Work Text:
When Sam gets out of the shower, the light on the answering machine is blinking, but there is no message. Just the beep, a few seconds of silence, and the hang-up click. One of his roommates' friends, probably, somebody who forgot that just about everybody has gone for the holiday. He erases the blank message.
The apartment is too quiet; he dresses quickly and heads out. Campus is nearly deserted, the lawns and sidewalks empty despite the warm weather. He walks for a long time, no real destination in mind, and eventually ends up in downtown Palo Alto. As evening falls, the shops and restaurants are bustling with activity, couples and families hurrying to make the most of the last few days before Christmas, lights in storefronts and annoying music on the air.
Sam browses through the bookstore, but he's both broke and restless, so he doesn't stay long. He heads back toward campus, hands tucked into his pockets, head bent to watch his feet on the pale pavement. He ignores the voice in the back of his mind telling him that he's being careless, he's out of practice, he should be watching his surroundings, he should be paying attention. He refuses to raise his head, to peer into the shadows, to startle at every unexpected noise.
He tells himself -- and the voice that he's ignoring, if only it weren't so stubborn -- that he isn't out of practice. He just doesn't care.
Outside the apartment he stops to check the mail: a couple of cards for his roommates, the utilities bill, a few credit card offers, and a key to one of the larger mailboxes. He finds the correct box and opens it up. There's a cardboard package inside, nothing unusual. His roommates are always getting packages: things they order, things their moms send, the things people want around them when they settle down and fill a place -- a home -- with stuff. Sam barely glances at the box before tucking it under his arm and turning toward the steps.
Then he stops and looks at the package again.
To: Sam Winchester
He blinks, and his heart starts to beat rapidly.
Illinois postmark. No return address.
Sam puts the package under his arm again and climbs upstairs to the apartment. He unlocks the door, lets himself in. He hangs his keys on the hook and sets the package on the coffee table. He takes off his jacket, turns on the lights, puts the other mail on the counter, opens the utilities bill and sticks it to the fridge with a magnet.
Then he goes over to the couch and sits down in front of the box.
To: Sam Winchester
His first thought: Well, there's no mistaking that handwriting, anyway.
His second thought: It only took them four fucking months to acknowledge that I'm still alive.
But he doesn't let that thought go any further. He uses a pen to punch through the tape on the package and pulls it open.
The contents are well-hidden under scrunched-up newspapers -- The Denver Post, he notices, not an Illinois paper at all -- and as he removes each item from the box he doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. There's a knife, a good, sturdy knife, six inches long, and whetstone and leather sheath to go with it. There's a glass bottle filled with some clear liquid; it's anybody's guess whether it contains vodka or holy water. There's a peculiar necklace of some sort, a round stone with a hole in the center, etched with markings he doesn't recognize.
There's also a photograph, a grainy, faded four-by-six in a simple frame. Two smiling faces, not quite strangers. Mom and Dad. He recognizes the picture and the cheap metal frame; it has sat by his brother's bedside, even when there wasn't any bed to speak of, for as long as he can remember.
And at the bottom of the box, beneath the last of the newspaper, he finds a postcard taped to a box of condoms.
On the front of the postcard is the Chicago skyline; on the back there are only a few scrawled words:
Because there are dangerous creatures everywhere, even in California.
No signature. No Merry Christmas or Hope you're doing alright. Sam sighs and tosses the card and the condoms aside with the rest of the stuff.
He thinks: It's not like I expected anything else.
But he knows that isn't the whole truth. The whole truth is he didn't expect anything at all.
Shaking his head, Sam reaches over and picks up the knife again. It is a very good knife, much better than the one he left behind. He examines the blade, looking at his sliver of reflection on the smooth surface, and decides not to wonder what sort of money paid for it. Legal or not, it's the same money that paid for his cross-country bus ticket after their father had refused, the same money that kept him alive before the scholarship kicked in and he could find a job. It's better not to think about where it came from.
He looks at the cardboard box again. Still an Illinois postmark, still no return address.
He looks across the room at the telephone. No calls while he was out.
Then he reaches over, grabs the whetstone, and begins to sharpen the knife. The stone whispers across the blade, and the soft, familiar sound chases the silence away from the empty apartment.