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uncouth-the-fifth · 2 years

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Pythia - A Supernatural Rewrite. Dead In The Water, p1.

read it on ao3. masterlist.

words: 11,982

notes: this could technically be considered part .5, since we don't get into anything episode related until next chap - but i thought it was important to give u more bg on Reader!! same goes for the dean-centered parts of this episode, since for this one i'm giving you some HEAVY sam time. enjoy your cutesy but sad motorcycle not-pining.

i referenced some spn neat spn fics for this one. though you don't have to read them to understand this ep, i highly recommend it since they're so damn good: Stop Hitting Yourself by Rokhal, Fire of Unknown Origin by britomart, And Rage Is Mingled With His Grief by StillWaters1. yeehaw!

i also wanted to clarify that i don't like when people give reader inserts last names + premade parents, but our psychic reader has both for the sake of the plot!! you'll love Beth and Ray trust me ;)

enjoy <3 next part: dead in the water, p.2

EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN - NOV. 14th, midday.

The first snow would be hitting soon. After a childhood raised off the river here, you’d learned to feel it in the air. Fall was not the powerful, crowned buck it’d been in October; the roads of your hometown were foggy, the buildings seemed flatter, and the grass was packed down into dry gray-blonde sheets. Sometime in the weeks you’d been gone, the buck had suffered an arrow wound and was waiting for the cold to set in.

You propped your head on the chilled window of the backseat, watching the industrial brickwork and buckling sidewalks whisk by. Little avenues of rain runoff emptied into street grates. Kids spilled out of your old high school, rushing onto the sidewalk to start the trek home. Your brain instantly associated these sights with the end of a hunt—more specifically, Dean dropping you off at your apartment to go off on his own. Wistfulness dragged in your gut. For the first time in more than two years, you and the boys were going home together.

Instead of taking a left for your apartment, Dean pulled into the right turn lane and turned up the rock station. He always claimed that your hometown was the only city he’d been in with decent radio. The guys at your Dad’s old autoshop job loved Dean, so he always borrowed their garage when he was in town. You had vivid, amber memories of Dean working on the Impala there, and between asking you to hand him wrenches, he’d hum soulfully and cheesily along with what was on. So many of your quiet moments were filled with that sound, like an instrumental break in the soundtrack of your life.

“Shouldn’t we call ahead?” Sam asked, closing the book he’d been reading. How he could process letters, never mind a whole book, while Dean and Dean’s music were on full blast, you had no clue. He tilted to look back at you. “Your mom won’t be upset if we just drop in, will she?”

“Are you kidding?” Dean answered for you. “Sammy, think who you’re askin’ about…” He shot a superstitious look to the building as he pulled in, smiling. “Lady probably already knows we’re here.”

Dean parked in the slim alley behind the store, like always. The house had been in your family for a couple generations, and from the back, it definitely showed. If you squinted at the brownstone long enough it seemed to have this tilt to it, like an old man putting his weight on his cane. You’d always thought of the Proctor house as a hyper-vigilant, eerily silent butler—it had all the unease of a haunted house combined with the stateliness of a gentleman. The windows had elaborate iron frames. The roof was lined with ornate, detailed trim (with all sorts of hidden sigils you’d been trained to recognize). Your mother claimed the brick they’d made the house with had been mixed with salt, but you weren’t sure that made it possible for the place to still be standing. Knowing the house you’d grown up in, it’d probably find a way to tough through it anyway.

The gate to your mother’s back garden was locked, so you took the side alley around to the front. The face of the Proctor house was far more unassuming; the entire first floor had been gutted and renovated into your family’s business, Lucky You Antiques and Collectibles. A wall of faded glass advertised the furniture your mom had repolished, the upcoming Thanksgiving deals, yadda yadda—nothing explicitly psychic, except for the grand eye decal on the front door. At this time of day it cast an arching shadow all the way to the register. You tried not to shiver at the sight of it.

“Shit,” you said, patting down your jacket, “I left my keys in the trunk.”

“I’ll run back,” Sam was saying, but Dean had already shimmied past you, circled through his keyring and slid his own copy into the lock. “I got it,” he said, innocently, and gestured you inside.

Lucky You was closed for the day, so Dean opened the door to an empty front room gleaming with glass figurines, books, and antique furniture. Everything was sprucey and dark, with an ever-hovering cloud of faded cigar smoke. Tightly-spaced aisles juxtaposed circles of armchairs and coffee tables for sale. Even day to day it never really looked the same way, but something about it as a whole hadn’t changed a bit since you were little. There were still identical notches carved into the bookshelves where you’d knocked them over roughhousing with Dean. Your mom had never replaced the lightbulb in the back corner, since that was Sam’s job and she just never found the time to do it herself.

The centerpiece of it all was a huge, threadbare carpet the length of two Impalas. It used to be a product, but it’d sat there for so long that eventually it was absorbed by the store. Dean used to joke that it was the mother of all dust bunnies, since every time, without fail, Sam would choke out into coughs when he crossed it. Dean watched Sam enter first with a strange look, like he was waiting for the past to recreate itself.

You found yourself doing the same. The last time Sam had been here, he’d been half as tall and half as filled out in the shoulders. You’d noticed when you’d reunited with him (especially when you’d hugged him), but the change was even sharper in a familiar place, where you could overlay the image of gangly past Sam with his current self.

But Sam didn’t cough once crossing the rug. Instead, he scratched at his neck in the anxious way he’d been doing since Jess died, completely unaware of you and Dean, and said idly, “Your mom needs to check the devil’s trap underneath this thing—all the walking’s probably rubbed it right off.”

“I’d almost forgotten about that,” you said, sliding in after him. You wondered what made him think of that. “I’ll remind her—or Dean can put it on his list.”

Sam turned on his heel, hands in his pockets, and cocked an eyebrow at Dean. He enunciated, “Your list?”

“Yeah,” Dean shrugged one shoulder, and twisted around to lock the door behind the three of you. “Sometimes the girls are too lazy to do stuff, and I gotta earn my keep, between Beth’s food and ____’s—” he gave you a dry look, “blessed company. So I do favors.”

“Chores,” you corrected, slyly. “And shut up, dick, you love my company!”

Dean flicked your ear as he passed, and sauntered down the cramped employee hall that lead upstairs. Again, he unlocked the door and held it open for you, blighting out the sun with a glowing, mischievous smile just for you. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, darlin’.”

Opening the door to the stairwell was like passing through a portal. On the first stair, you were met by the crescendo of Elvis dancing down from the second floor. The familiar sound of your mother’s records coupled with the smell of lunch launched you back into high school, kindergarten, and all the memories in between. You remembered Sam standing guard here with a shotgun on his lap after you’d been attacked. You remembered tip-toeing down these steps to go drink with Dean. You remembered talking to the portraits of the seers before you, who followed you with their eyes even now.

Needless to say, you kept your focus on your footing.

