[Big Bang 2010] Book One, Part One

[annabethbigbang]

-Prologue-

The day Jess told Sam she was pregnant was the same day he was accepted into Stanford with a full ride to law school. She didn't know that yet, of course, because she'd texted him with just the words great news! and Sam, who had been hoping against hope when she missed her first period, had known instantly—like lightning to the gut—that his dreams were all coming true at once. His life couldn't have looked brighter.

There was no way for him to know that, in less than six years, his future would look so dark it would be as if a thundercloud obscured it completely, leaving only bleakness and grief in its wake.

:::

Four and a half years earlier

Sam's sitting on the closed lid of the toilet seat in just one more of the anonymous motels that have populated his life for as long as he can remember. There have been apartments, sometimes, and even the occasional month or two spent squatting in abandoned houses—Sam remembers a particularly vivid experience with one of those, when they chose to hole up in the haunted house they were investigating—but Sam actually does like the motels best, because even though they're usually run-down and dirty, at least they don't give him the illusion of 'home' any more—when he was a child, he'd thought that every apartment would be the last one, this time they'd settle down and stay in one place, but John always had other plans.

Sam winces and shifts, which results in Dean tightening the grip of his fingers on Sam's bare thigh. Their last hunt—the one they've just returned from—went sour hours ago, leaving Sam in the mud bleeding profusely from a deep gash in his thigh while Dean—forced to leave him there because Sam has always been stubborn, and because he usually gives in to Sam eventually—went to look for John, who had given them a gesture to circle round, and then disappeared.

Dean came back without John, and hauled Sam to his feet, both of them hobbling back to the Impala as Sam's leg refused to hold his weight. Sam had asked, where's Dad? and Dean had shaken his head. He hadn't replied.

Dean shoved Sam into the backseat of the Impala and wrapped above the wound to create a tourniquet, clearly wishing it weren't so dark and so dangerous to stay there, because Sam had known Dean wanted to stitch up the wound then and there, but Sam had refused, anyway. Go find Dad.

They both knew they couldn't leave John in the woods with a predator, no matter how good a hunter he was; Sam and Dean were along on this hunt simply because it was too dangerous for one hunter on his lonesome, even one as excellent as John. He hadn't wanted to bring Sam, of course—you never follow my orders!—and Sam hadn't wanted to go—You know how much I hate hunting, anyway!—but Dean had, as usual, pointed out, with firm and quiet logic, that three of them were much better odds.

Eventually John stumbled back to the Impala, muttering and holding his arm, which was bleeding, and in a sudden flash of moonlight as the clouds parted for a moment, they could see the bruises scattered liberally across his face, but he just hoisted himself into his truck, which left Dean to rub one thumb over Sam's jeans—cut open to expose the injury—and it brushed for just a second over his bare skin, the fleeting reassurance that Dean would never let anything happen to him, and then they drove back to the motel, following John's taillights in the dark.

Sam was officially too big for Dean to carry, at eighteen years old and six foot three inches. John had proven that even in his anger and disappointment, he still cared about Sam, helping Dean get him into the room.

Which is where he is now, sweat clammy on his skin as he tries to sit still, a bottle of whiskey in one hand—fingers growing slack from too much drink—and Dean on the edge of the tub, forehead furrowed and eyes narrowed in concentration as he pierces Sam's skin over and over with the needle, tiny, impossibly neat stitches to close the wound.

Sam leans his head back and sweats, droplets of it streaking into his eyes, every so often swilling from the bottle to try and deaden the pain. Dean had tried to numb the area with ice before he started, but the injury is long and the edges jagged, which means that long ago the pain seeped back in and flared to almost unbearable levels, but he keeps his eyes closed now, breathing sharp and laboured, and tries not to let on how much it hurts, because Dean will feel guilty.

Sam wants to look down at the damage, high up on his inner thigh, sure it's going to scar—he lost his first girlfriend at sixteen when he took his shirt off once, and she saw the healing scars on his back from a recent hunt. Those have faded into almost complete obscurity now, but it was enough at the time to scare her away.

Sam wonders if any girl will ever want him, covered with the memories of past hunts, the physical evidence of his hard life etched directly into his skin.

Sam's cock is covered only by a towel so that Dean has enough room to work, and Dean's hand is hot on his thigh, scorching his skin and Sam sits there, perspiration running down over his chest and body, and even though he's in pain and Dean—his brother—is only inches away, the contact of another person's hand besides his own that close is enough to spin arousal out through his body, to harden his cock just a little. He catches his lower lip in his teeth and pictures the last time he saw his father naked, which pretty effectively kills the physical reaction, and then Dean pats his other thigh, huffs out a breath.

Sam opens his eyes and Dean's looking up at him from between his thighs, his lashes long and shadowy on his cheeks, his lips chewed-on from the intense concentration of the last half-hour or so.

"All done," Dean says, and his voice is rough from shouting earlier. "I don't think it will scar too badly."

Dean grabs another towel and mops some of the sweat from the hollow of Sam's throat. He finishes up and holds the towel out to Sam.

"Can't shower yet," he says, as he gets ready to put the dressing on. "Have to settle for wiping yourself down, little brother," and Sam nods, can't quite speak through a liquor-thickened throat, and finishes the last of the bottle. He knows, objectively, that they couldn't have taken him to a hospital, but he does, at times, wish they could—wishes he didn't have to rely on Dean.

Not because he doesn't trust Dean or because Dean doesn't do a good job—he's the best of the three of them at stitching someone up—but because sometimes he doesn't want Dean to have to; it's unfair that his older brother never seems to be able to put himself first in anything.

Sam sighs and attempts to scrub away the sweat that is a thin sheet over his skin.

"Thanks," he says, forcing the words out. Dean nods, and grabs Sam as he starts to tip sideways, the consequence of too much whiskey and too much pain, and Dean winds up being the one to nudge his legs into his sweatpants, to help him to his feet and Sam barely manages to grab the waistband Dean holds out to him and yank it up over his slender hips. Dean helps him into bed and bundles him up under the covers, giving him some painkillers to swallow, and then Dean's gone, presumably to sleep on the cot beside the bed; John's in the room next to theirs.

