Too Sweet - Sam Winchester
A/N - Thought I'd flip the usual use of this song on it's head, because Sam actually fits all of it really well. Also this was 7 pages on google docs, and it's a lot of filler. Enjoy! Word Count - 3013
Sam shoots you a smile as you trudge into the kitchen, half asleep despite the time. You give him back a sarcastic, twisted smile of your own. You know he’s been up for hours, the research around him and the jogging clothes he’s in proof of the fact.
“Morning,” Sam’s voice is quiet, because he somehow knows that you’ve got a headache forming behind your eyes. You let out a little noise of acknowledgement as you beeline for the coffee, which Sam has made sure is full for you, but you don’t actually say anything. It’s only just turned 9AM, and it’s rare to hear your sleep-ridden voice before 10.
You pour yourself a cup of coffee and take a sip as is, causing Sam to wince. He’d seen it before, every morning since you’d moved into the bunker with them, but he still winced at the sight, knowing just how strong the coffee was, just how bitter. Not even Dean drank the coffee straight from the pot, preferring to put in the tiniest bit of sugar and a dash of milk to soothe the bitter taste on his tongue. But you, if you could, you’d skip the mug and drink the coffee straight from the pot.
You sit down across from Sam as usual, blinking heavily, still mostly asleep but unable to stay in bed after years of being forced to leave motel rooms at the crack of dawn. The bunker had no such policy, but you still were always up and in the kitchen by 9 regardless, the pattern built into your bones too deep to dispel.
“What time did you go to bed last night?” Sam asks, and you hold up far too little fingers to be healthy without looking up from your mug. Your mug was one Sam had bought for you, found in a thrift store while looking for new clothes. It had some witty phrase that had made him think of you, something about coffee and mornings that described you perfectly. He’d bought it without a second thought, and you’d been using it ever since, the mug always clean and back in the cupboard before morning came back around.
Sam gave you a disapproving look, and despite the fact that you were still staring at your coffee like it had all the answers to life, you groaned, sensing the lecture that was about to come.
“You need to be going to bed earlier. Maybe you wouldn’t be so tired in the mornings if you went to bed before the sun started rising.” Sam scolded. You pushed your mug forward, laying your head down on the table. Sam frowned, sighing. “I know. But your health is more important than whatever it was you were researching last night.”
You were always doing something in the early hours of the morning, as the clock ticked over from one day to the next. Your late nights were never unmotivated, quite the opposite, usually up researching some case for another hunter, or whatever shit show was going on in the world at that current moment.
You groaned again, lifting up your head and staring at Sam. He stared back, his face unimpressed. “You know I’m right.”
You take a long sip of your coffee, standing to grab the coffee pot for a refill. Sam rolled his eyes, knowing you were ignoring him on purpose so that you didn’t have to admit that you needed to go to bed earlier.
Dean’s entrance into the kitchen draws your and Sam’s attentions, putting the lecture on hold until at least tomorrow morning. You give Dean a lazy wave and he grins.
“Morning birdie,” He said, walking over to you and taking the coffee pot out of your hands. “Is that your second or third?”
Birdie. It was a stupid nickname that came from your habit of late nights and early mornings, and the attitude that followed. Sam had made the joke that you weren’t an early bird, and Dean had latched onto it, refusing to call you by your name ever since. You flipped him off, thumb out.
“So two then.” He inferred, pouring himself a cup. He took a sip, paused, then shuddered. “Nope. Don’t know how you do it. It’s too bitter.”
You grinned lazily, all of your movements lazy in the mornings, and took another long, unmotivated sip of your coffee, letting out a satisfied sigh. Sam grinned, staring over at Dean, who was glaring at you and your silent jabbing. Dean rolled his eyes when you didn’t look over at him, turning to the fridge and fixing his coffee to his liking.
You sat back down, this time next to Sam, who scooted over to give you some room, and stared silently over the scattered papers on the table, trying to make some sense of them in your pre-10AM, pre-3-coffees brain. The double whammy was making it hard to keep your eyes open, let alone read the words on the pages and put together what it all meant. You leaned your head on Sam’s shoulder, letting out a little pathetic sigh. Sam tensed, feeling the weight on his shoulder, his face red.
Sam had liked you forever. Dean knew this. Cas knew this. Hunters who you’d never met knew this. The only person who didn’t know was you.
You remained oblivious to Sam’s tense discomfiture as you continued to lean on his shoulder, trying to make sense of the information spread out haphazardly between the two of you. When nothing seemed to stick out, you rolled your eyes, standing. You stumbled, catching yourself on Sam’s shoulder, causing his face to go an even brighter shade of red as you pet him where you caught yourself. You turned, grabbing the pot of coffee and trudging silently out of the room as Sam tried to compose himself.