The second floor of the house was a stark contrast to the gloomy back-garden and commercial front. All the polished paneling in the walls, the harsh brickwork, and the dramatic, smoky lighting had been replaced and overlaid with your mother’s retrofuturist decorating. Your grandmother had left behind a ton of 50s’ stuff that your mom loved too much to throw out. Ever since you were little, she’d been utilizing it. You, Sam, and Dean passed the wall of the front hallway pasted from floor-to-ceiling with vintage diner signs, most of them rosy-cheeked women selling Coca Cola or hot dogs. The three of you kicked off your shoes.

“Ma!” You shouted over the swaying music. “We’re home!”

No one emerged. Behind you, Dean was the first out of his boots and was already clearing his way to the kitchen archway. He scuttled across the checkered linoleum and landed happily in the mock-diner booth, the one your mother had repaired a thousand times, and cackled like a maniac. Laid out on the kitchen table was lunch—your favorite, Dean’s favorite, and Sam’s favorite, each on its own plate.

In one hand, Dean scooped up the huge bacon burger your mom had pan-grilled for him and uttered ravenously, “Beth, I would kill for you!”

“She must be busy upstairs,” you chuckled, and turned to Sam, “I think she made you—”

Sam had lingered behind to remove his jacket. It looked like something had caught his eye on the corner turning into the living room, something low to the ground and carefully preserved. He was running over it with delicate fingers, and hearing your voice, he looked away, embarrassed. Or maybe it was closer to shame.

You shuffled closer to get a look. At about the height of your hip, there was a soft pink line that had faded with time. ____, age four. It cascaded up a little bit, then was joined by a red marker, Sam, age three, and above that in green, Dean, age six. The lines mingled. They lapped each other, especially in Sam’s case, or clung in pairs until certain ages. You could plot out the fierce height competition you’d had with Dean in middle school. It was clear on the chart that the last time you’d been taller than both of them was at ten, just before Dean had hit puberty. Sam was a late bloomer. He wasn’t even close to becoming his behemoth self until 1998; Sam, age 15.

Sam stared at his most recent mark on the wall, letting his hand fall back to his side. He didn’t say anything—just looked and looked, like Sam, age 19, could take him back in time if he brooded on it hard enough. By then, he’d beat you out, had already started doing pre-law online, and was level in height with Dean. That had been four years ago.

You glanced at the hall behind you, where your mother had yet to appear, then at Dean, completely absorbed in his burger. “Hold on a second,” you told Sam, and started hunting around the kitchen junk drawer.

“You don’t gotta…” Sam cleared his throat, but you were already pushing him gently into the wall with a hand on his chest. He clarified, “I’m not your brother. You don’t have to…”

“No, but you’re my family,” you said, without pause. “What kind of best friend would I be if I left you out of a family tradition?”

He didn’t care that much about resisting after that, because soon he pushed his heels into the wall and straightened his back. You had to stretch a little, but without any fuss you were able to set a warm palm on his hair and draw a new line well above the others. Sam, you wrote, age 23. The other marks had all been written in your mother’s loopy handwriting. ____, age 19, and Dean, 21, matched all the others, so your addition at the top seemed out of place. You choose instead to think of it as the crowning jewel of your childhood, of all those lines. Look, it seemed to say, we’re still together after all this time.

You thunked the marker down in a nearby pen cup, then brushed the smeared ink on your jeans as you admired your handiwork. “Hm,” you preened, “Finished. Only took… what? Twenty years?”

Sam looked demure. He dipped his head, and asked no one in particular, “Have we really known each other that long?”

“Feels longer,” you remarked. Dean was loudly enjoying his burger in the other room, and you rolled your eyes at him to avoid confronting how soft Sam’s voice sounded. You thunked him on the back, grinning, “I guess we can officially say we’re never getting rid of each other, huh?”

Sam opened his mouth to speak, eyes swimming with enough honesty and emotion to make your chest cave in, only to drop it all at once. You followed his gaze over your shoulder.

“There you are,” your mother greeted, her voice rendered quiet and disbelieving. She was smirking to suppress a well of emotion, and twisting constantly at a used, dusty rag she’d been using to clean. “I was just getting your room ready, ____…”

You were a spitting image of Beth Proctor, in ways so surreal and specific that you’d always figured it was a part of the family genes; each and every psychic Proctor wore the face of a long-dead ancestor. An ancestor who you thought was beautiful in a severe, Mona Lisa sort of way. At least in terms of your mother. A secret loomed permanently in her eyes, which at this moment were flush with building tears. There was a graceful, haunting air to her, which only made it easier to imagine her peering into a crystal ball or divulging everything about a person with just a look. Beth was a real seer.

She sniffed. “Are all three of you…?”

On command, Dean appeared in the kitchen archway and Sam stepped into the natural light of the open living room, each on either side of you. “Present and accounted for,” you beamed, and Dean wiggled his fingers in a wave over your shoulder, “Hi, Ma.”

Your mother’s eyes drifted across you and the boys, her thoughts a hundred years away. She propped her fists on her hips, swelled up as sternly as she could, and shook her head. Dean started inching further behind you, just in case you were kids again and Ma was about to deliver the scolding of a lifetime—for sneaking out or being reckless or worrying her sick. Instead, Beth scrubbed her tears across her wrist.

“Damn you,” she cursed, “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. Sammy, baby, c’mere.”

It took Sam two steps to close the gap between them and hug her just as hard as she hugged him. He was easily two heads taller than her, but the way she scooped him close made Sam look eleven again, when he knew about the hunt but was too young to do anything about it. What he’d said barrelled right into you as they embraced: Have we really known each other that long?

John Winchester had only a few places he could leave his boys when he went off hunting, and the safest and easiest place was the Proctor House. The building itself was warded. Your mom knew the truth—about him, about the world—and knew how to take care of kids. Looking back, you imagined it had started small. John had nowhere else to take infant Sam and toddler Dean. He’d probably insisted it would only be a one-time thing, but then it’d happened again and again and your mom had cared less and less.

You’d been a real lonely baby, she’d told you once, sewing with the window open. The evening light had layered over her face like stained glass. I was so worried about you… You hardly cried. You barely made any noise at all, and you didn’t really like to play with toys. All you wanted was to hear me and your dad talk to you.

It occurred to you, as your mom hugged a man who wasn’t her blood, that the boys were here because of you. Things would be different otherwise. If you’d been a happy baby, if she’d put you in normal daycare to make normal friends, if you’d even breathed a word about being scared of John or not liking his sons, none of this would have happened. But you’d been alone and quiet until two other lonely and quiet kids walked into your life, so it didn’t matter if Sam wasn’t your mom’s blood.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, honey,” she was murmuring to him, but Sam was saying the exact same thing to her. They separated and Beth cupped one side of Sam’s face, the eye of her right palm pressed flat to his cheek. “I went to the apartment,” she told him, somber, “I couldn’t sense much, but I did get your car—it’s down in the garage, if you ever need it.”

Sam sunk into his shoe-soles. “Thank you,” was all he said, and a blue shadow passed over your mother’s face.

It went unsaid that she knew everything that had happened. You never were sure how much she knew exactly, even in comparison to what your own gift showed you, but for a brief second all of it seemed to flash across her face. She drew her palm away from Sam’s cheekbone, and on instinct you pressed your nails into the flesh of your right hand.

