ohsam | Fic: January 25th, PG-13, Sam/Jess, Sam, Dean

Title: January 25th
Author: Pkwench
Rating: PG-13 for Language.
Genre and/or Pairing: het, Sam/Jess, pre-series, slightly AU
Spoilers: Pilot
Word Count: 3,030 or so
Disclaimer: I own zilch.
Summary: I’m emo. Thus, Sam gets to be emo with me. He’s good for it. Anyway, it’s a few hours into the day after Dean’s birthday. Sam has woe.
Author’s Note: I should not be allowed near a keyboard on these kinds of days. Also, I really don’t visualize Sam as ever, ever, ever being a smoker. It’s just so not him. But, if it very randomly happened sometime when he wasn’t possessed, it might go like so. Oh, yeah. Sam and bad dreams. As I recall The Bad Dreams of Actual Doom started closer to Jessica’s death. You can pretend that they started earlier or that the dream mentioned here is just a warm up for the big event months later. Your choice.
Author’s Note II: I just puked this out really fast and have not had it proofed. Read at your own risk.
-

January 25th

She’s wasted and beautiful next to him. Completely fucked out and smiling a little in her sleep. Jess is wonderful, sweet, and Sam knows he shouldn’t look at her and feel so lonely. But, he does.

He sits up slowly, wincing when the bed creaks. Jess reaches for him and curls herself around his arm. Sam’s not sure if she’s awake, not even when she cracks an eye at him.

“Go back to sleep, birthday girl,” he tells her.

“Still my birthday?” she asks.

Sam looks at the clock. It’s 3:15 and the time makes him flinch. It’s a time for waiting. A time for salt and holy water. He doesn’t tell her this. He instead brushes a long blond curl from her face and shakes his head.

“I guess not. You’re just another day older and twice as pretty.”

“Screw that,” Jess mumbles. “I’m never getting old.”

Something about that statement makes him uneasy, makes him think back to the dream that had seen him coming up and gasping for air just about twenty-four hours ago. For a moment the need to sink back down in bed with her wars with his mounting restlessness. She’s everything he ever wanted – gorgeous, charming, funny, and utterly, completely normal. Innocent.

It’s her innocence that drives him to moving away from her, to pressing his lips lightly to her forehead and then easing out of bed as she groans a little. Jess reaches for him, finds his pillow, and hugs it instead. She’s deep asleep again in seconds and still smiling.

Sam looks down at her, feels his heart cracking in a thousand ways he really can’t comprehend, and heads to the bathroom. He picks up his jeans along the way and slips them on. He finds his shirt where he’d left it in the bathroom, where he’d let Jess undress him before pulling him into the shower.

The apartment is wrecked. Jess’s birthday party had been something of an epic event – one that Sam had ruthlessly coordinated because it had made her happy and had kept him too busy to spend much time contemplating the fact that it was also Dean’s birthday.

Now, though. Now, he’s picking his way over beer bottles that he’ll bitch about having to clean up later. He’s soundless and, after shoving bare feet into sneakers, he creeps out of the apartment with the stealth of someone who never belonged there.

Out in the street he can breathe and he does so as he walks down the block. Five or six giant breaths to match his pavement eating stride and if he starts jogging a little in a few minutes, he tells himself that it’s just because he’s so fucking edgy. So out of place.

He catches an eyeful of the cop car dutifully cruising down the block and automatically ghosts over to the shadows as if he’s living the kind of life that would require hiding from the police.

Four blocks later, he’s walking down a line of cars, idly testing door handles and wondering if maybe he’s not the sort of guy that really should be stopped by police. What are you doing out here so late, son? Oh, not much. Just stealing a car because yesterday was my brother’s birthday and I feel like an imposter, you know?

Sam sighs, calls himself an emo little turd because Dean isn’t around to do it for him, and opens the door of the mammoth old Pontiac that gives way to him. It’s roughly the size and color of a tank and, after he’s wired it, it comes to life with a throaty rumble that sounds like home to him.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing or why, but Sam sits up, throws the car in gear and pulls out. He has nowhere to go, but he goes anyway, driving until he’s far from the little area around campus that’s been claimed by a couple hundred college kids.

It’s amazing how easy it is to slip back into himself. When he stops at the all night liquor store, the kind that comes with iron bars, a fake camera, and a baseball bat, no one gives him that ‘whatcha doin’, college boy’ crap. He wonders what they see when he flips down his bills and walks away with his bag. He wonders what kind of man they imagine him to be. Sam would like to know because he’s not sure himself.

He’s back in the car, wiring it again with the ease, and grimacing when the radio comes back on. Sam flips the dial, irritably pushing it away from the suddenly wretched, mewling croon of a band that he knows he has on his iPod in a couple of places. He’s not in the mood for the bouncy, emo alt crap and is just about ready to kill the radio when he happens on a classic rock station.

Sam settles down with the liquid strains of David Gilmour’s guitar. He hated Pink Floyd as a kid. Hated the unending length of time it took to listen to a tape in the car and the fact that Dad and Dean had so quietly and ruthlessly dug the hell out of the music as if it had somehow managed to convey the scope of just how fucked up their lives were. It’s soothing to him now and, if it sharpens the ache in his chest, he supposes that’s probably what he has coming to him.