It took Sam several hours to compose himself, and in that time, he didn’t see you again. It was around 3PM when he saw you again, curled up on the couch in the Dean Cave (title pending) with a glass of the whiskey that he knew that you liked. It was some of the strongest whiskey that Sam had ever drunk, so when he took the glass from your lips and took his own sip, he let out a splutter, as usual.
“That stuff is way too strong.” Sam mumbled, sitting next to you, passing the glass back to him. Something gory and gritty - something that Sam wasn’t smart enough to understand, even when you pointed out the obvious plot points - played on the TV that you’d gotten Dean for his birthday, some cheap thing to re[place the haunted one he’d originally had.
You leaned into him, soaking up his warmth, sharing the blanket that was over your lap with the man when he shivered. He wasn’t shivering because of the cold. “I like it.”
Your voice is rough, still somehow sleepy after hours of being awake. Sam liked the way your voice always seemed to be permeated with the gruffness of your lack of sleep. You had this grin on your face as well, the one that seemed to tease him, the one that always seemed to appear when he was commenting on how strong you liked things. Sam settled into you, focusing on the TV and ignoring the smile that made his insides feel like they were being eaten by a rugaroo. He nodded at the TV. “What’s going on?”
You turned back to the TV. “It’s kind of boring. I should have turned it off ages ago.”
You both stared at the TV, unwilling to move from each other to get the remote and change it to something more appealing. You took another sip from your glass, eyes flickering across the TV half-heartedly.
Sam took the time to look at you. The scar that ran down your face from the demon that had captured and tortured you pearly under the soft light of the murder mystery. Sam remembered the moment like it had happened 10 minutes prior. It had been the two of you captured, and the demon had thought that he would have more of a chance getting the information out of you. You’d grinned as he cut you open, not even a flinch of pain, spitting blood into the demon’s face. Sam had been screaming, begging him to let you go, but you’d just kept that mockingly saccharine smile on your face.
You glanced over at him, raising an amused eyebrow. “You see something you like?”
Sam let out a huff, looking back over at the TV. It really wasn’t very interesting, somehow having changed to something even more boring in the time it had taken you to notice him staring. The silence stretched comfortably between you.
It felt like hours had passed before you stood, stretching. “I’ve got some research to do, if you want to join me?” Sam shook his head, catching the remote when you threw it his way. “Have fun, TV boy.”
Sam snorted, changing the channel.
The next morning was much the same. You stumbled in around 9, eyes bleary, heading straight to the coffee pot that Sam had made after his morning run.
“Morning.” Sam said. He didn’t have research papers on the table this time, just his laptop. “I think I’ve got us a case.”
You scooted beside him, leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. You took a sip of your coffee as you tried to process the information. “Vamps?”
Sam’s eyes darted over your face, taking in the way your eyes, despite being tired, brightened at the prospect of beheading a bunch of vamps. “I think so. Either that or demons, but we’d have to go check it out to confirm.” You nodded, taking another sip of your coffee.
“I’ll pack my bag. You get Dean.” You rasped out, standing. You swallowed the coffee in your mug, tipping back your head until it was all gone, and then you were gone too, mug on the sink, kitchen door wide open, and Sam left blushing the only indication that you’d ever been there.
Sedona, Arizona was one of those towns where there were only 5 schools to choose from, and you knew the name of everyone that ever passed through the one you chose, but you could go your whole life not knowing your next door neighbour’s name. It was the kind of town where everybody thought that they knew everybody, but there were still so many strangers that walked the streets.
It reminded you of the town you’d grown up in, the life you'd lived before you’d met Sam and Dean, and started hunting.
The strangers that stalked the streets of Sedona were vampires. They lived in the shadows, walking around during the night and snatching people up off of the streets. But during the day, they were teachers, a doctor, bakers, friends. They might have been most of Sedona’s strangers, but that was the way it was for everyone in Sedona. The vampires lived among people, the doctor vampire stealing them blood to sustain themselves. But it had all changed when the doctor had been caught stealing the supply of blood, and had been fired.
They didn’t have any way to sustain themselves without hurting people anymore. So the vampires turned Sedona’s stranger culture against them, and stole strangers off the streets. People that Sedona’s streets would never miss.
Sedona never mourned its people.
It was sad. You’d shown up to the funerals of the people that had died, expecting a tightly knit community of mourners. Instead you’d found a bouquet of flowers pressed freshly into the hands of the dead, and had watched as the priest had lowered each person into the ground by himself.
You’d killed the vampires with the feeling that one day, you might end up the same way.
You were quiet in the Impala on the way back to the bunker. Sam noticed, but didn’t say anything.
When you got back to the bunker, you were quick to disappear into your room, sitting down on your bed, head in your hands. A soft knock at your door pulled your attention.