“You make Dean look like a shrimp,” Beth chuckled, and Dean grumbled in offense. She hooked an arm under his back and the other around your shoulder, and like you, bloomed under the relief that the three of you were with each other again. “Hello, sweetpea,” she smirked at you, then at Dean, “And oh, hush, you big baby. You jealous ‘cause you want a hug too?”

“No,” Dean scoffed, snapping his arms down to his sides. “I, uhm, just don’t want all this nice food to go to waste. Seein’ as you made it all special, n’ everythin’...”

Your mother shared a conspiratory, amused look with you in the corner of her eye, inviting you into her secret for just a moment. Even as an adult you felt she didn’t do that with you much, but sharing the Gift gave you both a strange understanding. As much as you hated her covering for John… Like her, you’d seen the future, and there were some parts of it that just couldn’t be shared or spoken. She’d been at this a lot longer than you might ever be; and she was your mom, so you wanted to trust her.

“You’ve got that case, up in Manitowoc,” she said, (a statement of fact), “I figured you’d be stopping by, and I figured I should give you something better than road food. Get on in there and sit down. Dean, you want a beer?”

The four of you migrated into the kitchen, Dean at the lead in order to reunite with his burger. “Sure,” he said, and Beth jut up her eyebrows until he added, “—please?”

You slid into the booth where your plate was, and noticed, conveniently, that your mom had put you in the corner with Sam. The booth wasn’t the grand dining hall you remembered it being as a kid, so Sam had to fold his legs and shove into your space a little to fit. Maybe it was a little too obvious that it didn’t bother you, because you caught Dean squinting at you over his lunch. Just to remind him who he was messing with, you tapped your teeth and stuck your tongue out at him—Dean found the lettuce you were pointing to and pouted as he worked it out of his incisor.

“Can I have a beer too, if that’s okay?” Sam asked. He picked up his fork and turned over the salad Ma had made for him, warmed with gratitude. It really had been a while since he’d eaten anything homemade. “This looks amazing. I don’t know how you have all the time to put this all together, Beth.”

Ma squinted at him, then relaxed with realization. “Of course. Sorry… For a second there, I forgot you’re old enough to drink,” she chuckled and disappeared into the retro, rounded-off fridge to one side of the kitchen.

When Sam’s head was turned, she hung in place and devoured the three of you with her eyes. You could feel her basking in it, memorizing the sight of each of you, but you didn’t acknowledge it. Both of you had been captured by deja vu today. The world was right when Dean was chowing down across from you and you were fighting Sam’s legs for territory under the table, like always.

Ma cleared her throat. “And I enjoy cooking, you know that, Sam. I’m just happy to have somebody to cook for. Sometimes the neighbors or our regulars will come up for dinner, but it’s not every day I get to treat my biggest eaters.”

The smell of your favorite lunch wafting up from your plate held all the power of a comfort potion, and after the first bite you felt the tension wound in your joints dissolve. It tasted like summer wind, when your mom would pack a picnic and take the three of you to the park…

Once, a group of little kids your age had begged the boys to join their baseball game in the field there, probably imagining their tough, jaded faces made them amazing players. Sam had just left soccer behind and was eager to play a sport. Dean was all for schooling some punk middle schoolers. You remembered him, maybe thirteen or fourteen, helping you off the grass, assuming without question that you were invited too—because they’d asked Dean, and you followed him around like a third arm. But the kids wouldn’t bite. All that dumb playground shit about girls and sports and cooties. It hadn’t felt great, but Dean used to throw that same kind of stuff at you because he was a bit of a stupid kid, so you were used to it. Sam had insisted that he wouldn’t play without you, sporting a mean grin that looked a little strange on his shy face. You’re losing your best hitter.

Still, the kids had shoved you off. Both the boys had really wanted to join—they didn’t get the opportunity to play without getting in trouble for not “lying low”, so you figured they’d give up and go play without you. It was fine. Sam was lying; you were an awful shot. You were the girl, so you were used to it.

That’s when your mother had emerged from the trees, glowing in the high noon sun, the shadow of the baseball she was tossing and catching in one hand bouncing across her face. You still remembered the white sundress she’d worn. She’d known, she always knew, so she’d packed a ball and a bat too. Let’s play our own game, she’d suggested, and her little army of three had merrily lined up after her. With Dean as pitcher and Sam in the outfield, she’d taught you to hit. You insisted to this day that the wooden bat she’d brought with her was flimsy, but Sam and Dean swore that it was solid all the way through—that your eleven-year-old self had really splintered it in two hitting a home. They’d gone wild, Sam waving the ball around, Dean picking you up and running in circles, the two of them chanting: Mean Swing! Mean Swing! Mean Swing!

You wondered now if your mom had orchestrated it somehow, but that would be impossible. As afraid as you were to go home, to this old ass house with its older portraits, there were other, better things to come back to.

Beth pulled a chair up to the edge of the table, resting her elbows across the back. She laid two beers down in front of the boys, the kitchen windows throwing soft blue-gray light across her figure, and watched fondly as Dean opened his. He took one sip, and the moment he put it down you captured it and stole one of your own.

“You hear anything from our Dad?” Dean asked, putting every ounce of his focus into the napkin under his plate.

“No,” your mom was careful to reply, “but you don’t have ta’ worry, he disappears like this often. I’ve learned not to be too stressed about him, but for your sake I did put word out. I’ll keep looking, but you know your dad—his list of hunting buddies is as short as my patience. I’m not going to hear much.” Her eyes slid away from her hands to you, and you got the impression she wasn’t telling the whole truth. “____? You’ve been real quiet.”

It wasn’t a malicious probe. She was just curious, and by the soft fondness in her face you felt like she was fascinated by your inner world. You talked plenty about Sam being the only one to be genuine about understanding your Gift, but your mother was right there beside him, not just understanding but appreciating, too. Sometimes she looked at you like she knew she’d given you a terrible burden. Neither of you like the Gift. Other times, there was relief and pride there, where it looked to her as if you were doing everything she wished she could do. Run away from your last name. Run away from the parlor, and the eye brand you shared.

(But still. She’d always read with the palm of her hand, eye forward, and you hid behind your knuckles instead).

For a moment you considered pushing back on the John thing, but if your mom was choosing to cover for him, she’d go to grave about it. After all, you wouldn’t hesitate to do the same for Sam or Dean. The future could give each of you all sorts of reasons to protect them.

“Just remembering things.” You answered her, thumbing your carnelian ring, “How long has it been since we’ve had a movie night?”

“I think it’s too cold to put up the projector in the garden,” Ma said, tapping her lip, “but we can always use the TV in the living room—thing’s busted to shit, but it’s not awful.”

Dean threw an arm over the back of his bench. “S’ not giving you trouble again, is it?”

“No, it’s useable,” Ma lifted her head, “but actually, Dean honey, now that you’re finished, the bathroom sink’s all broken again. Do you think you could…?”