He drives the old car far and away from everything decent and well lit until he’s not exactly sure where he is. He pulls off the road and drives into the dust when the landscape turns rugged. The trees this far out are ragged and thin, damned near desiccated. Between them, he can see the far away glimmer of the lights he’s left behind.

Sam figures he’s driven to precisely Nowhere, California and it suits him just fine. He puts the car in park, but leaves it running so that the radio can stay on. If he’s right, the station will be on the sort of all nighter where the music will play on, uninterrupted.

He gets out, taking his bag with him and not bothering to shut the door, though he’s flicked off the headlights on the off chance that someone might see him from the road. A stolen car and a bottle of booze probably won’t do a whole lot for his scholarship or law career. He’s feeling restless, but not entirely reckless.

Sam leans against the obscenely long front quarter panel of the car and pulls out his purchases. The whiskey glows warm and amber in the half-light. He uncaps it, takes the sort of pull off of it that experienced drinkers know how to do. It burns its hello all the way down his throat.

He contemplates the rest of the bag for a moment and wonders just what kind of wrecked bastard he really is. He thinks about chucking it off into the weeds, about driving to the apartment, and going back to bed where wants so desperately to belong. But, it’s Dean’s fucking birthday, give or take a few hours, and Sam just really doesn’t know what to do with himself or with the mounting sense of something looming on the horizon.

All he knows is what he knew when he woke up this morning: it’s Dean’s birthday and he misses him. He doesn’t miss the fighting, the kowtowing to Dad, and continual jump from one fucked up supernatural battle to another, but, Christ, he misses the hell out of Dean. When Sam thinks about home, he thinks of Dean. Dean stealing his clean socks. Dean tucking into a cholesterol nightmare of a breakfast like the world will end and it might be the last plate of biscuits, gravy, and eggs he’d ever eat. He misses his constant steam of inanity and unending licentiousness. He misses the way that Dean can stare down other people’s nightmares with an irreverent grin and still tuck Sam close against him if he thinks he’s just the slightest bit hurt or scared.

He misses the sound of him coming into some shitty motel room at four in the morning, reeking of smoke and booze, and shoving him over because he doesn’t think he should sleep closest to the door.

Sam tears into the contents of the bag, ripping open the box inside, and calls himself the most morose jerk-off on the planet as he pulls out the same sort of cigarette Dean smokes. He lights it.

He’s smoked five times in his life. All of them just to spite Dean for being such a controlling jerk and earning himself the mother of all beat downs each time. This is the sixth cigarette of his life and it tastes just as shitty as the other five when he pulls the smoke into his mouth. Sam draws it deep into his lungs. Whiskey, he thinks, doesn’t have a clue about what burning is all about. This shit hurts and he’s coughing just the same as he’d done the other five times. Tears are streaming from his eyes and, yep, he’s sure that he’s just about the dumbest guy on the planet.

His head starts swimming as if it’s been chucked into the sea and Sam’s seeing spots. The tingle Dean claims to have a deep and abiding love for sets his own extremities to trembling as it works its way down to his long fingers.

Sam watches them shake as he pulls the cigarette up to his mouth and takes another, more cautious drag. His stomach bottoms out in preparation for puking. He swallows, the nausea abates, and he leans against the car for a minute, taking girlish little puffs off of the foul thing.

He chases it down with occasional gulps of whiskey. When his fingers stop trembling, when he’s sure that he can actually do it, Sam settles the bottle on the car and reaches into his pocket for his cell phone with his free hand. He finds Dean’s number and hits dial even as he takes another tremulous pull off of the cigarette. He doesn’t know if the number is current. He doesn’t even know what he’ll say if Dean picks up.

The phone rings and rings. Sam’s just about ready to hang up, unwilling to leave a halting, awkward message on Dean’s voicemail. Then the ringing stops and there’s a rustle.

“Sam.”

Shit.

He finds himself standing up straight by instinct and for one second he’s about ready to toss the cigarette guiltily off into the weeds. He isn’t sure what he’d planned on saying to Dean, but this catches him utterly off guard and Sam just stands there, the phone pressed to his ear while the smoke wafts back into his eyes, making them sting.

“You all right?”

Sam sighs. “Yeah, Dad,” he says finally. It catches up to him then that he hasn’t called his father’s phone by mistake. True enough, the number is in the phone, he’d never taken it out, despite the way that he’d left things. He knows he’s dialed Dean’s number and that his father is answering his brother’s phone.

“Dean … he’s okay?”

“More or less,” Dad says back. Sam relaxes at his tone. There’s no worry, just solid John Winchester annoyance. “Currently puking up his guts in the can like it’s an Olympic sport. Drank too much. It’s his birthday,” Dad says, like Sam didn’t know.

“It’s why I called …”

“It was his birthday yesterday,” Dad corrects.

Sam shifts, feeling instantly angry and ashamed. Of course it was his birthday. Just like it had been Christmas last month, Thanksgiving the month before, and his own birthday half a year before that. There’s another anniversary in there, one not talked about in the Winchester clan. He supposes it’s the only one that ever matters. The one that’s driven them all to this fucked up place.

