Work Text:
Claire took a week to approach Sam. He saw her, stalking him, watching him, and he couldn’t bear to be the one to break first. So he let her. He made regular trips to the library, picked the same aisles at the grocery store, always used the turn signals on his economy car. He made it easy and he didn’t know why. He didn’t want to talk to her, but, he’d feel bad if she didn’t have a chance. There was something deeply, deeply wrong with him.
Finally, when he was having lunch alone in the same vegan place he’d been to every day that week, a blonde head appeared over the top of his book. Claire had sat down right in front of him.
He stared at her. He hadn’t planned what he’d say, if she did eventually approach him, and she didn’t say anything, either.
“You’re bad at tracking,” he said bluntly.
She shrugged and took a casava chip off his plate. “I knew you saw me.” Her nose wrinkled at the taste of the chip. “What the hell are you eating? None of this is real food.”
Sam didn’t grace that with a response. “Why are you here, Claire?”
And she couldn’t meet his eyes for that. She took another chip off his plate, just to have something to do with her hands. Sam didn’t push it. He took a bite of his wrap and chewed slowly, giving her all the space she needed. Claire still didn’t have an answer.
“I don’t know where he is,” Sam muttered. “If you’re looking. I don’t know. I gave up. I haven’t seen him, or Cas, or anyone in a very long time.”
Claire curled in on herself. Sam felt bad, but it had to be said—he wasn’t any kind of source for her. He couldn’t help. She would be better off checking the news for streaks of murders, but she had to have known that already.
“I’m not looking for anyone else. I came to see you.”
Sam pushed his plate away, wrap half-eaten. Claire took another cassava chip. Despite her complaint, she seemed to be enjoying them. “You can come to my place, but you’ll have to sleep on the sofa.”
“I’ve slept in worse places.”
Sam didn’t like that. He pulled on his coat and led her outside. Their cars were parked together in the parking lot – an old beat up Ford truck, back covered in colorful bumper stickers, and a not-new silver Prius with no defining characteristics. “You can follow behind me. I don’t live far.”
He got in his car and started it up. He shivered. He turned to look at Claire, who was buckling up inside her car and turning on the radio and turning to him. She watched him watching her. He offered up a sad smile, then drove out of the parking lot with Claire following right behind him. He kept his eyes on her truck in the rearview the whole way to his new apartment, making sure he didn’t lose her for a second.
They both parked right in front of it, and she grimaced at… everything. It wasn’t a nice place. The lot was strewn with dead plants and thriving weeds. The exterior paint was cracked and fading. It looked half-abandoned, like the owners had given up on it a long time ago and only kept it around to squeeze that last bit of money out of hopeless cases like Sam. And Claire, now, too.
She followed him up the stairs to the second floor, and waited patiently for him to unlock the door. The key stuck sometimes. Most times.
“It’s kind of a mess. I didn’t know you would want to come in,” he said as he held the door open for her.
She found the light switch on her own, and— yeah, a mess. It was worse than he’d remembered. The cramped living room had a sweater and two wrinkled shirts strewn across the couch, books all over the coffee table, food wrappers, only half-empty, and dirty plates framing it all. The kitchen was a nightmare, all his dishes crusty and piled up in the sink. An unwashed pot on the stove. Food scraps and crumbs littering the unswept floor.
Claire just shrugged it off and dumped her scarf and backpack on the floor next to the couch. “It’s not so bad.”
He wanted to apologize but he didn’t. He picked up the clothes from the couch and put them on the floor so she would have a place to sit. And she did.
“Why are you here?” Sam asked. “I’m not… Whatever you need, I don’t have it. You should go back to Jody’s. Go back to your sister.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “Jody doesn’t understand.” She tipped her head at the empty bottles on the floor (and table, and countertop). “You know, it’s polite to offer your guest a drink.”
Sam absentmindedly took two beers from his refrigerator, then looked at her and hesitated. She was so young, and she wore her youth sharply on her face. Was she even 21? He hated that he didn’t know her age. He and Dean started drinking much younger, but… he couldn’t do this.
“Sam.” Her voice snapped him out of it. “You don’t have to give it to me, but if I can’t drink, you can’t drink.”
That seemed fair enough. He put the bottles back in the fridge and sat down next to her on the couch.
“What doesn’t Jody understand?” he asked, carefully picking up the thread of conversation as well as he could.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I just need to be here for a while.”
Sam stood up suddenly. He retrieved the two beers from the fridge and sat back down. He hadn’t brought the bottle opener (and who knew where it even was in his sloppy little apartment) so he opened them by setting the edge of the cap over the edge of the coffee table and slamming the heel of his palm down over each of them. He handed one to Claire.
