She bent down to kiss away his half dry tear tracks. Her lips on his cheek made his breath catch.

"Jess," he asked, his gaze intense, searching. "Is this more than friendship?"

"If you'll let it be." She responded, then leaned back and gave him an appraising look. "But...I don't feel like you need more than that tonight." She kept her tone light. "I think you're tired. I think you should just curl up on the guest bed and take a nap."

"I can use the couch," he protested.

"Come on." She took his hand, stood up and he went pliantly, like a child, far too tired to argue or try for some weird chivalry code.

He glanced at the double bed for a minute and then toed off his worn blue sneakers and collapsed onto the warmth of the sheets.

Jessica joined him and he raised an eye brow at first and she leaned over to pull him against her.

Their lips met and he felt his pain began to channel into lust with a lightning quickness that almost took him aback, it sliced through his fatigue like a jolt of adrenaline. The more he felt of her the more he wanted her. He pressed his hip up into her and deepened the kiss. Jess responded, her lips parting under him as his tongue explored her mouth.

Oh my god this was heaven. This right here. Wrapped in a woman's arms, her mouth on his, her hair in his face, her yielding softness pressed against him. His hands slid up under her shirt, caressing the smooth skin of her sides, edging his thumb up under the rim of her bra.

He felt her hands on his wrists and she pushed them back down.

Chastened, Sam let her, breaking the kiss and looking at her through his lust induced fog.

Her face was flushed, her wild mane of hair messed. She looked gorgeous. "I don't want to do this when you're hurting like this."

Sam cleared his throat and berated his dick, reining in his lust. "Yeah," he said, trying it get a hold of his breathing. "Yeah, of course. Sorry, it's been a while since I've had any action." He shifted, aware that his body was clearly ready to go, exhaustion or not.

Her blue eyes were earnest. "I just don't want this to start on this note. I really..." and here she paused, choosing her words with caution "...care about you, Sam."

"I care about you too." And he thought it strange that she didn't want to take advantage of him being down. She could have him wrapped around her finger, clinging to her as an emotional lifeline. Or channeling his hurt into a pent up sack session. But she didn't want to. He almost wasn't sure what to do with that.

She pulled his head down into her again and he sighed. Slowly, he felt himself surrender into her nurturing warmth and realized that in all his long years, stretching way back to when he was a child, he'd never had a woman hold him. Never... of all the strange things to have never experienced. No hug from mom. No kiss from an aunt. No softness that was female.

He'd held girls after sex; he'd had them cuddle with him post coitus, but being held with no expectation of him having to perform later was new.

This was just comfort, pure safe comfort. The kind he'd had from Dad when he was very, very young, but even then there had always been an expectation that he get a hold of his emotions. That he'd man up.

This was different. This side of woman that nurtured and held and gave compassion.

Sam opened his heart and let himself drown in it.

And for the first time in a very long time he thought that he really missed having a mother.


Sometime later, he awoke next to Jessica and looked up in awe at the soft planes of her face. Her beautiful full lips, the line of her throat. Her glorious golden hair spread wildly around them both. He had his legs tangled over one of hers. He shifted, his shoulder sore. He didn't want to move. Didn't want to break this covenant between them.

Jess blinked her eyes open, turned her head to look at him and smiled lazily. "Hey."

"Hi." He said back, letting his fingers trail through the soft curls of her mane.

She closed her eyes and leaned into him and he listened to her inhale his scent. "Do you feel any better?"

Sam cleared his throat. "Yeah. Yeah I do. Be kind of weird to not feel better waking up with you like this." He blinked. "Fuck. I hope I didn't miss my class? Shit." He threw the blankets off and tried to sit up, a little woozy, his mop of hair in his eyes. "What time is it?"

Jessica's hand reached for him. "Hey take it easy."

"I..." Sam flipped open his cell phone. "Shit. I did miss it. Dammit."

He took a moment to try to rein in his fit of temper.

"Did you miss a quiz?"

"No. But attendance is important for my financial aid." He leaned his head into his hands.

"Okay. I'm on financial aid too, I get it." She sat up behind him and pressed her cheek to the side of his face. "Sam. Calm down."

He took a deep breath and nodded tightly.

"You're wound so tight and so stressed."

He nodded silently again.

She gave his shoulder a playful little shake. "We need to loosen you up."

"You sound like Dean," he said.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. "What is Dean like?"

Sam took a steadying breath and exhaled it, letting the missed responsibility go with it. Maybe he'd call in sick to his lawn care job. He was running himself ragged and this little breakdown was evidence of it. Here he had this fucking amazing woman with him in bed and instead of being over the moon with giddiness or lust drunk, he was crying from being over tired. It was ridiculous.

"Dean," Sam huffed a breath through his nose. "Dean is..." he paused. "Man, that's a loaded question."

"Good loaded or bad loaded?"

"Maybe a little of both." He hesitated, not wanting to cut his brother short. "But mostly good."

Jessica sat quietly, waiting for the silence to draw out more. When it didn't she prompted "...aaaaaand...?"

"We're opposites, really. Dean is...he doesn't take anything seriously." Sam paused, his mind sorting through images of Dean in rapid fire, eager to share a story to illustrate the point. "Especially his education. This one time he got expelled for getting caught with a girl in the teacher's supply closet."

Jess laughed. "And by caught you mean..."

Sam winced. "I mean having sex with her, yeah. They got busted because he grabbed one of the shelves for balance and it tipped and all the ninth grade ceramics flipped off and shattered. Kinda loud."

Jessica burst out laughing and Sam loved the sound, so rich and alive. "Oh my god...was it in the art room?"

"Yeah. Yeah it was."

She lost her composure again. "How old was he?"

Sam shrugged. "Um...I think I was fourteen so he was probably, like, seventeen? He dropped out not too long after that."

She shrugged her pretty shoulder. "What's he do for a living now?"

"Mechanic with my father." The lie rolled off his tongue without him even thinking about it. If he had thought about it, it would have troubled him how easily the lies came. One after the other. Lie after lie. So simple to put together. Honed after so many years of lying to teachers and friends and lovers and the authorities. His whole life one big deception.

"Did you two get along?" She shifted her weight on the mattress and drew a leg underneath her. "I mean I know things were rough with your father, but you and Dean?"

Sam cleared his throat. "He's... it's complicated."

"That sounds ominous."

"Well sometimes we'd fight like cats and dogs." There was a long pause. "Most of the time we butted heads, but sometimes we got along great."

"Oh so the story of every sibling ever."

"Yeah," Sam replied. "I guess so."

Except it wasn't. Other siblings didn't rely on one another for survival. They weren't complicit in protecting one another from dangers seen and unseen. They didn't live their life in each other's pockets and then fall out and not speak to each other for years upon years. No one understood him like Dean. No one ever would.

Not even Jessica Moore.