“I know it’s his birthday,” Sam says back, doing his level best not to take the bait and bite back. “I should have called earlier, but I was busy. I … fuck. That sounds lame.”

“Yeah, Sam, it does. Classes going all right?” He asks it like he hasn’t just called him on his shit, like they haven’t gone so long without a word.

“Classes are fine, Dad. Straight As.”

“Better be. Listen, Dean’s wasted out of his mind, Sam. I don’t know if …”

Sam knows he’s about ready to tell him to call back tomorrow. To give it another whirl when Dean’s more or less coherent and Sam’s not standing against a stolen car, feeling so lonely and fucking needy for his brother.

“Please,” Sam says. “If he’s awake, let me talk to him. Just for a minute.”

His Dad grumbles, but Sam hears the springs of a bed and a slight groan as he gets up. There’s no polite knock or preamble. Just the sound of a door opening and the rustle of the phone being passed off. He hears his Dad in the background.

“Phone’s for you, Dean. It’s Sam.”

The groan this time is longer, more anguished. Sam smiles and shakes his head, resisting the urge to start the conversation by telling his brother that he’s a fucking idiot. He tries to take another drag off of the cigarette and grimaces in distaste when he realizes that it’s gone out. Sucking air through the spent butt tastes worse than getting a mouthful fetid graveyard dirt. Sam flicks it far into the weeds and, like a champion idiot, pulls out another. He manages to get it lit before Dean stops groaning.

“Saaaaaaammy. I kept my phone on for you,” Dean finally says. He sounds so wrecked that Sam wonders if his liver is ready to file for divorce just yet.

“Happy birthday, you wasted freak,” Sam says.

“Heeee. I knew you’d call.” The joy in Dean’s voice reaches Sam physically and twists in his chest with violent ease. “Dad said you prolly forgot, but I knew you’d remember even if I kinda didn’t call you. Chris'mas, birthdays, I suck.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, doing a fairly good job of not just going down on his knees and sobbing like a little girl, “we’re not exactly the Hallmark kind of family. I figured you probably raised glass to me on my birthday.”

“How’d you know?” Dean asks. “Smart, smart, smart Sammy. Smartest kid in ev’ry stupid school we put you in. Man … Man, Sammy …”

“I know. I miss you too.”

“Such a chick!” Dean exclaims. “I was going to say, ‘Man, Sammy, I’m so waaaasted.’

Sam laughs at him and takes a couple of endurance drags on the cigarette to keep himself grounded, to keep himself from asking where the hell Dean’s at right now, because, damn, it’d be so easy to just get in the car and drive. No matter where they were, day, day and a half and Sam could get there. He knows that he could. He knows that Jess would wake up without him, would cry to him on the phone when he said he wasn’t coming back. He knows she’d pester him. He knows she’d say that she loved him. He knows that he could get in the car and leave her right now, no matter how much he loves her back, because, God dammit, he just wants to go home. He wants to go home so badly that he doesn’t know how he’s gone through every day in this new, safe and strange life without anyone shoring him up like Dean has always done.

“Sammy.”

“Yeah, Dean?”

“Lied. Was gonna say... just not the same, you know?”

“Yeah, Dean. Believe me, I know.”

“I need … oh, fuck.”

There’s a racket. The sound that Sam figures to be the phone dropping down on cheap bathroom tile. He can hear the hollow bellow of Dean vomiting like he’s trying his damndest to dislodge his spleen. He isn’t surprised when there’s another rustle over the background sound of Dean puking.

“I think that’s all he’s got, Sam,” Dad says into the phone.

“Where were you when he got that drunk?” Sam snaps.

There’s a sigh, an angry one. “Same place I always am, Sam. Where were you? You want to keep Dean from drinking himself stupid on his birthday, then just show up for one. It’s all you ever had to do.”

Sam swallows hard because, even though his phone hadn’t exactly lit up last May, there’s more than a little truth to what his Dad says. “Just take care of him, okay?”

There’s a pause. A long, drawn out one like his father is struggling with as many things that he wants to say as Sam is. In the end, he does the same thing Sam does, he pretends like he hasn’t got anything to say at all. “Call him tomorrow, Sammy. There’s not a shot in hell that Dean’s going to remember you calling.”

“I … Dad, look …”

“Keep those grades up, Son.” Dad almost says it like he means it, like he isn't still righteously pissed at him for running off to college.

The calls ends and, just like that, Sam’s alone. The weight of it kicks him in the gut and Sam bends at the knees, cigarette clutched tightly between two fingers as he drops into a squat next to the rumbling, idling car. He presses the heel of his palm into his left eye and swears, swears that he’s not about to sit in the middle of nowhere and lose it.

His lips are trembling when he takes another drag off of the cigarette. The taste of it is finally offensive enough to him that he drops it. He watches it burn away in the dirt until he can stand.

Sam stamps out the ember with his foot. When he gets back into the car a few minutes later, he realizes that he has no clue where his family is, where his home is. There are no stars to guide him, no map that will take him back home.

He tries not to feel like a coward when he hits the highway and starts speeding back to Jess.

End