This plotbunny was too fluffy and adorable to note write. Let me know what you think.

New Rule

It's Winchester irony that Sam's phone is across the room when it rings. He's propped up on every pillow on the bunker, dozing through his 50th episode of "Law and Order: SVU," and is just miserable enough to take advantage of his new and significantly shorter shadow. "Dean!"

Dean materializes a second later, slightly panicked. "What?! You okay?"

Sam points in a vague direction of the ringing. "My phone…on the desk."

"I got it, don't move." The fact that Dean doesn't fling obscenities or a boot at him and actually obliges is a testament to how guilt-ridden and worried he still is. He hands it to him without a word and slips out of the room.

Sam cringes at the Caller ID, and clears his throat before answering. "Hey." He attempts casual and healthy but lands on roadkill.

Jody Mills forgoes a greeting for an immediate, "What happened?"

"Jody, hey. I'm fine." There aren't any Emmys in his future.

"You know that I, a mother, a sheriff and a hunter, detect bullshit for a living, Sam. Try again."

"I-uh-got shot…a on a hunt."

Jody swears so obscenely Dean would be impressed. "And you didn't think to call anyone?! How bad?"

He frowns. "Is there a good way to get shot?"

Jody sighs to cover her laughter. "You're still a smartass, so that's a good sign. Tell me you didn't die again."

Sam's unsure of how to answer. "The bullet didn't pierce my abdominal wall, though it's torn up pretty good, and then it got infected, so I'm havin' a blast." He hadn't seen the inside of a clinic or hospital in a few days, so he considered it a win.

"I'm so sorry, Sam. Do you want to talk about it?"

Sam snapped his teeth together a few times, and shook his head abortively. "Not right now."

"Fair enough. I'll be here when you're ready, you know that. You boys need anything?"

"Your mashed potatoes and gravy," Sam jokes. "Beyond that, I just…"

"—have too much time to think?"

"Dean won't let me get out of bed or do any research, so definitely." Sam rubs his face. Pain blossoms and creates a tactile model of Corbin's hand.

The tender bruises were concealed by facial hair, but it always there, a mental booby-trap to blindside him and disrupt his hard-won peace. Right now, Sam isn't strong enough to unpack it all. Jody's always been a curious concoction of sarcasm, shrewdness and unwavering love, and he feels safe enough to be honest, though he's surprised by the emotion that rushes forth when he does. "I'm tryin' to be okay, but I'm just not."

Jody makes a motherly sound of understanding. "You're going to be fine, Sam, but you're allowed not to be a while. You should know that better than anyone."

But does he? With Amara and Lucifer on the loose, Sam doesn't have the luxury of a breakdown. He wipes his eyes angrily. This botched hunt isn't the end of days, yet and he worries that it's tarnished the goodness in him that he guards at all costs. Beyond that, he is profoundly tired.

"Get some rest, Samuel. We'll talk later."

"Thanks, Jody. I'll call you soon." He lets the phone drop, and doesn't bother trying to get comfortable, and falls asleep to the tinned sound of Olivia Benson crying.

He awakes to distinctively feminine laughter, the frenetic stomp of running through the halls of the bunker, and the smell of browned butter and herbs. Before Sam can summon the energy to investigate, Jody breezes into his bedroom bearing a dazzling grin and a bowl billowing with butter-studded white and dark gravy. "New Rule: You get shot, you get mashed potatoes."

Sam sputters with shock and fights tears as she kisses his forehead and hands him the bowl as Alex and Claire bound into the room with an obscene amount of brightly colored balloons and a giant stuffed animal tiger.

He's halfway through the bowl of steaming potatoes and gravy and well into Dean's exaggerated tale of Sam's heroics when he realizes something big: there was no shame in being a little broken right now, but what Sam had forgotten is that he had family to hold him together.