Notes: Many thanks to my more than generous wifey kkscatnip, who helped me with this monster even though it's not her kind of thing at all.
All errors of myth, grammar or structure are mine.
Summary: Sam meets Jess on a bus to Palo Alto. Neither of them understand what it is they're getting. Ignorance is not bliss.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
\
Stanford campus police find the first bodies. Two of them, sacked out on a bench, like someone recovering from a late night study session or a party. They look like they just fell asleep. That's all. Just fell asleep.
There's a major scare about bad drugs that makes the local news and doesn't get retracted even when the autopsies show both kids' systems were completely clean.
It's still only August. Classes start in a week.
\
Sam and Jess have sex for the first time within twenty-four hours of meeting on a greyhound and they both already know that's it's going to be pretty much them, together. It happens less than ten minutes after they decipher the damn maps handed out by someone claiming to be involved in freshman orientation and finally find her dorm room.
They strip right there, in a puddle of sunlight on her bare dorm mattress, their duffel bags of worldly goods scattered on the floor around them. Like they've been touch starved for years. Years.
Everything is sticky, sticky, under the thick scent of salt water and sweat. There's an early September heat wave and the dorms are not and never have been air-conditioned.
Sam's fingers are long and heavy and they brush through the sweaty strands of Jess' hair like she's eggshells and cotton candy. The rest of him is fast and desperate, like she's sweet water after too much salt. She doesn't tell him she wasn't a virgin before today, but it was a close thing. Still, she's pretty sure he's figured it out, like she can more or less tell he's not even close to virginal himself.
After, he falls asleep, and she draws wishes out in runes on the smooth, tanned skin of his back, fluid spells in sweat and come. She is so full and sore and swollen she wants to burst with it.
When she sleeps she dreams of yellow, wrinkled skin and a wild-haired woman stinking of unwashed laundry with yellow tinged eyes. In her sleep Jess can hear her mother's voice, warning her about something, but she can't make out the words over the yellow woman's chanting.
"A crooked house," the old woman says. Her voice is loud and hoarse, easy to hear over the howling of the wind. "There was a crooked man living in a crooked little house with his crooked cat and his crooked mouse. "
And so there is. A crooked house on three legs, with a haphazard, filthy yard. And in the yard are twelve stakes driven solidly into the ground. Ten are bare, a metal point gleaming in the moonlight. Two have fresh human heads affixed on them with staring, burning eyes.
The women, she reaches for Jess with a single, yellow claw and Jess lets it touch her face. Jess should be afraid, should be frozen with it, but there's warmth pooled at her back where Sam is pressed close and she is tall and strong and fears nothing at all.
"Who are you?" Jess asks, but she thinks she knows.
The old woman laughs, and there's nothing kind or humorous in it. "Better to ask, who are you, Jessica Moore. Are you here of your free will or have you been sent?"
"Of my free choice," Jess answers without even thinking about it.
"A stupid choice. You're just the mouse, girl. And mice had better watch out for men." And for just a moment the old woman looks almost sad. Then she smiles and Jess knows without being told that she could die here.
So Jess watches, but all she can see are the old woman's yellow eyes. There's fire on her skin, and she's not sure if it's coming from those eyes on their poles, staring at her so hard, or from the arms wrapped around her, keeping her close.
She knows what it means to burn alive. She screams. It's only the harsh tug of Sam's arm, like steel bands, that pulls her back and away.
In the morning Jess wakes up before Sam, feeling smelly and used and kind of amazing despite the dreams. Sam's breath is soft in her ear and he's curled around her, a cage of skin and muscle. Jess has never slept with anyone before, not just to sleep. She's not sure she likes it, but Sam is hers and she can't complain.
She yawns and stretches against him. The very moment she moves he opens his eyes and pushed himself up, coming awake so quickly it makes Jess' head spin. All the way awake, enough to bite her in exactly the right spot above her nipple.
"Morning person," she mutters, like it's a curse and Sam looks up and kind of grins at her. His teeth are white and his eyes crinkle. Beautiful. Jess' breath catches and she wonders how she actually ended up here, so far from home, tucked up against this boy she hardly knows. She wonders how much she's going to have to pay for this.
"Hope that's not a deal breaker," Sam says, all faux puppy dog eyes and thick, girly lashes.
