theshot_yougot | (no subject)

(no subject)

The drive home, one minor breakdown aside, is pleasant and chatty; unusual mostly in being more chatty than usual. Occasionally Leah will let a silence fall for long enough to be comfortable, but she always pushes for a conversation when a topic occurs to her.

She wants to hear him.

When they get to her apartment, she's acting more or less like herself, finding her way from the car to her door, inviting Sam in and immediately heading for the kitchen.

"I don't know about you, but I'm dying for a drink."

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Sam freezes. There's not much breathing to listen to for a moment.

But only a moment. Then he's swallowing, keeping his eyes down on the cup in his hands.

"Leah..."

She swallows back the sudden 'I take it back' that's bubbling up in her throat - physically swallows, as well - and instead tilts her head, waiting for the end of what he's going to say.

It doesn't have to mean anything. She's had a hard time today. He's one of her only friends.

He glances at her.

"Okay."

She smiles again - it's doesn't reach any further than her mouth, but it's definitely relieved.

"I know you probably want to get to Dean, but I don't want to be alone, yet."

Though even saying it out loud makes her wince.

Sam shakes his head automatically, still looking down at his drink. "Dean's been staying with Jo for a couple of months. He'll probably go straight to her place."

He doesn't have anywhere else to be. And even if he did... well, that's not the point.

At least that's something else for them to talk about.

"Yeah? I should really get to know Jo better."

Dean, too, for that matter.

"Good luck with that," Sam notes, smiling a little. "She doesn't make it easy."

Or maybe that's just on Winchesters.

"So what else is new?" Leah says, a teasing element in her voice. "You're not exactly Mr. Transparent."

All right, she's got him there. But she's at least got him a little sheepish for it.

"Back at you," Sam points out.

"Not true," Leah objects, sounding only a little put out. "You just never ask."

Okay, fine. She's got him again. The silence at the other end of the couch is just a little more uncomfortable now.

"The answers," Sam says quietly.

She bites her lip, knowing instantly which question this is an answer to. But as it's on the table...

"...what about them?"

"You asked why I quit asking so many questions."

Sam hesitates, fiddling with the handle of the little cup in his hands. It settles onto the coffee table with a small clink noise.

"Part of it... you start getting answers you don't want to hear. You don't need to hear, sometimes."

"Oh."

Which is better than asking for examples. She can imagine examples.

"I think I'd rather have the answers than not know."

Sam's hesitation this time has little to do with discomfort.

"Somehow, I doubt you were getting the same answers."

"Maybe," she says with a quick smile than doesn't agree with him so much as reinforce the 'maybe'.

"That depends on the question."

He glances at her, frowning, but says nothing.

"The other reason," Sam says instead, "is that once you start asking questions, when you're not doing an interview, like a job, people start thinking they can start asking questions back."

That she understands, and nods.

"There's that, I suppose. when you've got a secret as big as the ones we used to have."

Used to, of course. It's no secret now. Not That one. the others... well.

'Used to' gets a glance. It's... not exactly guilty. But it's something close.

He'd tried to tell Dean some of it once. It-- didn't go well. And that was just a fraction, with a brother who believes family is everything. If Leah ever knew...

"Yeah. I guess."

"For the record?" Leah asks, seemingly apropos of nothing much.

"Chances are I won't give a damn. I've had some pretty big answers.

"Doesn't mean I'm going to ask."

He's quiet again.

"Chances are, Leah? If you asked, and I answered, you'd never let me in here again."

In response to that, she grins quickly.

"Then thank God I'm not asking, huh?"

Sam's not smiling. It's always felt a little like lying to her. Now it feels like she's forgiven him without knowing a word of any of it.

It makes it worse, somehow.

If he had any decency, if he were half the man or had half the character of his brother or, in some respects that leave a sour taste in his mouth, his father, Sam would walk out now. Before this got any deeper than it already was.

"I'll just... stay on the couch, huh?"

"Sure," she says, with easy indifference that is only belied by the second it takes to say it. "I'll get you blankets."

She puts her now-cold empty cup next to his, and holds them both as if about to get up with them.

But the way he said it, like there was an alternative - an alternative she's still, after all this time, trying to stop herself considering - that's way she doesn't get up to do as she promises.

He'd just been looking at the table and, as a side-effect, her hands on the cups. But when she pauses, Sam looks over at her.