Dean was already up, dish in hand. “You got it,” he said, and jabbed a finger between you and Sam, “Just don’t pick anything stupid, capiche? No girly shit, or nerdy shit, or whatever you girly nerds like to watch in your free time.”

As soon as Dean had dragged the toolbox out from under a cabinet and disappeared with it, you knocked your arm against Sam’s and conspired, “So… Legally Blonde?”

Sam broke out into a hesitant, closed-lip smile. He seemed a little caught off guard by the joke, but he was your minion before anything else, and indulged most of your evil plans. “Nerdy. Girly. Sounds like a plan to me.”

“You’re my favorite,” you elbowed him, maybe fishing a little too hard for something to cheer him up. If it was possible, in any sense of the word, to cheer someone up after losing someone like Jess.

It seemed to have an effect, even if it was a minor one. Sam’s lip quirked, “I know.”

“Thank you, Han and Leia,” your mother said, dryly, and mirrored Sam by folding her neat hands on the tabletop. “Now… tell me about, your, um…”

She was going to bring up Stanford, then realized what a terrible idea that was. You filled in, “...Our last hunts?”

“No,” your mother laughed, recoiling a little in her disapproval. Seamlessly, she rolled into another subject, and you were forced to fight a little with your own awkwardness. Ma said, “Oh, I remember. These last weeks I’ve had this brother and sister coming in for readings…”

She descended into the story, keeping you and Sam entertained while dodging the subject of Stanford, where you’d been for the last month, and why you’d been gone in the first place. There was no need to talk about it. Ma already knew, and watching Sam act less and less like himself just hurt all three of you. Sometimes she’d reach across the table to squeeze his closed fists or push your plate a little closer to you, but beyond that she only observed Sam for a reaction. This was not just the kid she’d half-raised walking back into her life, but a porcelain vase scrambling to patch the cracks as they came.

Sam spent most of the time chewing slow and unwinding slower. Of course, him being the way he was, he was just thankful she hadn’t scorned him for getting out while he could. He knew he hadn’t just left John, Dean, and you behind, but Beth and Bobby too.

“That reminds me,” Ma hummed halfway through one of her stories, “That cousin hunter duo, the two girls from Arkansas, they came in last week and asked to see you. I told them that I could help them if they’d like, but they insisted on only seeing you! As confused as I was, I gotta admit, I was a little proud—they’re your first regulars, baby!” She bustled over to the sink, her palm winking at you as she walked, “I got my first customers like that a little earlier than you, when I was nineteen. But I guess you beat me out, what with the boys getting fortunes from you when you were little n’ all.”

Since her back was turned toward the sink, you were allowed to physically deflate. “Oh… I don’t remember them.”

“I gave em’ your number,” your mother brightened, and started to arrange the dishes for washing. “Honestly, I’m surprised your address book isn’t full! You’ve always been better than me at the personable part of it.”

Pathetically, you glanced at Sam like it was even possible for him to help you, and played with your carnelian ring. “The visions come easier to you.”

“Oh, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t talk to them. It’s more important to care about the people you’re giving visions to, if you really want to help them.” Ma glanced at you over her shoulder, crow’s feet wrinkling with her sigh. “I’ve been at this so long that I suppose I’m a little desensitized—but you, you always give a little piece of yourself away when you give your readings. I always wished I could be that giving.”

Sam cleared his throat, and with it you felt a bit of your composure gouged out of you. “Let me help with that,” he said, and filled her other side to assist with drying the plates.

Ma snorted, “Sam—”

Before she could get anything out about him sitting back down, Sam’s voice bowled right through her. The timbre of it was calm but forceful, and just the hint of memory in it knocked the breath out of you. It was the tone that started every argument he had with John—the voice swearing that he knew better, the voice that in another, luckier version of this life, would make him a damn good lawyer. Your fists snapped shut beneath the table.

“She is really giving,” he agreed, with just enough heat to make your gut drop. “Every day, she’s out there straining her Gift, n’ working it to the bone for people she hasn’t even met. I never really got to see her doing both until now, being a hunter and a Proctor.” He snapped a cabinet shut, and punctuated, “But she can do both.”

Your mother sharply dropped a bowl into the filled sink. Biting your tongue, you watched her raise her all-seeing gaze to Sam’s, a reply stirring in her throat. But she cared about the two of you too much to press him or you or his grief. This argument had been stirred between the two of you for years now. It came back into circulation every few months, so there wasn’t even a little anger in her face. She just tilted her head at him, curious, and sorted through what he’d said. It’d been two years since Sam had stood up for you at the smallest threat, and something about that had made your mother emotional.

(Sam had never cared about hunting. He despised what it meant to be a good hunter, and that left you wondering what he meant by that. That you could do both).

“I suppose I haven’t seen her do both, then,” she said.

And she let it go.

You were dreaming, but a part of you was bracing for a vision.

Usually the distinction between the two was obvious. Your own dreams sat in the cloud of your mind, the edges of each image or moment fizzing with your consciousness. Visions on the other hand totally subtracted your presence, simply dropping the feelings and pictures on top of you. It was the difference between a touch from your own hand versus the touch of a stranger’s. Ironically, it was safer to get visions of someone you didn’t know. Seeing the boys or your mother always hurt more.

That’s why you weren't certain this was just a dream. The fog of your own mind blurred the corners of every frame, but it hurt, buzzing in your beehive skull. It had to be a combination of both or something else, the clear future blended and muddled by your more human dreams.

You were dreaming as Sam: standing barefoot in the mud, watching a hunting cabin burn even in the rain. The drops were hissing against the choking, smoking blaze, not strong enough to make a difference but persisting anyway. A part of you, the Sam part, knew that even a hurricane couldn’t cleanse the fire. Your fingers and lips were blue with cold. But something inside you, living in your blood, was singeing you from the inside out. It was so hot that you ripped off your jacket and your pajama pants and itched, because your limbs were frosting over but you’d started the fire. Dean was hauling you up, and you were driving, and driving, and Dad was pissed and terrified. I forgot to blow the candles out, you—Sam—sobbed, but he knew he was lying. He didn’t sleep and he didn’t touch wood or candles or go near the fireplace at Bobby’s, because through the walls he’d heard Dean ask: Was it the thing that killed Mom? And Dad had said, I’m going to find out.

Had he?

Sam—you—were on your stomach, sinking into your mattress. Something hot dropped onto your neck. A second time. Both tears of molten iron slid down your skin and into your collar, and you knew without looking that there was an altar on your ceiling—knew without looking that Jess was being sacrificed there, even if the dream forced you to look. You saw her. She was crying, and mouthing Sam’s name. The room dissolved into skin-bubbling cabin flames.

You, or Sam, were standing on the side of the road—and then you were sure it was Sam, because he could feel you behind him, desperately trying to coax him back towards the Impala. A dog had been clipped by a truck and left in the grassy ditch. At a distance, it didn’t look like a dog. Just the vague outline of roadkill. All Sam could see was the waves of bloody blonde hair in the grass and all he could feel was the air puttering out of him, hitching and heaving. Your hand was cupping his back, then his neck, and Sam flinched. The blood had burned into his skin.