Jess pretends to consider it, pursing her lips. As if she could break the deal now, even if she wanted to. He ate from her hand. He's the one. She deliberately does not wonder if he would break it if he could.
"Don't insult me," she finally says, and she grins back at him. "Just bring me coffee. Lots of coffee."
"Okay." Sam all but jumps to his feet, shoulders straight, posture perfect, like he's going to salute her. Instead he kisses her, soft edged and sleepy tasting. "I'll be back." And he goes once he pulls his pants off the floor.
He's back with a cup and a package he picked up from somewhere under his arm before Jess has had time to do much but rub the sleep out of her eyes and think about looking for her toothbrush. He hands both to her. The package has her name on it in her mother's scratchy writing.
Jess hasn't done anything weird, like call her mother to let her know she's arrived, but apparently she didn't need to. It's a small box, and inside is a carved wooden hand, with an eye and a sun painted in broad, bright strokes. Jess rolls her eyes, but she hangs it on the wall anyway.
Sam stares when he sees it, just standing there and looking from the symbol to Jess and back again, a very slight frown on his face. Like a million questions. Like he's trying not to be scared. He doesn't say anything, though, so Jess finally does.
"I told you I was a gypsy, right?" she asks, curling bare toes under her knees. His eyes are nearly as blue looking as the eye on the hand in the clear morning light.
"Yeah," he says softly.
"Well, that thing, it's crazy superstitious gypsy shit, right?" Like baking. Like bespelling your lover. No one believes in it. "To keep away the evil eye if you can believe that. Lame, but my mom sent it and… Well, she's my mom." Jess gives a broad, 'what can you do?' sort of shrug. She feels a little sick to her stomach as soon as the words are out of her mouth.
But Sam laughs, expression lightning like it's a magic trick and that helps ease the ache. She wants to see Sam laugh. She wants to see it a lot. "Really? Don't worry, I bet your mom has nothing on my dad."
"It doesn't matter anyway," Jess murmurs, stretching her arms over her head in a wide arc. "Everyone knows the evil eye can only hurt you if you believe in it."
"Really?" Sam repeats and he's staring again.
"Sure. And there's no such thing." Steady. Stupid superstitions shoved aside with the firm sweep of words.
"No such thing." Sam nods. "Yeah. Of course there isn't."
"You'll believe me, right?" Jess whispers, turning back to the wall. Her voice is soft, not intended to be heard by anyone, especially not him.
"I will," Sam replies anyway. Loud and steady.
And Jess thinks it will be okay. Just as long as she doesn't talk too much about dreams, gypsies and baking.
\
Sam never remembers his dreams. Never. Except the ones with claws and blood and someone screaming in the dark, but that's okay too, because when he wakes up Dean is there to throw a pillow at his head and tell him to quit whining. Or tell him that it's okay. Whichever.
These days Sam just doesn't have dreams at all, which is fine, since he has memories instead. Of course they're all about Dean. The one he remembers clearest is the last one.
"So, watch your back, dude," Dean says, and he smiles and smacks Sam on the back, hard enough to make him flinch. Forcing the knife to dig into the bandage that covers the tattoo Sam got just yesterday, and ow. Ow. But that's not Dean's fault, Sam hasn't told him about the tattoo.
He doesn't have the words to just say, 'oh by the way, I got your initials tattooed on my ass'. And he doesn't even know why he did it anyway. He just did.
The bus is already pulling into the station, driving up a cloud of road dust behind it like something out of a movie and Sam watches it just like that. A movie. Watches anything that is not Dean's face, because he knows Dean is still smiling.
Sam wouldn't, will not, smile back, even if he could, so he just clutches his duffel with whitened knuckles. "Yeah. Yeah, you know I can take care of myself, Dean."
"Right. Just don't come whining to me when you crash and burn, you little geek," Dean mutters, the smile in his tone not cracking a bit.
Sam rolls his eyes and his fingers tighten even further, digging into the fleshy folds of his palm. "Whatever. Dad already told me not to bother calling." He stares at the bus, reading the black and white letters announcing San Francisco. His ticket is one way. He hears the sound that Dean makes, muted and brutal.