He falls asleep thinking about the gorgeous Stanford campus, and how it's only a matter of weeks before he can escape this life, get away from the injuries and the pain and the darkness.

Stanford is a beacon of his new life, shining brightly into a life that has always been fraught with darkness without the benefit of night-lights.

September 2001

Jessica Moore was in one of Sam's core requirement classes when they first met. It was a math course that Sam no longer remembers what was taught, but he does remember staring at the back of her head—gorgeous blonde curls tumbling down her back—and being horribly irritated by her at first because she understood all of the concepts before anyone else and seemed, at the time, to love showing off how much she knew.

It wasn't until later that Sam would wind up bumping into her on his walk back to his dorm, only to discover that she had a certain shyness about her that contrasted sharply with the self-confidence that rolled off of her in waves. She'd smiled and held out her hand and said,

"I'm Jess." She'd paused while he stood there, so enraptured by how damn beautiful she was that he forgot to shake her hand, and then went on, slightly more peeved sounding and maybe just a little bit discomfited, "I'm sorry I monopolised the class. My dad likes to hear about how very involved I am."

The way she said it made Sam think maybe she was just as annoyed as he had been. Suddenly, as if the switch back to 'on' had been thrown in his brain, he reached for her hand just as she was withdrawing it. He couldn't imagine why she'd even be talking to him—she was so unattainably beautiful and he was so large and generally clumsy; scarred and uncertain of himself and his place in this new world that he was still learning all the rules of. He hadn't realised normal could also be so hard.

But she took his hand and instead of shaking it, she held it loosely in hers, and she had strong, slender fingers, and she was nearly as tall as he was, which was remarkable.

"I'm Sam," he said, and it was so freeing to give her his real name, to not be hiding out behind some alias Dean had picked out—the thoughts of Dean still caught him up when he stumbled over them in his brain, but he concentrated on the clean lines of her features, the blonde hair he found himself wanting to run his fingers through.

"Meet me for coffee after your last class," she said, and it didn't really sound like an invitation, more like a command. "And it was nice to meet you, Sam," she added, before pulling her hand back and walking away. But she looked back, and she smiled.

Sam was, quite predictably, disastrously in love with her already.

:::

Jess's laugh was as pretty as the rest of her, and she was so blissfully free with it, as though she'd never known darkness. She took her coffee black and she spent most of the evening trying to convince him to try it—this coffee is so good you don't need to add anything to it!—but she also talked a lot about herself and her passions for books and art.

Sam was content to soak up anything she wanted to say. It might've been noble to say that he was content simply because he liked her enough that her easy and engaging prattle didn't come across as self-centred and that he found it just that: engaging. The truth lay in more murky areas, however: Sam didn't have to think of lies to tell her about himself as long as she kept talking cheerfully, patting the back of his hand every so often and gifting him with blinding smiles.

God, he was so infatuated!

"My favourite book has to be The Princess and the Goblin," Jess said. "It's this totally awesome adult fairy tale. My copy is so battered by now!"

"Mine is a short story," Sam returned. "'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'." It was the first real lie that he told her—he hated that story, because ever since he'd read it (and Dean had wanted to read it too, so he could laugh at Sam), Dean had been suggesting they go and check it out and find out if they could solve the mystery of the Headless Horseman. But Sam was in California now, sitting across a café table with a beautiful girl—the type that usually only had eyes for Dean—and he didn't want to think about hunts, or hunting. He didn't know why he lied—there was no reason to, what could she possibly get from the truth?

But he watched her grin, her kissable lips—he wanted to kiss her so badly!—turning up at the corners, and he smiled back, nervously, because he still wasn't comfortable around girls. That was Dean's arena—and Sam had never felt so alone before, without Dean standing next to him, or sleeping in the same room, or breathing the same air.

It was both the most exhilarating freedom he had ever known, and it was terrifying. He wished that Dean were next to him so that he could whisper what to say to this scintillating girl who seemed to have all the self-confidence in the world—why had she chosen him? But Sam knew perfectly well that if Dean were sitting in the same room with Jess, she'd never have given him a second look. Girls—once they saw Dean—never really did notice Sam after that.

It wouldn't be the last lie, though.

"I should have guessed something like that," she said. "You look like the type of guy who likes to scare himself silly on ghost stories. And then jumps at every little noise afterward."

How close and yet how far from the truth. He hated ghost stories, and at nine years old when the .45 had been in his wavering hands, pointed at the closet, he had jumped at every single frightening noise.

But at eighteen, he wasn't afraid any more. Searching out dead things and ghosts and monsters was something he was so used to, he wasn't sure anything scared him any more. Well, except for clowns.

And Dean dying, of course. He would never lose that sickening thrill that rushed through him on a hunt when Dean was in danger. But she didn't know that. And he wasn't going to tell her.

"I read the most terrifying book once," Sam confided. This, at least, was true. Partially. He had read the book, and he could admit that it would be terrifying to most people. For him, it landed in the realm of 'mildly scary', simply because neither he nor Dean had ever come up against a demon before. Sam wasn't sure, but he didn't think their father had, either. So who knew if they really existed? "It was a true story," he carried on. "This family moved into a house and found themselves right in the centre of a demonic possession. Gruesome and, you know, not the sort of thing anyone wants to think about."

Jess leaned in, so close her breath feathered across his face. "I think I read that book," she said in a low, conspiratorial tone. "Were there inappropriate things done to dead bodies?"

Sam stared at her, then laughed, sudden and unexpected. Would this girl never stop surprising him? He rather hoped not.

"Yeah," he said, and she positively twinkled. Her eyes crinkled at the corners and she sat back, and Sam missed the warmth of her coffee-bitter breath.