Then Sam was somewhere else, anywhere else. A motel or a house, it didn’t matter. He was in bed on his stomach again, hand clamped against the cresting sobs searing out of him. He knew what came next. It always happened, no matter how hard he fought or prayed before he went to sleep. Sam was pushed onto his back. Some nights it was Dean or Jess or Mom, and he always knew when it’d be Mom because, paradoxically, hers were always the most vivid. But this time it was you; and you were trembling with terror but you were also braving it, like you always had for him, and a seeping wound smiled its way across the belly of your nightgown. You didn’t scream. You just wept, staring at him. You didn’t say Sam’s name or cry out for him. All you said was, it’s okay, and that terrified him more than anything.

The molten blood dripped. Sam was too pinned to even squirm, to twist away, so the blood splattered onto his cheek and slid neatly into the closed line of his mouth. He could smell the iron. It tasted… It tasted…

You woke up, heart roaring in the ringing silence.

The memories of the dream sludged together, poorly translating in the transition from sleep logic to waking logic. You ran your tongue over your lip, feeling the dry, cracked skin there, and jolted up in bed.

The third story of the Proctor House was technically the attic, and on nights like these, it felt like it. Your childhood bedroom was shrouded in blue darkness, the kind that could take a limb if you dared to put your arm inside it. The room was made darker in contrast by the long square of silver moonlight carpeting the old floorboards. Your curtains fluttered on their own, shifting even when the wind wasn’t murmuring through the cracks in the panes. The entire house seemed to breathe, a dying man on a respirator, his death groaning through the walls and door frames in the old house. What sat between the cresting whispers of the wind was easily worse: long, disturbing silences that watched you sleep.

You stopped. There was a gentle crackling noise, like something was putting its hands flat to the windows and pressing. Sleep was still muddling your brain a little, so it took a bit for clarity to melt back into you, and for you to remember:

The rest of the day had been spent in your mother’s living room, you crammed in between the boys on the couch and your mom lounging in her wingback. Dean stopped suffering through Legally Blonde about twelve minutes in and started to enjoy it, the stress melting out of him through contact with your shoulder. Squished between him and Sam, you lent one ear to the movie and another to Sam and Ma talking avidly about the book he was reading. That had dissolved into another movie, and after that Ma had called it a night. Being on the road so long had killed the three of you, so you disappeared up into your old bedroom and the boys insisted on taking the living room. For a few minutes after you heard them fighting over who would take the couch. Then Ma had thrown an uninflated air-mattress out at them and told them to shut up, followed by a night’s worth of peaceful silence.

All of it had passed in a sunny haze, even if the first snow was fast approaching. As you’d brushed your teeth you’d felt a sense of impermanence, though, and argued away the feeling with your reflection. John wasn’t coming to pick the boys up tomorrow. The next few weeks wouldn’t be canyons of radio silence. Your wish had come true, in the ugliest possible way.

Now, you crossed the clinging silence of your room on light feet. Your dagger hung casually in your other hand, just in case. In this house you didn’t technically have to salt the room, but you’d already finished the windows when you remembered that. Similarly, it was second nature to wake up at random to check the lines, so in the navy darkness you crouched before your closed bedroom door and straightened the granules with the flat of your knife.

The only sound in the entire house seemed to be the soft scrape of the blade against the floor. Then, the softer squeak of the stairs just outside your room.

Brandishing your dagger, you held your breath. Someone’s lungs hitched. You didn’t want to wake the whole house if this wasn’t a demon or a hunter breaking in, so you quietly wedged the ancient door open and peered out. It was cast in total darkness. The pale blue moonlight from your room seeped out into the hall and passed through the banister, throwing ghostly shadows across a broad figure’s back.

Immediately, you dropped your dagger on your dresser and stepped out. “Sam?”

He didn’t turn around. His shoulders were trembling like the shivering muscle in a horse’s flank, scaring away flies. The bone-deep, unconscious sort of shaking that no actor could mimic, that didn’t look right on a person in real life. Sam’s head was tilted back to get the full scope of the staircase’s wall.

The pictures there were hard to discern in the dark, but Sam had wandered back to them so many times in his life that he didn’t need to see them. He always lingered on the stairs whenever you passed them. Beth had given Sam his own copies of them ages ago, but if you had to guess, Sam wasn’t magnetized to the wall because of the memories there. He always came back to them because of what they represented.

Most of the photos, in their mismatched frames, were of you. There was a grouping of your baby photos, each little ___ in lace dresses and pink hair bows; a cute-faced toddler on her father’s shoulders, wearing matching biker shades and smolders; you being kissed to death by your mom after your first day at school. Somewhere along the way two strangers had crept in. Sam saw a framed candid of an eight-year-old, long-suffering Dean wiping finger-paint off your face, which was glowing with pure admiration. (Because at age six, there was no one cooler to you than Dean Winchester). The one Sam hovered over the longest was of you and him, fresh to driving and posing for junior prom. A few more dotted the physical timeline of your life; the giant werewolf snowman you’d made together, Sam’s spelling bee victories, Dean and Ray—your dad—working on cars together.

Most of them, including the ones with Sam and Dean, were in one massive frame. It was inscribed with, the love of a family is life’s greatest gift.

“Sammy,” you touched his shoulder over the banister, praying for a response. “Did you—did you have a nightmare?”

It was so quiet that you could hear your heart aching, and like a question mark it didn’t have a precise sound—just a change in inflection at the end, an uptick or a downtick. The sound of worry in your chest was unquestionably a downtick.

His nickname drew him out of his paralysis. Sam swiped his wrist across his eyes, and hovering on the stairs, a soft weeping hiss seeped out of him. “I-I didn’t wanna wake you up,” he said through his teeth.

You rounded the newel and dropped down a step as silently as you could. Sam turned, now level with you on different steps, and softened in surprise. “Hey, what’s—” you started, but shut your mouth the moment you met his open, searing gaze.

“You’re crying,” Sam said at the same time as you, reaching out.

You tongued the corner of your lip, tasting salt there. You really were crying. “Huh,” you said, and maybe you should’ve been a bit more bothered by it than you were. “Don’t worry, m’ okay. I must be picking up your feelings a bit.”

Sam’s expression collapsed with remorse. “God, I didn’t even think—I-I didn’t mean to affect you—”

You took Sam’s hovering arm and drew him into an exhausted embrace, bundling both arms around his neck and taking as much of his weight as you could. The difference in height between your steps gave you a rare opportunity to be just as tall as him, which was new and yet nostalgic. He used to be the perfect height to hug you. But this hug was for him, no matter how much he wanted it to be for you, too. Sam held strong and then immediately sunk, trusting you to catch him. The unconditional faith he put in you never failed to make your tear ducts burn, so no matter what you kept the two of you standing.

Another sob jerked out of him, and Sam dug his face into your shoulder and let it all out. But after two weeks of this, his well of tears had already dried, and all the bottling he’d done hadn’t contributed anything to their stores.