“Hey.” Sam said, leaning on the door frame. “You alright?”
You sighed, looking down at the vampire blood that you’d yet to wash from your clothes. “That place… it just, it brought back so many memories. From before I was a hunter. Living in the middle of nowhere, in a town that didn’t care about you.”
Sam nodded softly in understanding. He moved to sit beside you on the bed. “I get that. I mean, it must have been hard.”
You looked over at Sam, eyes tracing the curve of his jaw, the swoop of his nose. “I mean, one day, I was nobody, in a town full of nobodies. And then…” You trailed off. Sam knew your past was complicated, how you got into hunting a well kept secret held close to your chest. All he knew was that you’d lost someone important to you to something supernatural, and you had to take revenge.
“So that place, it reminded you of…?” Sam trailed off, leaving the end of his sentence hanging for you to pick up.
“I guess, it just reminded me of… well, it reminded me of my best friend’s funeral. I was the only one who showed up, the same as I was the only one that showed up to the funerals in that town.”
Sam sighed, nodding slowly. You looked over at him again, making eye contact. You leaned over and lay your head on his shoulder, hearing his breath hitch.
“You always do that.” You mumbled. “You always breathe in like I’m hurting you whenever I touch you.”
Sam’s arm snakes behind you, running a gentle hand over your hair. “I don’t mean to. And you aren’t hurting me.”
“Why?” You whispered. “Why do you do it then?”
Sam sighed. “I… Can we do this another day? When you’re in a better mood?”
Sun pulled back, looking at Sam. “No. Why do you do it?”
Sam looked down at his lap. “I… I really like you. As more than a friend.”
You freeze, looking at the sweet man in front of you, who comforts you when you’re sad, makes you coffee just how you like it in the mornings, who knows you better than anyone else in the world.
“No. No you don’t.” You whispered, moving back off the bed and moving away from him. “You’re… No you don’t.”
Sam looked over at you, confusion and a flash of hurt in his eyes. “Yes, I do. I… I love you.”
“No! You’re… Sam Winchester, and I’m just… me. You’re perfect, and kind, and everything good, and I’m bitter, and mean, and I drink coffee like I need it to hurt me to survive.”
“That’s what I love about you! I love that you drink coffee like it owes you money, I love that you drink the strongest whiskey I’ve ever had, I love that you watch bad TV that I never understand, and that you’re mean and bitter to everyone but the people you care about. That’s what makes you… you.” Sam exclaimed, moving across the room to take your hands in his own.
You pull your hands out of his. “No. Sam, no. You’re… I’ll ruin you. I’m not good like you are. I’m rotting, I’m moldy. That rot, that mold, the badness inside of me? It’ll spread to you, it’ll cover up that goodness. I… I couldn’t stand it if I ruined the goodness inside of you. The hope, the love. I don’t hope anymore. I’ll pull you down with me. The world needs a Sam Winchester who cares. Who hopes. I don’t want to ruin that.”
Sam put his hands on your shoulders. “No. You can’t ruin it. You’re good. Hidden under the snark, and the sarcasm, and the self-doubt and self-deprication, you care too. You care about me, you care about Dean, about the world… You wouldn’t be saying any of this if you didn’t care!”
You don’t know what to say. Sam knows you better than anyone. It really sucked when you’re trying to push him away.
“Sam. I… you deserve better than me.” You whispered.
“And you deserve better than me.” Sam insisted quietly. “It’s why we deserve each other.”
“You… Sam, I can’t… do this. You… you care if you live, you care about being healthy, you care about how you look. I don’t care if I survive the next hunt. My body isn’t a temple that you can worship at. It’s not fair, to do… this, if I can’t promise that I’ll put in an effort to live on the hunts.”
Sam pulled you into a tight hug. “It’s okay. I can put in the effort for both of us.”
You take a deep breath, the scent of iron, diesel, and something sweet filling your nose. “How is that fair?” You whispered.
“I don’t care about fair.” Sam whispered against your hair. “I care about you.”
It’s a hit to the chest. It hurts, knowing that you have Sam on your side, no matter what. That he’d put in the work to have you. It makes you feel like you’re dying, right there in his arms.
You’re scared.
You haven’t felt this way for anyone since you killed your best friend, a siren’s song in your ears .
You know you wouldn’t survive if Sam succumbed to the same fate, dead, at your hands or someone else's. You’d go even crazier than you did with the siren, who looked like your best friend, hacking him to pieces with a machete, knowing it wouldn’t kill him.
If Sam died, you wouldn’t survive it.
“Okay.” You whispered. “I care about you too.”
Sam smiled against your hair. You smiled softly against his chest.
You could take the risk. It wasn’t like you cared much if you survived anyway.
But Sam was worth it.
ALL WORKS
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