"See, you and I are alike," she said. "I knew it when I first saw you. You just hated that I knew more about that stuff in class than you did, didn't you? D'you watch horror movies?"

Stupid Dean and his stupid obsession—"Yes," Sam replied. Dean loved to watch them, especially the gory bloody ones, but in a pinch any would do. Sam still had no idea why Dean would want his real life to also be a part of his entertainment, but he'd spent his formative years watching whatever Dean did, because Dean felt that the remote automatically went to whoever was older. Which was typical Dean.

Sam tried not to think about the fact that he had had such a case of hero worship for Dean back then that he would have watched them anyway, simply because he wanted to do whatever Dean did, like whatever Dean liked.

But then Sam had grown up, and Dean liked hunting—which Sam didn't. Which was why he was with Jess now. Because Jess was the fresh air into the staleness of his life, the very thing he had been missing.

He looked at her, and he wanted her. And it seemed like she wanted him too. 6:32 p.m. and Sam decided right then and there he was going to ask her out—a real date. It was 6:32 p.m. on the beautiful, sun-still-shining-outside evening of September 3rd, and Sam would remember that moment for the rest of his life, preserved in his memory like an insect in amber, crystal clear. He fell in love her for no other reason than she smiled at him for him and she liked horror movies, and she was beautiful—but it wasn't the beauty on that outside that made him fall for her.

6:32 p.m., and he blurted, "Can I take you back to my room?" and nearly shot himself in the foot—tempting as the idea was, all of his guns and knives were still stashed in his room—because that sounded like a booty call more than an innocent invitation, but she smiled and crossed her arms.

"Sure," she said. "Why not?"

Sam stood up, and Jess did too. And then she reached over and took his hand, just for a moment. "I trust you," she said. "I know you're not just gonna try to get into my panties. Even if they are pink and lacy."

Sam nearly spat out the last of his coffee. This girl... somehow Sam knew she would always be full of surprises.

:::

"Sam," Jess said, three weeks into the semester and about two and half weeks after they'd met. "You really should wash that hoodie."

Sam stared at her for a minute, then almost backed up a step when she came closer and patted the sweatshirt right over his belly. He was so used to wearing his clothes until they could hunt on their own if they wanted to—his family'd had so little money, and it was just more frugal, plus they rarely had the time—that it hadn't occurred to him that spending a lot of time around regular people, normal people, meant he had to try and blend in better.

Once upon a time, in the type of fairy tale where the hero gets eaten by the dragon and the princess turns out to be the wicked witch, Sam had known how to behave around normal people. But that had been emulation, and he'd lost the ability somewhere between puberty and now.

She poked him in the belly. "Sam? Have I got your attention?"

"It's my favourite," he said lamely. "I just... I forgot to wash it last time I did laundry." He didn't tell her—couldn't—that the last time he'd done laundry had been in a laundromat in Arizona, long before he'd left for Stanford. He didn't tell her, either, that he had so few clothes he had to wear them over and over or he'd lose a fortune in quarters.

"All right, c'mon, Sam," she said, pulling on his sweatshirt, dragging it away from his belly. He had the insane notion that she might just tear it over his head to get him to wash it. He grabbed for it and she laughed. "We're gonna wash this, and your other stuff, too," she said. "I bet those jeans haven't seen the inside of a washing machine since July."

"I wash my clothes," he said defensively, but she just chuckled again.

"I mean it, Sam. Go get your laundry and we'll go down together."

Sam might, if he were crude like Dean, have voiced that joke that formed in his mind after she said that. But he wasn't Dean—he liked to think he had more class, more tact, than his older brother.

But even though he'd always been the one to pry information out of people in such a way that they didn't even know they were doing it, he was still the one that, when pressed, blended in best with everyone around him.

At least until he'd come to Stanford, that is, when he realised that college students were a breed all their own, and he still sometimes felt like the prey being scented by the predator—even though he was used to being the hunter, on the Stanford campus he sometimes had a feeling of vertigo, like he was the one being hunted.

Jess whacked him on the shoulder. "Sam, hey, you know you are one giant space cadet sometimes?" but she said it fondly, as if she were already used to his quirks and found them endearing. Sam wondered how long it would take for her to get sick of them—he was pretty sure some things he did, like clipping his fingernails on the bed instead of the bathroom, would make her crazy.

And it was then he figured out that he wasn't just in love with her in that sort of objective, idealistic sense, but that he wanted her to say she was his girlfriend, and they still barely even knew each other—even though she was pretty much the only friend he had. She was the one person who kept seeking him out, seemed to like him even though he was a little weird.

He realised all of a sudden that he'd been staring at her lips while he was thinking, completely up in the clouds, and she was still watching him patiently.

"Uh, sorry," he said finally. "I just..."

"Someday you'll have to tell me what it's like inside that freaky brain of yours," she said, and it sounded so much like something Dean would say that a sharp pain pierced his chest, like a crossbow arrow breaking the skin and embedding itself into his heart. Obviously he'd never been hit in the heart—he'd be dead—but he had had a crossbow arrow graze his arm once, and man, that was painful.

"I'll go get my laundry," he said, reaching for the thread of the conversation they'd been having.

"You okay?" she asked. "You look like—well, for a minute there you looked like someone had just kicked your puppy."

"I never had a puppy," he said, the stupid, senseless remark slipping out before he could stop it. Not only was it obvious she hadn't meant to be literal, but he hadn't meant to let something out that was so much raw truth. And, being Jess, she pounced on what he'd said immediately.

"Didn't you?" she said, looking sympathetic. "Why not?"

Another day, another lie, he thought dejectedly. "My father was allergic," he said, trying, as he always did, not to mention that he had a brother. It felt somehow like a betrayal to talk about Dean to this girl, though why that was, he had no idea.

"That's too bad," she said. "My puppy was the best thing ever, till she died. God, I cried for a week. But then again, I was seven, so you know. We didn't get another one, though; I could never quite get over the feeling that it would be like replacing my best friend."