“It’s okay,” you soothed, shakily, “just breathe with me for a minute.”

Sam dug his fingers into the back of your sleep clothes, heavy and feverish with loss. He flinched away when your hand cupped his neck, which was raw and red from all his phantom itching, and you thought about stroking his hair instead. You were always the affectionate one—but you didn’t want to push Sam, not now. Not when it could mean you were filling someone else’s role.

You felt Sam’s hand tap across your back, slowing with realization. He twisted the fabric of your nightgown in one hand, and slow, mounting horror filled your chest as his palm pressed carefully into your belly. Searching for a wound that wasn’t there.

Sam pulled away, voice almost too broken to hear. “...Why are you wearing this?”

It was an oversized, long-sleeve shirt for sleeping in. The fabric was light blue—but in this light, it looked white, and the Nightmare on Elm Street text at the bottom looked like a gaping, crimson wound…

Your hands snapped to Sam’s shoulders, forcing him to look at you. “I’ll change.”

“M’ sorry, m’ sorry,” Sam repeated, “You don’t have to, I just—”

“Shh,” you said, feeling beyond stupid, “You got nothin’ to apologize for. Now, go in my room and get comfy. I’ll be back in a second.”

Sam didn’t look so sure. His legs were braced to run, ready to turn tail and forget he’d bothered you at all, but you were already slinking past him down the stairs. He uttered your name to argue, but you shut him up with a warm squeeze of his hand. “Don’t make me chase you, idiot. Go on. We’ll have a sleepover, just like when we were little.”

The fight in him died, and Sam, probably feeling a little pathetic, dropped his numb shoulders at his sides. He pressed his lips together and trudged into your room. You waited until his shadow interrupted the moonlight, then crept downstairs and hunted around for supplies: meds, water, and snacks.

When you returned, you were a little impressed with yourself for not waking up Dean. He had a sixth sense for these kinds of things, and as much as you loved the guy, you hadn’t had any serious time alone with Sam in two whole years. His brother had sort of been hogging him. Sam must’ve realized this too (or maybe you were projecting), because when you returned, he was sitting on the floor beside your bed—not fighting to go back to sleep under your watch, per the month’s routine.

Sam had also turned on your lamp, warming the void-like corners of your room with buttery light. In the most detached, innocent way you could manage, you thought to yourself that Sam looked beautiful. His face was too heartful and sweet to belong to cold, blue darknesses. You thought about the last time you’d been alone with him, when he’d left for Stanford. Vile, self-loathing bubbled up out of you without your permission. You changed into a comfy flannel in the bathroom and tried not to think about it—you had moved on and Sam had moved on. Simple math.

You closed the heavy door of your bedroom with a click, and with the barrier between you and Dean’s bloodhound ears, you could talk at a normal volume. “Do you think you’ll be able to go back to sleep?”

Sam’s hands stilled in his lap. “No. Probably not.”

“Fine by me,” you shrugged, and glided past him to the record player on your table. Compelled to do something with your hands, you mechanically popped in one of your mother’s oldies records and lowered the volume to comforting background noise. Maybe that would keep Dean from waking up at the sound of your voices.

“Your dick of a brother has been hogging you. It feels like it’s been ages since we’ve sat down and just talked like this.” You plopped down next to him and brought your knees up to your chest, already plowing through the bowl of blackberries. “Pray to whatever god you believe in, Sam, because I’m about to unleash on you two whole years of bottled-up rambling.”

His lip quirked. “Dean doesn’t sit through your scientific conferences?”

“In the beginning,” (and what a strange phrase that was to use; there was a beginning and now an end to Sam’s absence in your life), “he tried, I think. But after two days of me explaining black holes to him, he sorta gave up.”

Sam emptied some headache meds into his hand. “How’d you do it, then?”

“Do what?” You tried to avoid thinking about how wet his eyes still were.

“Survive.” Sam snorted. “I mean, last year was huge for all the stuff you geek out about—all those exoplanet discoveries, the Mars rovers making it past their expiration date—”

You slapped Sam’s knee and practically shrieked, “Or finding proof of water on Mars!” He started smiling, so you hooked an arm around his shoulders and shook him until he was laughing at your excitement too. “Water—you know, the stuff microbial aliens might’ve lived in? Oh my god, don’t even get me started!”

This was around the marker for when Dean would say, trust me, I won’t. Even if you were putting on a bit of a show to goad better feelings out of Sam, you knew by now that you were probably being annoying and backed off.

“By all means,” Sam leaned in, his eyes glittering with interest. “Microbial aliens?”

For that reason, it was really his fault that neither of you fell back to sleep. Microbial aliens turned into wendigo sleeping patterns, and that changed hands into an hour-long discussion of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Sam had tried Twilight, but the vampire lore had annoyed him too much for him to finish reading it. Stanford had kept him pinned to his law books beyond that. This derailed into another hour of complaining—”If I were a vamp I’d be so damn offended!”—about the accuracy of supernatural literature, which passed in the blink of an eye. You did a dramatic reenactment of Rick Grimes riding through zombie-infested Atlanta in volume one of The Walking Dead, including the impressions Dean did when he read it with you. Sam was in stitches.

The rhythm of the conversation felt circadian. You graduated from the rug to curl up on your bed, just an inch away from the edge so you could incline your face toward Sam’s. He hadn’t moved from the floor, but unwound there, wrists on his knees and a constant laugh in his chest. You buried any thoughts of his moles or the pencil-bump on his middle finger under your tongue, which was cottony from the hours of talking. He offered you the last sip from his water. You rolled onto your belly and took it, shamefully wondering if his lips had touched the same place on the glass.

“Dean actually read it with you?” Sam scoffed, brows disappearing into his bangs.

“Zombies. Guns. Apocalypse drama. That is so up Dean’s alley,” you snickered, dropping the glass on your nightstand. “We kinda got each other into comics again last summer—he forces me to reread Batman Year One every few months, for the culture.”

Sam’s face had been a canvas for honest color the last hour, so you noticed too quickly when that changed. This time, he did a pretty solid impression of you innocently detaching yourself.

“You and Dean are closer than I remember.” He commented plainly. Jealousy looked strange on him.

You hummed. “What d’ya mean?”

“You guys… read books together now. Share tapes, cook together… I don’t remember you doing anything like that when we were kids.” Sounding surprised, Sam added, “You’re best friends.”

Hearing that, you couldn’t help yourself. It was impossible not to burst out laughing. Sam’s head swiveled hard to throw you his, c’mon, give me break, brand of bitchface, so you humored him.

“We’ve always been best friends,” you promised. “Must’ve been less obvious then, cause’ you and me have always had more in common than me n’ Dean, but he’s always been my best friend. You both have.”

Sam ran a finger around the rim of the blackberry bowl, staring into the dredges like he could read them. “I guess I’m just thinking of how things were when I was, um, going to leave. I thought you two were,” his eyebrows raised, “...falling out.”

