TITLE: Unasked, Unanswered
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
ARCHIVE: Ask, please.
RATING: PG
POSTED: July 2, 2006
SUMMARY: Dean knew what Stanford looked like.
AUTHOR NOTES: Katya asked for "Dean or John watching unseen over Sam in Stanford." Second of two pieces, preceeded by Step One.
DISCLAIMER: Read
Dean knew what Stanford looked like. He had taken an easy stab at the address, pulled it up, and they hadn't exactly skimped on the pictures on their site. They had an online tour, for fuck's sake. Everything, every one the damn buildings, too, was red. He'd looked at the map and tried to imagine Sam confined to that specific space. Then he'd gone searching for something, anything, that would justify him and Dad going someplace that wasn't where they were right then.
Dad knew what Stanford was like. Almost two weeks after Sam took off, they'd ended up in Castle Rock Park, with no castles and a "deadly force" that turned out to be an injured and really ticked off mountain lion. And while Dean had relieved his frustration by relieving a local of his pool-playing pride, his hard-earned money, and not his girl (call it standards, call it caution, whatever; there were lines), Dad had apparently taken a little drive. Dean had known where to almost the moment he'd opened the door their empty room. Too bone tired for the hurt that went through him again, Dean had fallen back on his bed, arm over his eyes, and hadn't moved, even when the door opened again at 3 a.m. "He's alive," he'd said. "Yeah," Dad had answered. And that had been that.
There were times when they inched further west again -- when they were pointed that way for a while before Dad said, "I'm going" -- and Dean thought, Maybe this time. Maybe he would go with Dad this time, see Sam this time. He didn't know what would come of his mouth if he did, though. He didn't trust that he wouldn't slam Sam up against the nearest hard object, preferably something tall enough to knock against his head, just before shoving Sam into the car and never letting him out of his sight ever again.
Dean could see the campus in his head, could picture the girls, the geeks, the jocks. He couldn't see where Sam fit, but he knew Sam would've picked a group and stuck with it, like he always had.
He wondered where Sam was living once June rolled around and classes let up and, hell, did dorms stay open in the summer for kids who had nowhere else to go? He really tried not to wonder whether Sam gave some lady in charge the Look and said he was an orphan or what.
He sometimes thought what would come out of him would start with "Why." But Sam's answers had developed the habit of ending with "Because" -- no need to wonder where he'd picked that up -- and Dean really didn't think that a year with big-time professors would have taught him better, except maybe how to say it in more words. It was enough that Dad said Sam had kept growing, defying all laws of nature and moral right, but this last time it looked like he might've stopped.
It took Dad coming back with this funny little smile on his face. He had this smile and a story of a sunny girl with hair like Mom's and a laugh that made Sam light right up. "Kissed her like he meant business," Dad said, looking as proud as when Sam had first flipped Caleb to the ground, and Dean suddenly had to see.
They split up in Ballard. Dad went north, Dean went south. "See you in a week," Dean said, and they both knew he'd be in South Dakota exactly then.
Stanford in October was overrun with kids. Dean had been on his share of campuses, had walked into his share of offices in search of more information, so it wasn't like he hadn't seen students in a while, but these ones all looked so, so young, and Dean wondered how the hell Dad ever fit in.
He had to lay out a little extra charm to get Sam's schedule out of a dark-haired assistant in the registrar's office, leaning in with a sigh and smile and no, no problem, just, you know, save the most-boring routine stuff for the new guy, to go with the FBI ID. She was worth it, and if Dean hadn't immediately looked at the paper she handed him, he might have lingered for a while, seen what it turned into. Sam's last class for the day was halfway across campus, though, and ending in twenty minutes. So Dean took the note she handed him, too, with the office number printed up in the corner and hers in neat writing across the middle, and he gave in to a regretful sigh as he left.
Two seconds after getting to the right building, Dean tossed the idea of standing anywhere by the door. Without a handy crowd of students to keep Sam from spotting him the moment he walked out the door -- not even a little chatty gathering, where the hell did everyone go? -- that was flat out dumb.
In the end, Dean didn't go for cover; he went with distance. He stood there in plain sight, not right up front but like he belonged there.
Sam wasn't looking, anyway.
Dad hadn't been exaggerating. The girl laughing up at Sam was bright enough to see from any distance, or it could've been her and Sam put together, standing so close. Not that anyone else seemed to notice. They probably didn't know that Sam didn't smile like that, not even for Dean, not for a long time.
Had Sam managed to get Dad out of his head? Had he pushed Dean out, too, to get it to happen?
Dean relaxed his hands on a deep breath, letting the tension go with the exhale. And when Sam and his girl headed off toward the quad, Dean followed, tracking them easily with Sam's head still poking up above everyone else's. Maybe he didn't want answers, but knowing only this of what Sam at Stanford looked like, yeah, that wasn't enough.
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