Supernatural Fan Fiction ❯ Zhai'helleva, Ashke ❯ Broken Threads ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4

 

Find me here.

Speak to me.

I want to feel you.

I need to hear you.

You are the light

That's leading me

To the place where I find peace again.

 

Dean wouldn't leave, of course. He was clearly keen on finding out what was going on. But he didn't try to follow when Sam went rocketing out of the alley, and for now that would have to be enough.

 

Sam went to every one of his and Jess's haunts. Jess wasn't back in the bar. She wasn't at her dorm. She wasn't at the library, or their coffee house, or with any of her friends. She was just…gone.

 

Sam finally conceded defeat and trudged back to the bar two miles away, his head low the entire time, every inch of his posture screaming of his worry. Where could she be? What if she was hurt, or scared? She didn't have a car—how would she get home? What must she be thinking? Would she be trying to rationalize—telling herself that she'd been seeing things, that it was impossible?

 

Was she thinking of dumping him? Of leaving?

 

That thought made him cold all over, and it was almost with relief that he heard Dean's voice, almost with comfort that he welcomed the sudden surge of anger.

 

“Dude. You got some `splaining to do.”

 

You are the strength that keeps me walking.

You are the hope that keeps me trusting.

You are the light to my soul.

You are my purpose.

You're everything.

 

The words weren't spiteful or offensive in the least, but they nevertheless sapped whatever had remained of Sam's patience, and Dean had barely gotten them out before he was pinned against the wall, Sam's hands fisted in his jacket.

 

“Now would be a really good time for you to shut up, Dean.”

 

Dean couldn't entirely hide his grimace of pain, nor his surprise. “Wow, Sammy picked up some anger management issues.”

 

Sam hissed inarticulately, pulling Dean forward a bit just so he could shove him to the wall again. “Do you have any idea what just happened?” he asked, his voice controlled but just a notch louder than usual.

 

“Uh…” Dean replied intelligently, looking completely nonplussed. “No…but if you let go of me we can get a drink, and then you could do something really out of character and actually…oh, I dunno…tell me.”

 

Sam glared for a long moment, then slowly unclenched his fingers from the leather folds of Dean's jacket and dropped his hands. “Fine. Come on.”

 

“Oh, you're just gonna sweep me off my feet with that attitude,” Dean said wryly.

 

And just like that, for the first time in twelve months, the Winchester brothers had a conversation.

 

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?

Would you tell me, how could it be any better than this?

 

“I can't believe you went and got yourself a girl,” Dean said numbly, swallowing what remained of his bottle of beer. “And you've been with her for a year?”

 

“Longer than that,” Sam said wearily. “Back in junior year, too.”

 

Dean stared at him before reaching over, picking up his half-full bottle, and took a drink. Sam didn't protest and waved a hand dismissively when Dean went to give it back, and for a while neither said anything.

 

“What are you gonna tell her?”

 

Sam looked up quickly, but Dean's face was impassive, his tone all business. Like all he cared about was keeping a lid on a potentially explosive situation.

 

It was a complete façade, and they both knew it.

 

“I haven't decided yet.”

 

Dean nodded slowly, taking another drink.

 

“The truth, maybe.”

 

Dean looked up and he went on quickly.

 

“I don't know if I will, but I might.”

 

I might.

 

The words hung in the air between them, promising any of a hundred possible outcomes.

 

“But…if I do decide to do it…it's my decision, Dean,” Sam continued earnestly, truthfully. “I might be wrong to do it, I might cause nothing but trouble with it, but it's still my decision.”

 

Dean, staring down into his—Sam's—bottle, gave no indication that he'd even heard, and Sam desisted. The silence spiraled, and Sam was on the verge of just leaving when Dean spoke, quietly.

 

“Are you happy?”

 

Sam didn't hesitate, didn't think about it.

 

“Yeah.” He smiled a little, distantly, not looking at his brother, or the bar, or anything at all—seeing instead a pale, smiling face framed by blond hair. A plain image of a plain girl, but images can be more deceiving than we ever realize. “Yeah. I think so.”

 

Dean nodded, slowly, but kept his eyes averted. A second later, he finished off his beer and stood up. For a moment, Sam thought he was going to walk out of his life again without so much as a goodbye, but then Dean stopped and threw a wonderful, beautiful bone.

 

“You should tell her. Everything.”

 

Everything. There were so many implications in that one word, and suddenly Sam saw clearly how strained and broken the thread between himself and his family had become.

 

Dean was walking away again now, but he stopped when Sam said his name.

 

“Dean.”

 

He didn't turn around, but he was listening.

 

“Don't come back here anymore.”

 

Dean's entire frame froze around the edges, and he was utterly still. Then, abruptly, he nodded, a peculiar jerking motion, and he left.

 

It was only as the door was closing behind him that Sam realized:

 

Dean had never once looked him directly in the eye.

 

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.

