Making it
Sam arrives in Palo Alto a whole month before classes start. He knows he should be feeling something. Excitement. Anger at his family. Fear for the unknown. He doesn't really feel anything though.
There's no way he can afford to stay in Palo Alto, not even with the couple hundreds that magically appeared on his duffel and that he only found half way over here. He goes to downtown San Francisco and gets a motel room. The "two queens" leave his mouth before he can't stop it and he quickly fixes it. Just one. Just one will do.
First day, he sleeps in. He's exhausted and he tells himself it's because of the three day bus trip.
Second day, he ventures out. He walks around without a direction. Just walks, until his legs are sore. Stops for lunch. He catches a bus to Palo Alto in the afternoon and sits in front of the Stanford gates. He just stares at it. He made it. Did he really make it?
Third day, he goes sightseeing. He's been to San Francisco before. Mostly on his father's way somewhere else. Once, a couple years ago, to pop a poltergeist. Poltergeists apparently love those San Francisco houses. It was supposed to be an easy job. Poltergeists are easy. Hunters 101. It took them three weeks. He never got to check out the city.
Fourth day, he goes job searching. Manages a waiter gig at a local diner. A bar would pay more and he actually enters one before remembering he is, in fact, far for 21 and his fake IDs are with his brother. It's okay, though. The money he "found" in his duffel is enough to last him a couple weeks in the motel. He just needs the job to keep busy.
Sam doesn't think much. He wakes up, runs, works out, goes to work, comes back to the room, sleeps. Waits. Keeps expecting to see an Impala or a truck in every corner. Thinks he sees a blond head following him a couple times. Just holds his breath and keeps rehearsing what he is going to say when his brother or his father show up to drag him back.
They don't.
Days pass and they don't.
His phone rings at 3 AM the second Saturday night and his brother's name is on the screen. Sam holds the phone and holds his breath and before he can make a decision the ringing stops.
The following Saturday, Sam makes friends with a couple of road tripping idiots staying at the same motel just to get his hands on some alcohol. He gets drunk and he's so fucking mad and he's so fucking sad and Dean is such a goddammed fucking asshole and Dean should fucking be here. Sam's grinding his teeth and most definitely not sobbing and he's dialing and he's going to tell Dean all about it and… the number he's been trying to reach has been disconnected, the electronic voice says.
It sobers him up good.
School starts the following week. He looks around the other students and feels like when he was little and got to school wearing Dean's battered hand-me-downs.
His counselor is a petit woman and she's babbling about the wonderful opportunities of higher education. She sets him up with a dorm room, explains the demands to keep his scholarship and helps him figure out a schedule. She explains how the scholarship may seem like a lot of money, but they are in Palo Alto and the cost of living is very high and the books he'll have to get are expensive, as if Sam failed at Math and didn't realize this himself a whole forty minutes before. She says she has a position open for an assistant that he's pretty sure she invented for him just now because she looks at him like his middle school teachers did when they invited him over for dinner. Sam didn't fail at Math, though, so he accepts it.
He goes back to the motel, packs his things. He takes the gun on the waistband of his jeans. He takes the one on his left ankle. He takes the extra one on his duffle, the knife under his pillow, the one on his right ankle, the ammunition, the curved blade, his shotgun. He stares.
He holds the Taurus. His main gun. His favorite gun. Dean's present for his 15th birthday. He glances at the curved blade, Dean's present for his 10th. He puts them both at his duffle, with a couple of bullets – lead, iron, salt.
Dean cut off his connection with Sam. Sam can't bring himself to do the same.
He takes the rest of the weaponry to a pawn shop. He's fully aware that the owner is paying him less than what's fair, but he doesn't care. He takes the bills and walks to the first mall he can find.
He buys new clothes. Nothing fancy like his colleagues wear, but new anyway. New, light colored, light weight, not stained with his family's blood. He buys shirts, pants, socks, shoes, underwear, a new duffle. His old clothes stay in his old duffel and his old duffel goes to the front steps of a church. Stained and old they may be, but they could still dress someone in need.
It's weird to walk without being armed. He feels half out of balance, half naked. The Impala never shows in any corner and he checks his six every ten seconds.
He gets to his dorm room and meets his roommate, Elliot.
Elliot is from Seattle, he has two little sisters named Caitlin and Sarah, his father is a doctor and his mother is a lawyer and he thinks the room is too small. The room is bigger than any room Sam has ever lived in. The room is bigger than most apartments he ever lived in. The room is so much bigger than the Impala. The room has a closet and shelves and drawers and all Sam has is a duffel.
Elliot is not sure about this whole roommate thing. He never had to share a room in his life and thinks the whole thing is stupid anyway, because he can afford an apartment, but his father is such an asshole and is adamant on him staying in this stupid fucking hole. Sam wonders what adjective Elliot would use on John Winchester as he nods and agrees and laughs on cue and tries not to think about the person he shared a room with for all his life.
Elliot goes to a frat party the first night. Sam lies he's going out with some friends, but he stays in and stares at the ceiling until he falls asleep.
His eyes open at 6h30 sharp, like every day of his life, like he's been conditioned to do, but he awakes only when he reaches down the pillow and finds it empty. He starts off the bed but catches himself. He doesn't get up. He doesn't go out to run. He doesn't work out.
He stays in bed until 8. Then he gets up, showers, shaves, dresses. He looks at himself at the mirror and feels younger and older at the same time.
He lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
He made it.
He made it out.