconds, because he felt something drip onto his forehead and made the mistake of opening his eyes…
Sam gasped as he looked up and saw Jessica, pinned to the ceiling.. It was like all of the nightmares he'd been having the last two and a half months had all rushed in to hit him at once and struck him in the chest, lashing out and making his nightmares real..
Oh, god… It couldn't be real.. It couldn't..
"No!", he screamed as Jessica's body burst into flames that rapidly began to consume the room.
The next thing Sam knew, Dean was dragging him out no matter how hard he fought to try to go back in, to try to save her.
He knows at some point he had cried, had wailed. But nothing had detoured Dean from dragging him from the burning building.
After he had gotten his wits about him enough to catch a halfway solidly formed thought, the first thing Sam had done was go to the trunk of the Impala where he started methodically checking the weapons one by one, preparing them for battle as he was ready to wage a war the likes no hunter nor monster had ever seen. When Dean made his way back over, Sam silently acknowledged him as he tried to sniff back a few tears, then he tossed the last gun into the trunk saying "We've got work to do."..
Dean had been what had kept him grounded, had been what had kept him from flying apart and shattering like an old and brittle porcelain doll and he had been so grateful to have Dean by his side when he needed his big brother most, because without Dean there to hold him together he would have fallen apart.
Going through the apartment trying to se if anything could be salvaged, had been difficult, but he had wanted to do it alone, his life with Jessica, the ways they enjoyed certain things together wasn't anyone's business but theirs and he respected Jessica enough to not want anyone to see the things she would have preferred to keep private, so he had Dean wait downstairs in the Impala.. There were some parts of the apartment that were seemingly untouched by the fire, like an old nightstand that sat beside the bed had made it through, remarkably, seemingly unscathed save for some smoke damage that could eventually be repaired with a little T.L.C… He gently pried open the drawers for fear they would turn to ash in his hand.. Kind of like his life had.. Inside one, he found a necklace Jessica's mom had given her before she had passed away from Cancer when Jessica was ten, he tucked it into his pocket for her grandparents as he knew how much it meant to her grandmother, then he found the necklace that he had given Jessica right after they had moved in together, that one he tucked into his pocket on the other side because he was keeping that for himself. He found a few pictures that had made it through the fire also resting, nestled safely in that drawer and he picked a few to keep for himself and he packed the others into a small box to give to her grandparents, such as one where Jessica's mom was holding her as a baby..
Then he pried open the closet.. The teddy bear that the ring he had bought to propose with had been hidden behind seemed untouched by n=both flames and smoke. He grabbed the little guy down and hugged him close. He still smelled faintly like the perfume that Jessica had been wearing the night he was won at the carnival. Sam took a few more seconds to really capture that scent, he wanted Jessica to have this, even if he had to sit him her headstone, this bear was hers and he was leaving it with her.. He tried not to think about the 'why' and the 'how' that was behind the nature of his leaving, because he knew he was going to go on the road to find the bastard that had killed her, that he was going to devote himself to a life he had sworn he was done with at least until the monster that had taken Jessica from the people who loved her, was dead…
He found the ring box.. This was Jessica's too and he planned to give it to her grandmother in hopes that she would understand its significance and that she would allow it to be buried with Jessica. When he went to grab the ring box, something else came sliding off of the top shelf with it.
At first Sam looked at the white stick that landed at his feet in confusion as he wondered what it was, he stared down at it for at least ten minutes, trying to process what the pink plus sign in the little window meant and when he finally shook himself from his numb revelry, he felt his heart shatter as his mind finally let him realize what it was.
His knees hit the floor and he cradled that little stick to his chest and he wept and he wailed and he screamed through clenched teeth as he tried to hold it all in and failed miserably…
He bawled grievously as he stuttered out "I'm so sorry.. Angel, I'm so sorry." Because somehow he just knew, that the baby would have been a girl…
TBC….