You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.

You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.

Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

 

BY the time Sam made it across the Stanford campus and up to his floor in the dorm building, he hadn't decided on a course of action. Coming up with one just…frightened him, and there was no getting around that.

 

Sam stopped at his and Derek's room, pushed open the door, and found his girlfriend sitting on his bed.

 

“So did Derek leave after you, then?” Jess asked. “`Cause you know he never locks up.”

 

She didn't look scared or panicked, but there was an admittedly adorable squeak in her voice that meant she was still shaken.

 

“Jess…”

 

“Where's that guy?” Jess went on, seemingly oblivious to his quiet voicing of her name. “You did know him, didn't you? I mean, you're not in the habit of slaughtering big gray misshapen things with people you've never met, right?”

 

“I knew him,” Sam confirmed. “He's my brother.” Moving carefully, like he was around a scared rabbit or deer, he crossed that room and sat down next to her. She shifted, and for a sickening moment he thought she was trying to get away from him, but she only turned to face him, her head tilted adorably, studying.

 

“You've been hiding things from us.”

 

Her words held no judgment, but Sam had never felt worse in his life.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You've been hiding things from me.”

Nope. Here was another, lower level.

 

“…Yeah.”

 

He'd been focusing on his hands, letting his hair hide his face, but now Jess let out a very soft chuckle, hardly more than an exhale, and put a finger under his chin, lifting his head.

 

“No fair, Sam. You know that pose is a completely low blow.”

 

Sam muttered a smile for her. “Yeah. I know. I'm sorry.”

 

“It's okay.”

 

He looked at her, and repeated it with more force.

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

She gave him a long look, then said, “But why? Why was it a secret? What could be so bad that you had to hide it from me? We promised, Sam. No secrets.”

 

They had—not long after they'd gotten back together—and Sam had been faithful to that promise.

 

Mostly.

 

Sam sighed heavily. “Look. I can't explain why I didn't tell you, except that I really did think it was for the best. You'll hate hearing this, but…I was trying to protect you.”

 

“I know,” Jess replied calmly. “I figured that out on my own. But I'd rather you didn't.”

 

Sam stared hard into her eyes, sagging inwardly at what he found there: kindness, understanding, and steel determination.

 

He sighed, and in that one moment he decided.

 

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?

Would you tell me, how could it be any better than this?

And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?

Would you tell me, how could it be any better than this?

 

“What you saw my brother shoot was a werewolf.”

 

It was sharp, blunt, maybe even a little cruel, that little one-sentence explanation. But Jess said she didn't want any secrets, and he wasn't going to give her any. He gave her the bare fact, and then the whole thing began to spill out.

 

He talked Jess through his mom's death, his dad's depression after, being raised mostly by Dean, learning to hunt and maim and kill, and the whole time he dug up these painful memories was when had his life story gotten so long?

 

But Jess didn't interrupt, or shift, or give any indication of boredom at all, so maybe it didn't seem quite so long to her. Then again, he couldn't be sure of her thoughts, either, because her face remained blank, studious in the way it was when she was studying her Psych notes the night before a test.

 

So there was no telling exactly what she thought of all this, and when he finished all he could do was sit back and wait for judgment to fall.

 

`Cause you're all I want, you're all I need.

You're everything, everything.

You're all I want, you're all I need.

You're everything, everything.

You're all I want, you're all I need.

You're everything, everything.

You're all I want, you're all I need, you're everything, everything.

 

“Wow…” Jess breathed. “That's…a little scary.”

 

Sam sighed. “Yeah. Tell me about it. You don't think my life scares me sometimes?”

 

“True dat,” Jess deadpanned. “So it's…dangerous? What you do?”

 

“What I used to do,” Sam corrected. “What you saw in the alley was a one-time deal. I left my family for a reason. I quit that life, Jess.”

 

“Yeah, I know you quit that life, Sam. What I'm not sure of is whether that life quit you.”

 

Sam stared at her, at a complete loss for words, because he'd honestly never even considered that road. “…Oh.”

 

“I mean, from what you told me, these…creatures…well, they don't stop. How can you be so sure they—especially that one…demon—won't keep coming after you, just because of how dangerous you could be?”

 

The “could be” was a small gift, and Sam accepted it and all that it implied.

 

“I can't,” he replied honestly. “I can't be sure of anything. But…I can take care of myself. And I can protect you. I was trained to protect you.”

 

At that, Jess smiled. “Oh, don't go all David Eddings on me.”

 

At that, Jess smiled. “Nah, it's not like that. I'm not saying I was born for it, or that it's my destiny, or any of that sci-fi fantasy stuff. I'm just saying that…I can. Protect us. And I will, Jessica. I will. Always.”

 

The words were out before he remembered that she didn't want to be protected, but she didn't call him on it. She simply took his hand, threading her fingers through his, and smiled.

 

“Okay.”

 

And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?

Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?

Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?