“I– I’m not getting you drunk for the purpose of, of taking advantage of you, in any way. You’re a guest. You’re sleeping on the couch.” It felt stupid to say out loud but he needed her to know.
Claire took a sip from the bottle and gagged a little. He felt bad. He should have had something better for her than cheap old beer. “I know, Sam. You’re not gonna hurt me. I know.”
Sam shook his head. “You shouldn’t be so trusting. You need to take better care of yourself.”
“You’re not going to hurt me, Sam. If you were, you would have done it by now. You’re strong enough that you don’t need me drunk. And besides, I know you. You wouldn’t touch a hair on my head, even if I asked you to.”
And instead of asking why she thought she might ask him to, he just mumbed— “Please don’t ask me to.”
She took a swig and swallowed it down quickly.
“You get used to the taste,” he offered. “I have more cassava chips, if you want.”
She nodded, so he got up again to get them from the cabinet above the microwave. The bag was mostly-full. At least he had one thing right.
He handed them to her.
“I don’t have a TV, or anything. I don’t know what you want to do here. You can take the keys if you want to go out, just… let me know where you’re going, and give me a phone number, if you go.”
Claire kicked her shoes off and pulled her feet up, curling herself so small on his couch. He felt huge in comparison. “I want to stay here. Can we watch something on your laptop?”
He went to his bedroom to grab his laptop, and when he came back Claire had cleared a spot on the coffee table. The books were stacked neatly and she was shoving old bottles into a trash bag with her nose wrinkled.
“You don’t need to– Thank you,” he mumbled. It was bad enough to bring her here, but for her to clean it for him? He set the laptop on the table and took the bag from her. “You find something for us to watch, and I’ll… I can do this.”
“Okay.” She opened the laptop and went straight to his Netflix account. He picked up all the food wrappers and bottles. That was good enough for now. He tied off the trash bag and set it in the kitchen, out of their way. The apartment already felt nicer, just from that.
He sat down next to her, pressed against the armrest to be as far away from her as possible. She pressed play on the movie she’d picked and he drank his beer in silence.
“I found Dean,” she said, speaking over the movie. Sam froze. He didn’e want to hear that, didn’t want to know. He rubbed his wrist, still pins-and-needles aching at the thought of his brother. She didn’t say anything else for a while, and Sam was too afraid to push.
They watched the whole movie in tense silence. They were both on their third beers. It got dark outside. Sam wondered if he should offer to cook for her, or if she would be okay with ordering in. Dinner was always rough. He knew he wasn’t eating properly, but having someone else in his apartment brought it all to a head. He was spiralling.
“Are you okay?” Claire asked gently. He was that obvious. She must have thought he was a loser, pathetic, whiny, useless— “Sam?”
Sam scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m just not used to visitors. Sorry.”
“Why are you here?” she asked, turning the tables on him. “Why did you move out of the Bunker?”
Sam winced. He didn’t want to answer it. But… “If I tell you, will you tell me what the hell is going on with you?”
“Sure, whatever.”
“I…” Sam tugged on his sleeves. It was harder to articulate than he’d thought it would be. “There were too many bad memories. Too much blood. I couldn’t do it.”
“Has he tried to find you?”
Sam laughed, dry and empty. “He doesn’t give a shit about me, as long as I stay out of his way. And that’s what I plan to do. I gave up.”
Claire raised an eyebrow at him. “You think Dean doesn’t care about you?”
“Did you— Did he say something?”
Claire pursed her lips. Took another gulp of beer before speaking. “He said he’s staying away from you, because he’s terrified, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he sees you again. But I don’t think he’s that good at staying away. He’s the one who gave me your town.”
All the blood drained out of Sam’s face. Dean knew where he was. Dean was watching him. He could be dead right now, if Dean had just a little less control over himself. “No.”
“No?”
“We need to–” Sam got up and closed the curtains, lowered his voice. “We need to get out of here. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill us. This isn’t a safe… We need to go, right now.”
Claire shook her head. “SIt down. He’s nowhere near here, and he doesn’t want to kill you. Didn’t you hear what I said? He’s staying away. He’s avoiding you. That’s why I’m here… I want him to avoid me, too.”
Sam clenched his hands into fists. He was sweating, shaking. He felt crazy .
“Why– Why did he tell you all this? Did he send you here?”
Claire sighed. She looked at him for a very long time before speaking. “I had sex with your brother.”
Sam didn’t know how he was supposed to react. Dean was, historically, a great lay. But with the Mark he’d become rough and violent and mean . Claire deserved better than whatever Dean had done to her. But girls her age didn’t like hearing that.