Sam winced and thought about Dean for the second time in about two minutes. Jess was... well, obviously she was different, because Sam wanted to kiss her stupid so often, and he'd certainly never felt that way about Dean, but... well, she did sometimes feel like the person trying to fill the Dean-shaped hole inside of him.

He'd thought that leaving, putting that life behind him, would've made not thinking about Dean easier, but even though Dean hadn't said good-bye, Sam still couldn't quite sever that connection he felt with his older brother.

"I'll meet you in ten minutes," Jess said, patting his bicep. "Don't forget," she added, because—Sam could tell—she was getting used to Sam acting kind of strange, drifting off in the middle of conversations and losing track of time.

In any event, thirteen minutes later—Sam's rebellion about being punctual resurfacing even though he wasn't even doing it consciously—Sam carried his duffle down to the laundry room in the dorm, a jingle of quarters in his pocket and his few articles of clothing stuffed into it. He'd had to take out his best knife and the small gun he'd kept, but hopefully there wasn't anything incriminating in his duffle any more. It had been green once, a sort of bright green like Dean's eyes, but that had been a long time ago and it had that look of army green now, due to dirt and use and the occasional bloodstain, which he hoped Jess wouldn't notice.

"Wow, I thought you'd forgotten," Jess said when he got there. She was sitting up on the counter by the washers, her feet dangling, her calves exposed by the skirt she was wearing, and Sam kind of wanted to lean down and lick the tiny mole he could see on her left leg.

"It took me a little while longer than I expected to gather everything up," he said, which was another partial lie: he'd actual spent most of the time hiding his weapons and turning his duffle inside out to make sure it didn't look like someone kept guns and knives in it.

He had a familiarity and competence with the washers that only took a second for Jess to remark on.

"I pretty much figured you'd never done laundry before this semester," she said, swinging one foot. She raised her hand to push her hair out of her face, and a pretty sapphire ring sparkled on her right hand. It reminded Sam of another ring, beaten silver metal, dinged from always being worn and being worn in the midst of battles.

"I uh, haven't," he said, which was the truth but sounded like a lie, and Sam could, in fact, see the irony in the fact that he could lie imperceptibly, but telling the truth sounded suspicious.

"But..." she trailed off and her pretty brow furrowed a little. "I had some trouble the first time I used those," she said. "But it's like you know exactly how they work, even though the kind that require quarters never behave quite like they should."

"Do you—" he couldn't believe he didn't know yet "—live in this building too?"

"Jesus, Sammy," she said. "You didn't know that?"

He snapped back at her without thinking: "Don't call me that." He didn't know why she had, and he knew that it bothered him because it dragged up childhood memories, but he didn't know why it mattered so much.

"Sorry," she said, easily jumping down from the counter and coming over to him, hand on his forearm. "I'm sorry, Sam. I was just teasing."

He felt pretty shitty about biting her head off, because she was still the only friend he had, and she was lovely and so giving that she didn't deserve all of his crap and issues.

"No," he countered. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't've yelled at you."

She watched him stuff the quarters into the slot, then fill the washer with just the right amount of clothes a temperamental dorm washer could handle. She leaned her head against his shoulder blade, and Sam wanted to turn and kiss her, but they hadn't taken that step yet, and though she seemed amenable, he couldn't quite leap off that ledge yet. He was still too caught up by the idea that only Dean could be attractive to girls; that he had only his stupid geeky brain to recommend him and he hadn't met a girl yet that found that hot over a ripped body.

And Jess once again made him feel like she could read his mind, because she said, "Sam, you have the most amazing ab muscles. I meant to tell you before."

He couldn't dispute that, actually; he'd done so much core training and other training that his body was in the best shape it could be, even after three weeks where his only exercise was done in his room at five in the morning. He knew, from watching some of the other college boys as they played sports, that he was in much better shape than they were.

But he had the scars they didn't have, and that made him reluctant, cautious; made him leery of Jess, even. Despite the fact that she seemed to think he was cute, even though he knew it wasn't true.

"You're totally an enigma," she said against his back. "I mean, who has only two pairs of jeans? You gotta have more clothes than that, Sam." Sam shrugged; he'd never considered it odd to have so few possessions—they moved around too much and had to pack too quickly too often for them to have too many things to keep track of. It was enough trouble to make sure none of the weapons went missing or got left behind, which would be a very bad thing. Jess snuggled a little closer for a second and said: "C'mon, I'll take you up to my room. It's on the twelfth floor. I think it's haunted," she said cheerfully, and pulled away from him.

He missed the feel of her immediately, but his brain latched on to her comment.

"Haunted?" he asked, and she nodded. Well, that changed everything. He couldn't very well leave her in a room that might have an angry ghost.

:::

"Seriously, Sam, I don't know why you're so hyped up about this ghost. I mean, I know some people get a thrill, but you're practically vibrating with nerves, which is so not the same thing. And anyway, it's kind of neat. It's not that it's ever done anything. Except stare at me in the shower."

"Just tell me anything you can about it," Sam replied urgently. "Has it touched anything? Does it unnerve you? Wait, it watches you in the shower?"

Jess gave a laugh that sounded a little bit nervous, like she didn't know what to make of this new, much more focused and intense Sam. "Yeah, sometimes when I get out, I'll be looking in the mirror while I'm still in my towel and the skin on my neck will crawl, you know? And I'll look up and I'll see a glimpse of something—a guy, I'm pretty sure—giving me this weird, really intent look. And then I turn around and there's no-one there."

"Is that the only time you've ever seen him? How often does this happen?"

"Jesus, Sam, it's like you're getting off on a ghost story." She laughed again. "I'm pretty sure ghosts aren't real and this is just all in my head, anyway."

"Humour me." He didn't know what had happened to his ability to be less obvious with his line of questioning, but Jess living in a room that was haunted made him anxious in ways he hadn't thought possible. Anxious like he got around Dean when Dean might be in danger.

"It's only happened a couple of times. And I was kinda drunk the night before. I swear, Sam, it's nothing. Relax."

