alibi stanford!sam winchester x college!female!reader
content: sam's perspective, mental health struggles, anxiety, finger picking/biting, sam's struggle with food mentioned, fluff, perhaps qualifies as angst
word count: 1.1k
note: the title comes from "alibi" by sombr, the song this was pretty much based on. i've been in a funk all day for an unknown reason, so this was born. if you lovelies ever need a listening ear through any struggles, my messages are always open. this is your reminder to take care of yourselves. drink some water, let the sun kiss your skin, pet a kitten <3
Sam Winchester has fallen in love with a stranger.
Okay, she wasn’t exactly a stranger, but he didn’t know her name.
Her name didn’t matter much when he knew so much more.
She liked green, the color was splashed all across her -- travel coffee cup, headphones, scuffed up Converse that seemed to tap out a message just for him on the bus floor.
She was kind. There had been times, when the bus filled up with the outflow of people from an event in the city, that she’d offered up her seat to a woman with feet-aching heels, or a child with their own backpack on their shoulders. She’d refuse to take Sam’s seat when he gestured, but with the next stop bringing in more passengers, it didn’t matter, they would be standing close enough for Sam to smell her peach perfume.
Her birthday was three days after his own. She’d spotted the small gift bag of cheap alcohol in his lap and asked, in the sweetest voice he’d ever heard, what the occasion was. My birthday, he’d responded, 21.
The next day she had pulled a bundle from her sweatshirt pocket. Unfolding the newspaper-wrapping, a tiny resin squirrel was leashed to a keychain ring. She smiled and explained he gave her squirrel-vibes. In a small voice that Sam wouldn’t have even caught if he didn’t notice everything she did, he’d heard my birthday is tomorrow, then, as if she wanted to connect with him, 21.
When that tomorrow had come, he’d climbed on the bus with a plastic package containing a single cupcake, green frosting matching the twinkling charm on her necklace. She’d made Sam share it with her, laughing at the crumbs she helped brush from his chin. It was one of the only times he let himself indulge in unnecessary foods. He’d eat a bucket of candy if it meant she would smile like that again.
He also knew she had anxiety. He watched her pick at her nail beds until they were raw. He had made it a mission to get her to stop, as if he didn’t do the same thing during his classes. During a traffic jam that had lined up perfectly with a day that forced her to sit directly next to him, he’d silently placed his hand over hers, putting a stop to her fidgeting for the moment. She didn’t say anything, didn’t pull away. From that day on, they sat in silence with Sam holding her hand.
Sam compiled this list of odd facts. It sat in the forefront of his brain at all times. In shops he would spot trinkets that reminded him of her, a little dog statue that matched the one on a shirt she owned or a sparkling Christmas ornament speckled with the same color of her eyes, but he would talk himself out of buying them. School fared not much better. He found her in the goddesses illustrated in his textbooks and the poems that would be scrawled out by his professor onto the chalkboard.
She reminded him of home. Perhaps not his real home, the makeshift spaces of motel rooms and leather-bound seats not providing much comfort to him. It was a home he always wanted, the one he read about in books and heard his classmates chatter on about. She was homemade muffins, trees in the yard going through seasons, scratches in the doorframe marking heights.
He’d decided he was in love with her when she started sleeping on him. Her head on his shoulder, eyes fluttered shut, hand in his. To the other passengers, they appeared to be lovers. He wouldn’t correct them if they asked. He liked to pretend, at least for the moment, that she would come home with him. He could hear her bare feet padding on the floor of his bedroom, the rustling of his worn blankets as she crawled into his bed. He could feel her in his arms, breath slow and steady similar to how it was in that crowded bus.
He would always wake her up a stop before hers, gently nudging her into the conscious world. He’d be tempted to kiss her forehead before she stood, but always stopped himself. The lingering brush of her fingertips on his hand would leave him mindless for the rest of the day, eyes closed in attempts to bring him back to that moment.
It was the day he planned on asking her to coffee that she broke his heart.
He ascended the steps, swiping his bus pass with a small greeting to the driver. His eyes flew to her seat, the spot that she held a claim on from the moment Sam had twisted his fingers in hers.
Empty.
He told himself she was sick. She missed the bus that day. She had an event after her classes.
He’d worn out those excuses by the fourth day. The weekend passed by with every second full of her. He wanted her, he needed her. He didn’t know what had happened, if someone had hurt her, if she had hurt herself.
He’d decided to get off on her stop on the sixth day without her, wandering the streets in search of a clue of where she had gone. It ended with him walking the remaining five blocks to his place, body tired from the day.
The eighth day brought him back to life. His steps into the bus had been slow, more of a shuffle.
His eyes pulled to her seat, though his mind told him it would be empty.
His heart skipped a beat when he locked onto her eyes. She was here. She had come back to him.
He clambered across the sticky floor to her, sinking down onto the cracked vinyl of the seat. She was staring at him. He saw her now, really saw her.
Bloodshot eyes, a mix of colorful bandages around her fingers, eyebags that gave her insomnia away.
He couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his arms. Her face nestled into his hoodie, resting on the crook of his neck like it had been molded just for this. She was tense, but a brush of Sam’s fingers on her spine relaxed her.
It got too loud, she mumbled. He didn’t need her to explain. He knew.
He had heard the same noise in his own mind.
This time, they waited until his stop to get off and he guided her to his waiting bed. He wrapped her in blankets and fed her soup, hooking a finger around one of hers until she slept.
So, no, he didn’t know her name yet. But he knew the gentle movements she made in her sleep. He knew the pace of her steps. He knew she liked just a little more salt than he did. He knew her, and she knew him. The rest would come later.
everything taglist : @littlesoulshine @sacr1ficialang3l @blossomingorchids @plasticflowersinahistorycemetery @mostlymarvelgirl