"That- I don't mean-" Dean is spluttering but Sam isn't looking at him anymore. "You can always-"
"I can take care of myself," Sam repeats, mouth twisted and set. He waits for Dean to smack him on the back of the head and tell him his face will stick that way if he keeps that expression, but Dean doesn't. The silence spreads and widens like oil spilling over clear water. "Always."
"Okay," Dean says, finally, just as Sam shoulders his bag and starts to walk off. "Okay."
Sam keeps walking, faster, hearing Dean's boots pound on the cement as his brother walks beside him. "Wait. Wait. Sammy-"
"Goodbye, Dean. You know where I'll be." And Sam dashes onto the bus after pressing his ticket into the driver's hands, and determinedly does not look out the window to where Dean is lingering, watching him until the bus pulls out of the lot and away. Maybe longer than that, but Sam will never know.
Sam doesn't know how he did it, where the strength to not turn around came from. Dean's gone and Sam can't remember how he used to breathe anymore.
He was afraid to leave, of course he was afraid, but one thing Dad and Dean had taught him was how to deal with fear.
\
Sam doesn't find his own room until about half way through the second day at Stanford. He figures it's only fair to finally leave and let Jess' roommate settle in and all of that.
He thinks, maybe he should have started this school thing differently. In his plans it was just him, Sam Winchester alone in the world, but not actually, with a gun metal gray duffel bag and a knife sheathed against the small of his back pressed right up against a still healing tattoo that itches like a motherfucker. Just him figuring out what he's doing, who and what he is.
Sam should have been alone here because Sam has never been alone before, always had the warm presence of brother at his back. He would be alone now, but for a girl on a bus with pretty eyes and a package of cookies. He never expected to feel safe so soon. His rational mind actually knows better.
He's not sure how to feel about it. She has protection symbols on her wall and Sam finds he can't really ask about them. Instead he wonders hard about what Dean would say, what Dean would suggest is really happening, and tries to pretend he doesn't know the answer.
The feeling wavers when he pushes open a dorm room and the door opens to the sounds of Black Sabbath slam into him, pounded out of a stereo system sweet enough to make Dean weep, if he were here. And Dean is not here. Dean is not here to weep.
Sam has no idea what kind of an expression thinking that about Dean puts on his face, or has never been so blatantly surprised at the reaction he gets because of it.
"Hey," Sam says as he steps into the tiny room, cheerful and friendly as he knows how. He peers through a maze of half unpacked boxes to see through to the short, nerdy looking kid in huge wire rimmed glasses, singing along at the top of his lungs about Iron Man. "You, uh. You like Sabbath?"
The kid just stares. Gives Sam this open-mouthed look as his eyes go up and up and up some more until they reach the top and travel back down. Makes a little squeaking sound, before turning the music down, as though Sam has asked him to do it. Or ordered him to.
"Uh, hi?" he says and ducks his chin.
Sam tries to make whatever is making his new roommate look like he wants to shed his skin to escape ease off, but it's Iron Man. "Hey. So. I'm Sam. Sam Winchester. You're my new roommate, right?"
"Uh. Yeah." The kid nods a little too quickly. He doesn't give his name. "I, uh. Yeah. I'm gonna go. But I'll be back." And then he turns and scuttles out the door. Sam doesn't say anything, but he takes the Sabbath album out of the CD player and breaks it in half, before tossing it in the trash.
The roommate does come back. Sam wakes up after a restless night of dreams he can't remember to find the kid curled up tightly in on himself in the bed across the room. Sam is already eighteen and he's seen enough bodies to recognize that this is one before he's even fully awake. The posture, the stillness, the not actually breathing.
He stumbles to his feet, rubbing a palm over his face and walking closer. It smells weird, and not decaying dead guy weird either, but Sam can't place it. Grain, maybe? Ripe grain.
Then Sam comes all the way awake and remembers that dead roommates and what might have killed them are not his problem any more, so he calls the campus police. He sits by the body, curled up on a chair, Indian style, and stares at the shards of the Sabbath CD in the trash. He wonders why the kid was so damned scared by what he saw in Sam's face last night. Sam has never thought of himself as frightening before, and his arm wrap around himself, rocking a little when he does think about it.
When the police come they're cool voiced and kind and Sam looks them all directly in the eye and tells them every single thing he knows about it. It's the first time he remembers talking to a cop without lying, not once.