“It was sex, at first, but then it… It wasn’t really sex. He hurt me, I don’t know. I didn’t know where to go.” Clare twisted her fingers in her hair. “Jody would have been mad at me for sleeping with him in the first place. Alex would have been jealous, because she’s had a little crush on him since he saved her from the vampire den. And I don’t have other friends. So I’m here now, and we’re not leaving, because he doesn’t want to see us either.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. It wasn’t nearly enough but it was all he had.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to be sorry. Just… let me stay. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Sam nodded.
Claire finished off her beer and slumped down low on the couch.
“Do you— Are you hungry? I can pick up something, if…”
Claire shook her head. “Don’t leave me.”
“Okay.” Sam sat back down on the couch and put a gentle hand on her shoulder, trying his best to be comforting. “I won’t leave. And you can, you can stay as long as you want.”
Claire leaned closer to him. “Thanks.”
“I’ll order a pizza.”
“A real pizza? Not your vegan health food crap?”
Sam smiled. “A real pizza. Whatever you want.”
Claire nodded and laid her head on his shoulder as he called the local pizza place. They did deliver. One large cheese, one large pepperoni. It was a little much for the two of them, but Sam was used to having Dean around. And besides, it would be nice to have leftovers to eat tomorrow, too.
“Can I ask you something personal?” Claire asked. She was still leaning on his shoulder, so they couldn’t make eye contact. It was easier this way.
“Sure, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer it.”
He felt Claire nod. “Were you raped?”
Sam’s chest got tight. “It’s complicated.”
“I know, but… I also know you were in Hell with Lucifer. I know he tortured you. I know Dean is weird about you, and your body, and you having sex.”
Sam shook his head. Dean told some hookup about all this? Or did someone else tell her? Did everyone know? Was is so obvious, that Sam was a victim … Can’t be a victim if you let it happen , Lucifer’s voice supplied in his head. Dumb bitches who are too weak to fight back don’t get sympathy .
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. You don’t have to talk about it.”
“I– I was. I was raped . But it wasn’t just that. It’s… I can’t talk about it. I can’t let it come back.”
Claire sat up and started unbuttoning her cardigan. Sam shifted, uncomfortable. He didn’t know what she was doing, and he didn’t want her to take off her clothes around him. Not when she was less sober than him and already hurting. He didn’t want to sleep with her and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings by turning her down.
But she didn’t take it off, not all the way. Her neck and chest were littered with bruises, from deep purple to sickly yellow. A large bandage and gauze wrapping covered her soft lower belly. Sam didn’t want to see.
“Claire…”
She unwrapped it anyway.
BITCH , carved into her skin deep enough that the scars would remain forever. Sam shivered.
Claire kept her eyes on him, watching for his reaction. Refusing to look down at her own body.
“You don’t deserve this. I’ll– I…”
“When he was cutting me up, he said— he said, just like Sammy . And that scared me more than the knife, because, well, no offense, but—” she gestured to the room around them— “You’re miserable . I didn’t want to be just like you.”
Sam flinched. She wasn’t wrong. “I’ll get you more bandages. And antibiotics. Wait here.”
Claire went quiet. She ghosted a hand over her wound.
She waited while Sam grabbed his first aid kit from the bathroom. He patched her up quickly and efficiently, and they didn’t speak until he was done.
“You’re not like me. He was just trying to get to you. But you– You’re going to be okay. You won’t end up like this.”
It wasn’t fair of him to promise it, but he needed her to be okay. He needed her to be better than him.
The pizza delivery interrupted their heartfelt moment, and Sam felt even worse. She was suffering, and he couldn’t even bother to cook a real homemade meal for her. But Claire didn’t complain. By the time he returned to his spot on the couch, she had set up another movie on his laptop. She took a slice of pepperoni.
“Don’t leave,” she said again, so he didn’t. They sat together. Claire was thoroughly focused on the movie, and Sam didn’t dare interrupt her except to get her a glass of water and replenish her with as much pizza as she wanted.
When they finished dinner, Claire grabbed his arm and looked him in the eye. “I don’t want to sleep alone.”
Sam cringed. He should have talked to her the moment he noticed her following him. She had been in pain alone this whole time. “You can share my bed, if you want. Or you can take the bed and I can sleep on the floor, if you would be more comfortable that way.”
“We can share.”
He led her to the bathroom, then set up on the bed with a pillow between them. He offered her his pajamas and put on an old pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. She looked so small in his clothes.
“Thanks, Sam,” she mumbled into the pillow, still tipsy even after a glass of water and some food in her belly.
“Of course. I’m here for you, for anything.”