The because of me went unspoken by him, but you got the feeling that Sam didn’t fully grasp the battering ram he’d hit you with by leaving. John became even more ferociously driven. Dean had phases of clinging to him with both hands or going cold on you both, because he wanted his family together but couldn’t believe John had driven Sam away in the first place. It was hard to watch, but even harder to participate in. There was no doubt in your mind that Sam had made the right choice. You believed it enough to endure John booting you out for “putting ideas in Sam’s head,” and made sure to spit in the guy's face before hitchhiking home. There were all sorts of similar screaming matches at the time. Some nearly physical.

Dean had hunted you down himself, despite John’s orders, then paradoxically snarled at you for arguing with his dad at all. It encompassed the hypocritical loyalty he had for his father so perfectly that it only made you more upset. Thing was, you always turned to Sam when you felt that way—so by the time Dean’s energy for yelling hit empty, you were bunched up on the side of the road and sobbing into your hands. A part of you had hated him for not trying harder to support his brother. You’d killed yourself watching Sam walk away, and then a second time defending his choices from John. Dean hadn’t done a damn thing.

One more angry thought and you would’ve never spoken to him again. But you understood Dean, almost as much as you loved him, so you knew that his inaction weighed on him even more than it weighed on you. Given a second try, he would’ve fought tooth and nail for Sam to live the life he wanted.

Sam had every, every right to leave. Still, half of your soul had severed when he escaped. That was one thing you had in common with his brother.

But Sam hadn’t witnessed any of that. All he’d seen was the nuclear argument the week he’d left, and now magically you and Dean were attached at the hip. Two years of silent, methodical work had occurred when his back was turned, which was something you felt he deserved to know about.

Sam’s gaze was open and curious, so you didn’t shy away.

“We almost had a falling out, yeah,” you murmured, picking your nails. “I was pissed at Dean and he was pissed at himself. But if I’m being honest with you—and you can’t even hint that I said this, Sam…your brother was real lonely.”

I know I was too, you wanted to say, but the words tasted like a guilt trip. Sam could guess, anyway.

“He had Dad. And you.” It sounded like something he told himself often.

“That’s what you’d think.” You sighed. “But John went quiet on us pretty quick, so it ended up just being me. Dean, y’know, kept waiting for me to shut him out. And it just never happened. He pushes people away when he gets like that… so it surprised me when he offered to help me rebuild The Chief.”

Sam had been marinating with the knowledge that John had mourned him, hands folded over each other in his lap and seared white by his own grip. It was The Chief that had him whirling to look at you again. He was suddenly on his knees at your bedside, a soup of surprise and old grief mixing achingly on his face. You thought there might’ve been some pride in those charged brown eyes too.

“You’re joking,” Sam breathed, incredulous, “Your dad’s motorcycle? I thought it was destroyed in his accident?”

You resisted the urge to lean away from his proximity, and it was all too easy to stay in. Shrugging one sleepy shoulder, your voice ticked up: “Basically. The remains sat in the garage for years, rotting away into scrap metal. Dean kept reminding me that my Dad had wanted me to inherit it, and eventually we fixed it up together.”

Sam caught your wrist. “Where is it?”

“The garage,” you sat up, grinning despite yourself. “Do you wanna see it?”

Like bandits, you and Sam hurtled into your jackets and planned to escape out into the night. You both knew the house by touch, so you navigated easily through the dark apartment, giggling and hushing each other as you slipped past Dean. You thought you saw him lift his head in the darkness, but it gradually fell back onto his couch pillow. It’d been a long time since you and Sam had been able to slip away together.

The garage was a stout little building across the alley, filled to the brim with the discarded memories of a dozen generations of Proctor. It was cold enough to see your breath in the air ahead of you, so you and Sam bundled close as you skirted quickly across the alley. The walk was maybe twenty steps from the backdoor, but it felt like any other time you and Sam had run off as teens. The unfallen snow waited in the silent air. Frost grew like moss on the pavement. You caught yourself preparing to turn right, which after a short walk would lead you to the nearest 24-hour convenience store. You and Sam rarely had money for yourselves growing up, so sometimes you would pool your resources and share a jumbo slushie, which you traded sips from huddled together on the pavement. It was too cold for that now.

While you fought with the garage’s side-door, Sam dropped his hands into his pockets and stared down the endless length of your street’s back alley. From here, you could make out the shadows of chain-link fences thrown across the tarmac. It was so silent you thought you could hear the tinking of moths against porch lights. You felt his hand brush your back. For no reason at all a stomach’s worth of butterflies roared over you, but you knew he was just reaching for your dagger in case something crawled out of the dark. The house was warded; not the slim strip of street behind it.

“Open sesame,” you murmured when the lock was close to giving. Finally, the ancient door groaned open, gliding inward to reveal a wealth of rich cobweb-y darkness.

A single sconce bathed you both in amber light. You threw a grin at Sam underneath it, and gestured for him to enter the slightly-terrifying, cramped murdershed. “Gentlemen first,” you flourished, smirking.

The sound trailed off—Sam was already looking at you, and intensely. The tips of his nose and ears were rosy from the cold, but his cheeks were especially red, coloring him down into his collar. He glanced away from you and lost a bit of the pigment.

“You’re twelve,” Sam muttered. But he really was a gentleman, since he graciously led the way inside.

The darkness was less intimidating once you were inside it. Your eyes adjusted after a few blinks, then you could make out everything you and Dean had left here last summer. There were huge wooden shelves of random bins and shit, then tall metal tool chests that Dean had put wheels on decades ago. The bike had been finished by spring of Sam’s first year gone, so the last time you’d driven it was the following summer. You hadn’t touched it since. That probably should’ve disappointed you and Dean, but it was less about riding it and more about the cheesy, Hallmark movie time you’d spent putting it back together.

“Here?” Sam said, approaching the heavy tarp you’d thrown over it.

“Here,” you agreed, and hit the button on the wall which retracted the garage door. The motor rumbled it up, slowly exposing the silhouette of the bike to the moonlight. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Sam found a fold in the top, hefted it up and pulled. As expected, The Chief had hosted an entire realm of spiders while you’d been gone. Sam hardly cared. A laugh bubbled out of him, ecstatic and young, and in a daze of nostalgia he ran his hands over the familiar chrome and leather motorcycle. Chief reminded you of the cowboys from Dean’s favorite westerns. She was a steely sonuvabitch, with a tall windshield, a broad, muscled body, and three glaring headlights mounted on the front. The frame was a deep water blue with soft beige accents. Even if she’d been almost entirely rebuilt, you and Dean chose to keep the quirks that made her charming.

“Man,” Sam whistled. “She looks exactly the same!”

The Impala had the toy army man Sam had crammed into the ashtray in the backseat, and Dean’s legos were still rattling in the radiator to this day. Similarly, the Chief still had the B+R heart drawn in sharpie on the saddlebags. You’d torn a line in the passenger’s perch when you were little, and your mom had sewn it shut with pretty blue thread. What was new was the long, jagged scar in the head of the body. You had tried everything to get it out, had even painted over it, but the mark from your Dad’s crash was still there.