"Yeah, probably just nothing," Sam agreed, but his mind was whirring into overtime. Somehow he had to deal with the ghost without Jess finding out about it. Without her figuring out that he had secrets she didn't know about and couldn't understand—and worse, she enjoyed his company so much that he'd have to be really cold and abrupt, probably, to keep her out of it long enough for him to take care of it.

"Don't get drunk for a few days," Sam said, even though he knew she was just as likely to see the ghost again when she was sober, even though it'd only appeared before when she thought her mind was impaired. Probably she was just a little hung-over and thought she could blame it on her overactive imagination. "Has anyone else in your suite seen it?"

"I don't know," she said slowly. "I don't think so."

Sam ground his teeth a little. He was going to have to talk to her roommates and hope they didn't say anything to Jess.

"Listen," he said. "I have this huge project I've gotta get done; I might be really busy for the next several days. If I don't get a chance to see you—" he leaned down and gave her a quick hug "—I'll miss you, and I'll make it up to you, all right?"

"All right, but, Sam—" she said, as he was turning away. He looked back at her, and she was twisting the sapphire ring she wore around on her finger. "Don't do anything stupid, okay?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said uneasily.

"Ghosts aren't real, Sam. Don't go thrill-seeking by looking for this one."

"If ghosts aren't real, then it wouldn't matter, right?"

"Sam," she said, and she walked over to him, brushed a lock of too-long hair out of his eyes, "you'll get in a shitload of trouble if you're sneaking around my suite and the girls catch you."

Sam stared at her. "We're in college, Jess. It's not like it's a nunnery."

"Unless you're using the Shakespearean definition," Jess cracked, then sighed noisily. "Look, Candice thinks you're kind of weird, and you make her nervous. She still rags on me for being with you all the time. You'd totally make her freak out."

Sam felt his brow furrow as he digested the information. Figured, even at Stanford everyone thought he was a freak.

Jess must have sensed his negative thoughts, because she hurried on to add: "She's just nuts, Sam. If she took the time to get to know you she'd understand that you're not weird. Really."

Sam studied her face, memorising her features, this girl who seemed to see the best in him, who didn't see all of the myriad flaws. He wanted to believe her, but he knew that he was a freak. It woke him up sometimes at night, a feeling of wrongness, like he wasn't quite like everyone else—and he wasn't, he knew that. He was a fucking hunter, for Christ's sake. And no amount of trying to cosy up to her friends—or the other kids at Stanford—was going to remove the taint of 'freak' he'd worn since he was just a stupid kid.

But for some reason Jess seemed to look beyond that. He didn't know why, but he was so grateful to her. She made him feel like no-one else ever had, unless you included the fact that Dean didn't care about any of it either. But Dean was his older brother: he took it as a personal crusade to stand up for Sam. So Jess... she was so special.

He'd only known her a few weeks and he already wanted to be with her forever.

:::

It only took Sam five minutes of Googling the history of the dorm they lived in to find something promising—well, if by 'promising' you meant 'suspicious yet useful'.

Jess's suite was the last one on the twelfth floor to be completed, and according to the article he was looking at, there'd been an accident—one of the plumbers had slipped and fallen, split his head open, and died before anyone could find him and call 911. Sam sighed. He'd been so certain that travelling all of those miles away from his old life would give him the chance to start over, but it looked like it was following him wherever he went.

He couldn't find any more information on the accident—at least, not without breaking into old school records, which he might have to do later—and the ghost seemed pretty harmless overall, in terms of the fact that it wasn't a suicide, murder, or otherwise especially violent death, but that didn't mean Leonard Fiotta, the plumber, wouldn't turn dangerous simply from being trapped in limbo so long.

Sam kicked the leg of his desk and glared at his laptop as if doing that would somehow change the facts. But nothing changed, of course; he was still going to have to research and find out where the guy was buried, then somehow salt and burn the bones without anyone noticing—and it was about fifty times more important he didn't get caught this time, because the last thing the kids at Stanford needed was to add 'grave desecration' to his list of faults.

Sam searched the county records online, but it figured, Leonard Fiotta's was sealed for some reason.

So Sam did some more digging—searching the guy's background more closely. What he found made him bite his lower lip and clench his teeth together until his jaw ached. He'd had any number of handyman-type jobs before he'd settled on plumbing, and he'd been fired more than once for 'unsavoury behaviour' or similar vague statements, except, of course, for the police report.

Sam found that almost by accident; it was supposed to be in a locked file somewhere but a comment to the guestbook on his business's old webpage linked to a scanned copy.

And way down, under the reason why the police report was filed, was scrawled: sexual misconduct.

Sam groaned and searched for the police station, breaking into their files easily enough and poking around until he found the rest of the report, which read:

Suspect was apprehended in the victim's home, his pants open, exposing himself to the victim. She gave a statement that claimed she'd caught him spying on her and engaging in lewd acts while in her home, ostensibly to solve a plumbing issue with her shower. Suspect claimed he'd been using the toilet and that nothing had happened. Victim vehement that he had been staring at her while she was changing in her bedroom. She filed charges which were later dropped when the suspect was vouched for by his boss. Victim made numerous further complaints, all documented, but was later shown to be in the profession of stripper and it was unknown whether her account of the events could be trusted. Case closed with the determination that it was a situation of 'he said', 'she said' and there was no way to substantiate the allegations.

Which meant that this guy, haunting Jess's bathroom, was a grade-A, first-class perv, and Sam couldn't stand the thought of him perving on her, of all people. He had to do something about it. He considered—just for a split second—calling Dean and asking his brother to come out to Stanford and take care of it, but that smacked of expecting Dean to fight every battle for him. And it meant reaching out to someone who hadn't even said good-bye when Sam had left, choosing instead to side with their father, which still rankled hard.

Besides which, he didn't even know if Dean would answer his phone. Hell, if he even had the same number, considering how often they switched cell phones to keep under the radar.

