Title: Late Nights and Long-distance Calls [ficlet]
Author: alakewood
Warnings: None, really.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1300+
Summary: Sam's gone to Stanford, John's abandoned Dean, and both Winchester boys are lonely. This is how Sam's Stanford experience should have ended.
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.

oxoxo

John's been gone for two months, hasn't called, left Dean when he'd finally sobered up after the week-long binge on cheap whiskey that resulted from Sam's sudden departure. But Dean had been there for that argument and all the blame rested squarely on their father's shoulders. He'd given Sam an ultimatum and even Dean knew he'd pushed too hard. Of course, Dean hadn't done anything to stop Sam from leaving. Probably wasn't anything he could have done.

Dean didn't stick around the house they'd been renting much longer than John had – he couldn't afford it for one, and two... Well, he couldn't walk into the kitchen without seeing that look on Sam's face. The disbelief that slowly slipped into detached resignation. Part of that was Dean's fault, too. So now he's squatting in a small one-story on the outskirts of town. The previous owners didn't take much with them because the house is fully furnished. Even if everything is dusty and falling apart and smells slightly of decaying leaves, it's by far not the worst place Dean's lived. There's no electricity and no running water, but all Dean needs is a roof over his head and a place to sleep.

There's really nowhere else for him to go: John took the car and nearly all the money they had, all the weapons except what Dean kept in his room. He has his duffels of clothes, his jacket and a pair of boots, his bowie, and his favorite colt with two extra cartridges.

The wrinkled twenty in his wallet he'd been holding onto since sometime last fall when they passed through Memphis gets slapped down on the edge of a dingy pool table in a smoky bar. He leaves with eighty dollars after two games, not wanting to press his luck, and stops at a gas station on his way back home.

It's warm out and the condensation from the glass bottles has the cardboard container soft and sagging after the three-mile walk. Even with the windows open, the house is stuffy, there's a slight breeze outside that's blocked by the windbreak on the north side of the house and Dean leaves the six-back on the kitchen counter as he goes back into the living room for the ratty, gray-and-blue striped loveseat and drags it outside. The back of the small couch catches on the doorway, the thin fabric tearing and exposing the pale wood beneath it. He settles it out in the middle of the yard where the neglected grass is almost tall enough to reach the cushions and the ground starts to gently slop down to the fields that stretch out for miles around the town. The wheat stalks are tall and golden in the sunlight, but in the darkness of the moonless night, the field looks like a narrow sea.

Dean goes back in for his beer and returns to the couch, dropping onto the sagging cushions and slouching down until his head is resting on the back of the couch. He opens his first beer and flicks the metal cap towards the field. It lands with a soft sound in the grass.

The condensation on the bottle gathers at his fingertips and slowly starts running down his hand towards his wrist. The sensation raises goosebumps along his skin and it makes him hate that he can feel anything for one confusing moment before he's drying his arm and hand off on his thigh.

He sits there in the dark, in the quiet, and drinks the entire six-pack, thumb of his left hand idly tracing over the cell phone wedged into his pocket, wondering the whole time what Sam's doing and if he's okay.

oxo

Sam has survived the semester, but barely. He's always done well in school, has always been one of the brightest students in whatever class he's taking, but he wasn't prepared for the caliber of students a place like Stanford drew. He knows he's smart, but it seems like all of his peers are smarter. Smarter and richer and Sam suddenly doesn't know why this is what he wanted.

When he'd first gotten off the bus on Palo Alto, all he'd had was one bag of possessions and not much has changed since then. He'd found an abandoned apartment complex to squat in while he found a job washing dishes in a greasy diner that reminded him of the thousand other diners he'd ever been in. It reminded him of Dean, even his dad, and he hated that it made him second-guess his decision to leave. But he'd eventually saved up enough money to buy some clothes that were new – not Dean's hand-me-downs or something pulled off a rusting hanger at a Goodwill – and many textbooks he would need for his classes.

Living in the dorm was a different experience altogether and it took him weeks to get used to the strange sounds Brady made in his sleep. Again, he wished for Dean, for the familiarity of his brother and his presence, the quiet hush of his breathing. Sam wandered around like a zombie from his lack of sleep for a month before he learned to tune Brady out.

But, even when he was getting more sleep, his coursework didn't seem to get any easier. He was close to flunking out of half of his classes and was struggling through them all. And there was nobody he could turn to for help or even vent to because he still hadn't made any friends. It was frustrating but Sam had to stick it out. This was the choice he made.

But the semester's over and his stomach hasn't yet untwisted from the stress-knot it coiled itself into as finals descended upon him. He can't take another semester of living like an outsider like this, the mockery he faces from his classmates and the arrogance of most of his professors. Winter break starts in a couple of days and Sam can't stay in the dorm, has to find somewhere else to go, and the decision is surprisingly easy.

He's just finished up his shift at the diner and is on his way back to campus when he realizes what he wants to do. There's a graffitied payphone in the Shell parking lot on the corner of Matadero and El Camino Real and he digs through the change from his tips in his pocket for a quarter and a dime and prays that Dean's number hasn't changed in the six months since he left.

The line rings and rings and rings again and Sam feels the hope in his chest shriveling into some heavy, dark thing before the sixth ring is interrupted. "Yeah?"

Sam's hope flares painfully bright at the sound of his bother's tired voice. "Dean?"

There's a long pause. "Sammy?"

"Yeah. Hey."

"Hey, yourself."

"What are you doing?"

"Seriously? We haven't talked in months and that's the first thing you want to know?"

"Well, yeah. Kinda. Because my next question- My next question is: can you come get me?"

"Sam..."

"I hate it here. And I miss you."

Dean's silence stretches out long enough Sam wonders if the call's been disconnected.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Sammy, I heard you. Look, Dad's gone so I don't have a car, but I'll find one and I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Yeah?"

"Of course. Is this your- is this the number for your dorm room?"

"Uh, no. I'm calling from a payphone." Sam rambles off the phone number he barely remembers and rarely uses. "You'll call when you leave?"

"Yeah. And as soon as I get there. Just give me two days, okay?"

The knot in Sam's stomach starts to loosen. "Two days. Okay. I'll see you then."

"Hey, Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

"I miss you, too."