Ten minutes into Monday’s American Folklore lecture, Sam’s head is bent close to a sheet of college-rule half full of the Winchester mid-hunt shorthand. In fact, given the subject matter, the notes might as well be a poorly replicated page of his father’s journal, down to the absently doodled symbols at the corners. He’d sworn, at first, that he wouldn’t take classes like this, or Latin; he was done hunting and he’d never need any of this again. Better forgotten. After two semesters of no sleep and scraping up the grades he needed for his scholarship by the skin of his teeth, he learned that knowing a little about your electives to begin with gave you a huge advantage. And so he sat and scoffed at Bigfoot legends or nodded silently along at stories done right down to the details, dragging up memories of too-near misses and weeks spent nursing broken ribs. Sam hated American Folklore, but it beat bashing his head in over environmental science or Shakespeare.
He smiled grimly down at his desk as the left-handed seat beside him creaked. “Late, Brady. Come on, man, I told you that you’d never make it after that party last -” Sam’s voice caught in his throat when he looked up and found himself nose to nose with someone he’d never met and who was certainly not Brady. “Uh….oh. Hi.” Wow, nice, Sam. The pinnacle of sociability.
The first thing Sam really registered about the guy was the straight white glint of his smile as he cracked open his laptop, attention fixed at the screen though he’d clearly heard the greeting. “Hey, Sam. You think I could get those notes off you after class? Did you know you’re not half as easy to spot as I was led to believe?”
If the bumbling greeting hadn’t clearly tattooed “awkward” across Sam’s face, the way he was staring finished up the job. It was almost ridiculous, really, how long it took to become a normal person after eighteen years of bizarro world. Normally any eye contact, or looking right at any part of a person other than the top of their head, was a no man’s land that he still tiptoed through carefully. But Sam’s gaze stubbornly hung up on the guy’s eyes, a muted blue-green, and the overgrown arrangement of wavy dark blonde hair falling into them. Even blinking felt slow, like the air was suddenly thick with something sweet and soporific. Sam shook his head, fringe flying as he jerked himself out of whatever weird trance he’d fallen into. Man, he really needed more sleep.
“You okay, Sam?” The guy’s eyebrows knit themselves together, meeting in the middle at a mole placed just so. “Hey, if you don’t want me to sit here it’s fine, it’s just he told me…”
Finally putting together whatever manners he had outside of, “Yes, sir,” Sam ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “No, hey, I’m sorry, you just…you sort of look like… Wait, how’d you know my name?” How something like that had just slid by him until now was a true testament to how out of it he was today. That was the last time he let Brady convince him that he could go to a party and get away with not drinking.
That wide, even smile was back again and this time pointed straight at him as the guy extended his hand over the divider between their desks. “I got a text from Brady that said he wasn’t going to make it to class this morning, that a buddy of his might need some company. He could’ve done a better job describing you than ‘Sam, brown hair, gigantic, can’t miss him’ though. I’m Jesse.”
Whatever fog Sam had been floating in lifted and he flattened his bangs down over his eyes with one big hand, laughing as he shook Jesse’s with the other. “I swear to God if one more person acts like I’m the only tall guy in the world, I’m going to punch someone in the dick.”
“Shh, don’t talk to me, people will think it’s Jesse and the Beanstalk over here.”
“Oh, you jerk.” Sam froze immediately, mouth clamping tight and mind clamping tighter to keep out the shimmer of hope that rose up when he’d blurted the words. He wasn’t even sure where it had come from; yeah, the guy was blonde, but so were a million other guys and girls, and that didn’t make any of them Dean. Dean was just another thing he wasn’t going to get back again, and no matter how Jesse replied, he was a nice stranger, not a substitute brother.
“Yeah, whatever, Stretch Armstrong. Get busy on those notes so I can bug you for them later.”
They didn’t talk for the rest of the hour-long lecture beyond, “Did he say cold or rolled?” or, “Hey, grab my pen,” and Sam was left to wonder what in the hell Brady had been up to. First of all, Brady never texted before he missed class, as that meant he’d have to be awake in the first place. Even if he had been, what was he doing sending a seat warmer to entertain Sam? He figured it’d be easiest to just combine all of his questions with the carefully worded lecture he had been planning for weeks about Brady’s slipping grades and constant partying.
When they were dismissed, Sam dropped his notebook into his bag and heaved it across his shoulder, patting at his pockets to see if he’d gotten any texts on his friend’s absence as well. His eyes grew comically wide when he found his pockets empty but for his very thin, falling apart wallet and the key to his dorm room. “Shit,” he muttered to himself, dumping half of the contents of his bag onto the top of his desk and rifling through it. Not that the phone was all that important, except it was where Dad and Dean knew how to find him. Which, you know, it wasn’t like he was answering if they’d call but…well, there was no point making excuses to himself. He needed the phone.
He flinched and spun at the tap on his shoulder and Jesse laughed, offering the phone. “My number’s in there. I’m seriously going to get those notes from you. This class is so weird.” He smacked Sam on the back as he edged past and smiled over his shoulder on the way up the stairs to the back entrance. It took a minute to register what had happened and Sam was almost positive some mistake had been made. Had he just made a friend? Almost by himself? He stuffed the rest of his belongings back into his bag and trotted towards the back door, closest to the dining hall. Maybe a big greasy breakfast would help fix whatever the hell was wrong with him this morning.
Knocking heads with Brady hurt more than it had any right to, and his ears were still ringing when everyone around them started laughing good-naturedly. Sam stumbled back into the wall and clutched at the bridge of his nose, steadying himself and getting his vision straight so he could see his friend, completely unfazed and chuckling along with the people passing by. “So, how’d you like Jess?”
Blinking, Sam tilted his head and wondered if he’d heard correctly. “What?”
“I said, how’d you like Jess? You know, the guy who gave you his number not five minutes ago. Blonde hair, not a giant, big blue eyes? Ringing any bells?”
“They’re not blue, they’re….wait. That’s Jess? The Jess you’ve been talking about for two months?” Sam’s not sure if everything makes more or less sense now as he tacks together all of the things Brady has said over the past several weeks about someone he “just knew” Sam could score with, or have a relationship, or whatever he’d been looking for. He tried to remember if gender had ever come up and wondered if he’d filtered out the male pronouns by habit. Why would his friends be trying to set him up with a guy?
“Well, yeah. Jesse Moore. I’ve been trying to get you two idiots together since I met him. You like him right? Not too short for you? The moles don’t get to you, right? I thought they wouldn’t, ‘cause, you know, you’re not exactly Mr. Blemish-Free.”
It took a minute to process that Brady was simply standing there acting as if class had been a blind date. With a guy, no less, when Sam had never shown any interest in….well, honestly, he hadn’t shown much interest in anyone here at Stanford when it came right down to it, but now it seemed that everyone translated “doesn’t fuck every girl in sight” as “obviously gay.” He didn’t know what to do or say to clear everything up, so he took a page out of his brother’s book and frogged Brady hard in the arm before storming off toward that cafeteria.
“Hey, fuck you, man!” he yelled good-naturedly at Sam’s back, grinning. “I’ll remember that when you invite me to your wedding!”