Sam hated knowing he was stuck for it. He hadn't wanted to be a part of that world any more; didn't want to call himself a hunter still and keep resolving gigs like they'd used to do. He was also a little uneasy it might go sour fast and he wouldn't have any backup, but he knew he couldn't call Dean, and hell, he definitely couldn't ask his father for help.

As Sam started packing his duffle with lighter fluid, matches, salt, and assorted other items, he thought about how he didn't even know if Dean's loyalty ran deep enough to talk to Sam without telling their father he'd done so. Which was not a chance that Sam could take.

He put on his most comfortable walking shoes—one of two pairs of shoes he owned—and set off to find out where Leonard Fiotta was buried.

~
11:52 p.m.

Sam snuck into the picturesque graveyard with his duffle slung over one shoulder and the shovel under his armpit, a little bit cold—probably due to nerves—and poked around until he found the grave.

He hadn't spoken to any of Jess's suitemates, so he couldn't even corroborate her story, but he wasn't gonna let this guy gets his jollies off—even after death—for one more night if he could help it.

When he found the grave, he dumped his duffle on the ground—adding more dirt to the canvas—and began to dig. It took a quarter of an hour to go down about half a foot—God, he was so used to having Dean's help digging graves—and he started to wonder if he'd come out too late, if he'd get caught out at dawn still digging. He felt in his pocket one more time to make sure the fake ID was there in case he got caught, and his cell phone in case it went badly with the ghost, and continued digging.

When he finally uncovered the wooden coffin, he was sopping wet with sweat, pouring into his eyes and making them sting unbearably, and just as he was about to break the rotting wood open, he felt a cool breeze pass over him, stirring the hairs on the back of his neck.

Fuck.

Most ghosts don't like it when someone tries to put them to rest, and the more violent or depraved they are, the more likely they'll try to kick your ass. Sam figured he was about to get a bruising he couldn't explain—and that would probably disappoint and piss off Jess—so he broke through the wood cover with his shovel as fast as he could, fumbled with the lighter fluid, scattered an entire thing of salt, and then stood there, feeling the wind whip up worse and worse as he tried to get the match lit.

And just as it flared to life, the wind blew in a foul-smelling, frigid breath over Sam and his match and it went out.

Something slammed into him from behind, and he went tumbling ass over head, knocking the breath out of him, and he blinked through sweat and grave dirt and started scrabbling around for the matches.

Just as the ghost's fury lifted him up and tossed him again, this time sending his knee sprawling hard against a tree branch—tearing out the knee of his best jeans and taking a good chunk of skin with it—Sam's fingers closed on a lighter someone must have lost and left behind. He wrapped his fingers around it to hide it, and crawled, excruciating pain in his knee, back over to the grave.

He wished Dean were there so hard in the next moment, when the ghost pitched him headfirst straight into the grave, coating the front of Sam's khaki jacket with salt and accelerant, and making it too dangerous for him to light the bones aflame without getting out of the grave. Besides which, his head had cracked against the wooden plank and Sam was pretty sure that he was going to have a giant knot on his forehead come morning. He only hoped, as he scrambled back out of the grave as fast as he could, that his bangs would cover it up so Jess didn't ask questions.

It didn't occur to him to find it strange that in a moment of extreme duress, he thought of Dean first, and then the girl he was falling for, and he didn't really have time for that thought, anyway, as he flicked the lighter.

It wouldn't catch. Sam'd thought someone had lost it, but he was beginning to despair that someone had instead thrown it away because it was empty, as he listened hard for any sound that might signify the ghost's next plan of attack.

His head throbbing, his knee throbbing just as much in time, and blood running down the inside of his jeans, Sam finally got it lit, only to feel a force ram into the back of his knees like a rubber band snapping back into place, sending him reeling headfirst back into the dirt. The soft, moist dirt he'd turned up from the grave smothered the flame and once more, Sam wished for Dean. Hell, even his dad. Someone else to be there to light up the grave while he was getting battered by the ghost.

It was really starting to piss him off, actually, because he was good at this, he'd learned from the very best and he'd been trained since he was nine years old. He was too fucking good for some lame, garden-variety angry spirit to get the best of him.

He inched forward on his elbows and discovered he was just at the edge of the hole he'd dug. Fumbling with the lighter again, he managed to get it lit a second time and threw it over and into the grave just as the wind was whipping up around his head again.

He rolled and rolled again, trying to get out of the way to make sure that none of it rebounded on him and set his jacket alight.

He heard the hiss and rush of air, the popping of the flames as they caught, and the wind disappeared immediately.

It took him less time to fill in the grave again once the bones had burned thoroughly, and he limped back to his dorm at 4:53 a.m., which meant the whole thing took way longer than it would have with the assistance of his brother.

He was a mess when he got back to his room. His jeans were bloodstained and basically ruined. His hair was matted with sweat and dirt and blood where he'd gotten knocked in the head—upon closer inspection in his hand mirror, he found that the bump on his head had been broken open when he hit it and had bled all over everything, including into his eye.

The clean-up and first-aid again flashed him back to hunts he'd been on with Dean, like one of the last ones they'd been on as a family, when Dean had stitched up his thigh.

He poked and prodded at the lump on his head and concluded that it didn't need stitches—thank goodness—and cleaning up his knee proved it was a large scrape but shallow, so some antiseptic and bandages and a shower and he'd be fine. There was a large bruise on it, suggesting he'd banged it hard enough that the joint might be sore for a few days, but still, he'd be fine.

Still, though, as he washed the sweat and dirt and blood out of his hair, he missed having Dean there to check him over and make sure everything was all right.

And just before he went to sleep, he could hear Dean's admonishments about concussions, so he set the alarm on his phone to go off every hour and wake him up, just to be sure. There was no way he could go to the infirmary and explain what had happened in order to have someone check him out to see if he had a concussion.