“You and Dean did this together?” Sam asked. He acted like you and Dean had never even looked at each other before, and silently you wondered if your argument with Dean two years ago had really been that terrible. It was apparently grave enough to wipe Sam’s memory of any friendship you and Dean had ever had.

“It was his peace offering, I think,” you cleared your throat. “He arranged everything with Ma, then surprised me one day with lunch and offered up the idea. It was… It was really sweet. Dean, he’s… he can be—”

“A closed-off asshole?” Sam offered. You huffed out of your nose and swatted him on the shoulder, but it was hard to even jokingly scold Sam when he was lit up like that. He crouched beside the bike, admiring the work that’d gone into it.

“Yeah. But a bit of a sucker, too. He loves you and he loves me, and it was one of those times where he was desperate enough to show it,” you shrugged. “We spent months in this garage, fixing it up. I learned a lot from him. So… yeah. I guess this is why we’re closer than you remember.”

All the spiders grossed you the hell out, but you kind of wanted to be a big girl for Sam, so you grabbed one of Dean’s old rags off the shelf and wiped down the seat and handlebars. Sam stepped back to watch you work; there was a similar admiration in his eyes then, too.

“I love it,” he gushed, “You guys did a great job. I know it must’ve been hard for you, after your Dad.”

Sam was full of sincerity, as usual, but the fact that he talked about it at all was refreshing. It’d been more than ten years since your dad had died, but Dean still kept his mouth shut and your Mom always changed the subject. You knew that they were mourning too—he’d been a partner and teacher, as well as your father. But you’d been ready to talk about him again for a long time. Not his death, but his life, which was understandably harder. Dean and your Mom just weren’t the type to roll that way, but Sam had studied how grief festered with age. He’d let you talk.

“It made me feel closer to him, to be honest with you. I don’t know if you remember, but we used to joke that he had two great loves in his life: my mom, and the Chief,” you snickered.

“I’m sure Beth enjoyed that,” Sam replied, dryly. He hovered at your shoulder while you cleaned up the bike, close enough to put you in the bubble of his warmth.

“Oh, she pouted, but deep down I know she loved it just as much as him.” It only took a little to make the bike gleam again, so once again your hands were left with nothing to do. You tossed the rag back on a shelf, hyper-aware of Sam and the two helmets hooked on the wall. “They took the Chief on their first date. She used to say that she fell in love with my dad on this bike.”

Sam leaned against the saddlebags with crossed arms, rolling a question around in his mind. The night was so soundless that you could hear a pin drop a block down. But it was a peaceful silence, with room in the air for thought, so you looked at Sam and tried not to explode with joy. It’d been weeks now, and you were still blown away that he was here in person. That you had him all to yourself again. Standing across from you, Sam seemed to glow with the same soft relish.

Unlike Sam and Dean, you’d had the fortune of growing up in a place with roots. You had a childhood home and a hometown. When you went to school, you went there until you graduated, and people knew you and you knew them. You had friends. Girls that you’d known since kindergarten, boys who’d been coming to your birthday parties since you were in diapers. But your lunch table-mates, your lab partners, and study buddies—not even one of them could even imagine what your real life was like. What you were really like. The only people who’d ever actually understood you had all been passengers on The Chief: your parents, Dean, and Sam.

“You should take it with when we leave tomorrow,” Sam suggested, smiling down at his warped reflection in the handlebars. “It’d be real handy to have two vehicles, I think, and you can get some use out of all the work you put into it.”

You probably should. It was a good, reasonable idea, but the picture of yourself alone on your bike, chasing the Impala’s exhaust… “I prefer the Impala’s backseat. S’ more roomy,” you smiled at your shoes. “Maybe I’ll take her tomorrow. But I don’t think I could ever handle riding it by myself for long.”

“Well,” Sam hummed. He pushed himself off The Chief, and you took that as a sign to leave. Stupid, childish disappointment welled in your chest, but it was your fault for hoping for something that wouldn’t happen. Sam was tired. He didn’t have time for teenage rebellion, not now.

Sam reached over your head. You thought he was going to collapse the garage door, but instead he unhooked a driving helmet from the wall. He offered it to you, a rebellious smile dimpling his cheek.

“I’m here, and I’m with you. Shall we?”

You double-taked. Wild, fervid excitement reignited in your limbs. You took the helmet, observing him carefully. “It’s past midnight. You haven’t slept in days. Are you sure?”

Sam got a helmet off the wall for himself, but thunked it onto the driver’s seat of the bike. Then he was suddenly in your space, dropping your heart into your boots and thudding it up into your throat in one simple step, rendering you still just by coming closer. It was different when Sam was the one initiating contact. The ball wasn’t exactly in your court this time, and there was no way he didn’t see it in your face because that’s all he was looking at. The helmet was taken from your hands, then set carefully onto your hair and over your face. You could feel his hands cupping either side of your head. Sam flicked up the visor so he could see you more, and pitifully your knees turned to jelly.

“Of course I’m sure. I trust you,” he promised, squeezing your shoulders. “Now, c’mon. I haven’t ridden this thing in years! We don’t have to drive long, I swear.”

Sam tugged on his own helmet and you sighed until your chest felt tight. It wasn’t obvious that he’d been crying just a few hours before, but you could still feel it in him. The difference between now and then comforted you. He was happy; he still could be happy, once this was all over.

When he didn’t get an immediate answer, Sam slyly commented: “You know, you called me your favorite earlier today. Seeing as I’m your favorite, I think that means you should drive me—”

“Alright, alright!” You laughed. “Get on the damn bike, Winchester. Just a few minutes, then we’re coming right back. You are such a snot.”

“Your favorite snot,” Sam reminded, and didn’t waste any time hopping onto the pillion.

Your mother and father had fallen in love on this bike. You’d put it back together with Dean, who was your best friend as much as he was your brother. But Sam—he’d always lived in his own realm, where he was both within your family and outside it. He was special.

This truth dug a little deeper into you than it usually did as you mounted the driver’s seat. Sam’s gangly legs were all in your way, his knees pressing into your thighs and his chest into your back. Even with the pillion being slightly elevated behind you, Sam made that distance feel small, snuggling closer without order and getting comfortable. The seats were freezing cold and so were the handles, but Sam was a furnace that melted any discomfort down the drain. You started the bike, and it rumbled to life like it’d been patiently waiting for the day you would come back. The motor’s throaty growl hit you like a punch to the teeth. It sounded exactly as it always had, when your dad was finally home after a long, faraway hunting trip.

You thought about your dad, and how he would race to get off his bike in time to catch your leaping hug; you thought about Sam making a point to talk about Ray when no one else would, and the little squeeze he gave you when The Chief pulled out of the garage. Sam shut the garage door behind you and together you peeled out into the cool, serene night.

You knew exactly why Sam didn’t fit a Dean mold or even a friend mold in your life. You knew why he felt special to you. But it would be murder to do that to Sam now, and you’d had enough of killing lately.

tags: @cookiemumster1 @seraphimluxe @leigh70 @emily-roberts @lacilou @cevans-winchester

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NEXT PART: dead in the water, p.2

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