He slept so late that he missed all of his morning classes, but he couldn't angst over it because when he woke he ached from head to foot and figured the sleep had been good for him. He thought about trying to find some clean clothes to cover his nakedness so he could track down Jess, but after only moving a little and lifting his head about two inches off the pillow—during which time he nearly threw up all over himself—he realised he was too beat up to see her.

Luckily he'd prepared her in advance, though he couldn't help thinking how nice it would be for someone to bring him aspirin or ibuprofen, and maybe some soup or something, to help him feel more like a human again.

He groaned and closed his eyes again. As he drifted, he thought he could almost hear Dean's voice.

:::

"Wow, you look like hell," Jess said the next time she saw him, which was about three days after he salted and burned the ghost that had been haunting her suite.

Sam shrugged as if it didn't matter and kept his head lowered so that his hair, always too long anyway, would better obscure the healing bump on his head. But he imagined he did, in fact, fit her assessment perfectly.

"The project I was working on was more trouble than I expected," he said. "I didn't sleep much." He hadn't, either; waking himself up every hour that first day had been sheer hell, as he'd just wanted to drop unconscious for about two days and hope that when he finally got up, he wouldn't be so sore. Jess patted him sympathetically on the shoulder and Sam suppressed a wince; he hadn't even thought he'd hurt his shoulder until she touched it and it was tender.

"Hey, stop by my room after class," she said. "You could use some relaxation after all that hard work."

Sam gave her a tight smile—she really had no idea how right she was.

He linked their fingers together for a moment, walking backwards away from her down the street towards his next class, their fingers slowly untwining as he drew away from her.

But even after she turned around and started jogging so she wouldn't be late, he found himself standing and staring at her blonde curls as they bounced over her back. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the slight burn left over from exertion, and realised he was falling out of shape, even with his light exercise.

As he finally turned 'round and started running for his own class—a vaguely stupid thing to do, since his knee protested every jarring step—the rest of his body felt the impact, and he wished for one of Dean's massages, the feel of his hands as he worked the knots and pain out of Sam's body after a hunt. It had always been such classic first-aid care, and Sam had never thought anything of it, until now; Jess's eyes had been lit from within like she was planning something, and Sam suspected he was about to be subjected to another massage.

But a massage from Jess... that was a totally different animal. That was likely to lead to things Sam still wasn't sure he was prepared for—like showing her his naked back.

He gulped and kept running, but every step sent more shockwaves through him, and he was slightly ashamed that some of them went straight to his dick.

:::

"Hey, Sammy, you look peaked," Dean says when they get back to the motel room they've booked just long enough to deal with a simple haunting on the way to a bigger, more intricate job. They've been standing in the rain digging a grave for hours, and it wasn't the easiest thing to do to burn bones with water sluicing down over them in fucking waterfalls.

"Dad says he'll meet up with us in the next town," Dean adds, grabbing a washcloth from the towel rack and running it under warm water. He wipes at the blood under Sam's eye where a twig gashed up his face, then smiles at Sam, that tight smile that's meant to be reassuring but still holds all the tenseness of Dean's worry in the tautness of his lips.

The Impala's been Dean's for just over five weeks now, since he turned nineteen and John decided they could deal with more hunts at a time this way. Which means they're closeted in the only room they could afford in this shitty town, one bed and a fucking crappy, sagging couch by the wall, and Sam already knows that Dean's going to sleep by the door tonight, his sleeping bag retrieved from the Impala and unrolled already.

"Dean," Sam says, gripping his wrist and yanking it away from his face. "You don't have to do that; I can do it myself." Sam's been looking forward to his fifteenth birthday forever, it feels like, and having Dean do everything for him like he's still seven years old is wearing his patience thin like old paper.

"Shut up, Sam," Dean mutters by rote, easily shaking Sam off and swiping his thumb across the open wound. "Don't think it'll scar, little brother."

Sam's been sitting on the edge of the bathtub, but he gets up and ducks out of Dean's way, almost as tall as his brother now. "I'm just gonna pass out," he tells Dean. "But, dude, you really don't need to sleep on the fuckin' floor."

"Language," Dean admonishes, but they both know he's only doing it because he ought to—because John would, if he were around. If he noticed. Sam hates the fact that his father probably

wouldn't have noticed, which makes it Dean's job to care, even though he really doesn't. Dean's been saying 'fuck' in front of Sam since he was practically a baby, anyway.

Dean pats at Sam's cheek once more before Sam gets out of range, then pulls the container of salt from his duffle and starts laying out the salt lines in front of the door and the double windows. Sam gets his own out of his bag and takes care of the bathroom window, then takes a piss with the door half-open so he can make sure Dean doesn't drop from exhaustion—his brother's been under crazy stress this hunt and he's

still taking care of Sam first, instead of himself—and brushes his teeth before stripping out of his still soaking-wet t-shirt and jeans. His boxer-briefs are mostly dry, so he figures they'll do for sleeping in; he flushes and leaves the bathroom.

Dean's standing at the window, looking out at the horizon, which is brightening with a line of silvery pink. It'll be dawn soon, but they don't have anywhere to be and the room is paid for two days, so they can just sleep for as long as they like—a luxury they don't often get, especially when John is around.

Sam flops down onto the double bed, face-first into the pillow. He's almost asleep when the mattress dips and Dean starts to rub his shoulders, loosening the tension and easing his muscles. Sam moans with appreciation and lets the feeling soak into him, sleep beckoning with dulcet tones, and Dean very carefully massages away every last bit of stress from Sam's back and shoulders, leaving him lax and pliant. His brother says something, but Sam is too far gone to make out the words, and then the weight's gone from the mattress and Sam's pretty much down for the count.

He wakes up to streaming sunshine as it falls towards the horizon again, and Dean singing badly in the shower, his body still liquid and the pain of the previous night only a memory.

Sam checks the salt lines while still in his underwear, then pushes open the bathroom door and steps into the steambath it's become since Dean's been in there.

"What do you want to get for breakfast?" he asks the vague shape that his brother has become through the shower curtain.

"Saw a diner on the way here while you were drowsing in the car," Dean yells over the pounding water. There's a beat of silence where Sam wonders if he caught his brother whacking it in the shower—wouldn't be the first time, and that was fucking

traumatic—before Dean turns the faucets off. "Saved you some hot water," he says.

Sam doubts it.
"Dude, I'm getting out," Dean adds after a second.

Sam takes the hint and leaves the bathroom, but he finds himself pacing as he waits for Dean to dress.

It's not his first introduction to Dean's massages, not by a long shot, but he can't help a little frisson of unease that won't go away.

That odd feeling of discontent ratchets up a few notches when Dean comes out of the bathroom and his eyes flick down for just a second. And even though Sam's been in various stages of undress around his brother for his entire life, he feels suddenly on display, like he's completely naked in a room full of people.

He forces himself not to grab for his chest to cover himself up, and Dean's rambling on, as usual, even though Sam hasn't been paying attention; he bolts for the bathroom and shuts the door.

And immediately feels like an idiot. Of course, Dean was probably just checking him out for injuries while he was conveniently under-dressed, and Sam just feels weird about it because he's going through puberty.

Of course, that thought reminds Sam of his body and the changes it's going through, and as if someone flipped a switch, Sam's hard, his dick pushing out the front of his underwear—and Dean's right outside the door, mumbling to himself as he gets ready for breakfast, and Sam's never really had the courage to get himself off unless Dean's out, but in spite of the horrific awkwardness churning in his belly, Sam kind of wants to.

He calls out, "I'm taking a shower!" and turns on the cold water, rendering whether Dean saved him any hot water moot.

The cold water does the trick and douses his arousal, but it can't do anything about that persistent prickle of unease.

Sam has no idea what's causing it—and he won't find out 'til he's almost twice the age he is now.

:::

By the time Sam got to Jess's room—he took the stairs because he figured he could use the exercise to stay in shape, even though his knee said fuck you on every step—he was so anxious to see her it was ridiculous. After the implication of more intimacy between them, Sam just couldn't stand the anxiety of waiting to see her again. He'd been thinking about it to the exclusion of everything else all day, which had wreaked merry havoc with his attention span. His notebooks were filled with pieces of notes he'd never completed because suddenly the thought of Jess would intrude and he'd wind up scrawling her name down instead.

She opened the door in a skin-tight tank top with printed monkeys all over it, a pale blue that set off her colouring to perfection, and little bikini panties that matched, the sides nothing more than a thin bit of elastic. And when he opened his mouth to speak, she reached up and placed her middle finger on his bottom lip, and instinctively he licked it, found it delicious, and sucked it into his mouth. It was the most overtly sexual thing they'd done yet, and Sam was a little disappointed he hadn't even kissed her before, but what could only be the flavour of her body filled his mouth and his eyes widened.

She gave him a wicked little grin that turned her beautiful lips up and he clasped her wrist and pulled her finger from his mouth, gave her a second to see the intent in his eyes, and then ducked his head down a little—it was amazing, he barely had to bend over at all—and licked the swell of her lower lip before connecting their mouths for the first time. He didn't do anything at first besides touch her lips, learning the feel of them—soft and giving against his—but Jess moved first, parting her lips a little under his, and Sam sighed in-between them, felt his breath slide into her mouth, hot and mingled with hers, and then went for bold; he dipped his tongue into her mouth and tasted, felt the smooth, silken inside of her cheeks, ran the tip of it along her teeth before allowing himself to touch his tongue to hers.

Jess made a little noise in her throat which spiralled right through Sam's body and took up residence in his dick, then moved her tongue with his, and even though Sam had no doubt that she wasn't all that experienced, she was still in so many ways more adventurous than he was; her tongue was brutal in his mouth, taking and taking what she wanted, brooking no quarter.

Sam was outclassed already; he'd never learned to kiss with much finesse, but Jess had it and she had it in spades; she took inventory of his mouth and Sam felt as though she'd branded him permanently, like she'd own that little piece of him forever, like his lips would never forget the shape of hers under them.

And then, it was over, and Jess was smiling beatifically, like she'd just hung the moon and swallowed the canary all at once.

"God, Sam," she said, breathless and panting. "I wondered how long I'd have to wait for you to do that. What I'd have to do."

He hadn't even realised, so wrapped up in their mouths dancing together, that he'd slipped his arms around her and her chest was smushed up against his.

Or that it meant his dick, hard and stretching his denim, was up against her bare thigh. He jumped back away from her, shocked by his forwardness. He'd never so easily lost his sense of himself the way he did when he was around her.

"Jesus, Sam, you think too much," she said. "I've been wanting you to kiss me since almost the first day we met."

"But—"

"Don't take yourself so seriously," she interjected. "You have the promise of so much self-confidence, the ability to be someone so totally amazing, but you just keep holding yourself back. I want you to unleash that part of yourself that craves—I want you to learn what you desire and learn how to go after it."

"I can't," Sam argued, even though when she put it like that, he wanted to stop hiding and just... God, he didn't even know. Just touch her, glom onto her and never let her go, whatever. "You're the amazing one," he said, and it was the sort of thing Dean would smacked him upside the head for saying, which made him turn away bashfully, unable to look at her any more.

"You're so stupidly sweet," she said fondly. "I wanna get coffee later, but first, I want you to watch one of my favourite movies. It's awesome, like this murder mystery with all kinds of dark family secrets and stuff."

Sam willed his dick to behave itself and finally stepped over the threshold. Jess grabbed his arm and towed him into her room, over to her bed, and pushed him down on it. She plopped herself down next to him, and punched the 'on' button for the DVD player.

Sam couldn't really concentrate on the movie because she was so close, and she smelled heavenly plus she was still only half-dressed. Sam took a risk and cuddled closer, letting his hand hang over her shoulder and just brush the top of her breast where it swelled over the neckline of the tank.

He should've paid closer attention to the movie, though, because it held clues to the rest of his life, though he didn't know it yet.


Book One, Part Two >>