Phone Works Two Ways, You Know

phone works two ways, you know

pairing: sam winchester x fem reader 5.2k

summary: stories of that one time sam surprises you, that one time you surprise sam, and that one time you surprise each other

contents: childhood bsfs to ‘i sometimes want to kiss you but like the normal amount’ to strangers trope will always be loved by me

notes: title from baby came home 2 by the nbhd. this is set during season one because ive only watched the first season of spn lol. this fact also makes me not liable for mischaracterization ok enjoy please!

— thank u to the lovely @locknco for editing this love ya

Nightmares follow Sam Winchester like a moth to a flame.

Most of the time, they’re about Jess. Before the nightmare even starts, he knows what he’s about to see because it’s always the same.

The steady drip of blood against his forehead.

The burst of unbearable heat exploding against the ceiling.

The guilt that creeps in every time without fail.

He wakes up from those nightmares with his heart pounding and a blanket of grief smothering his lungs.

But sometimes, Sam Winchester is lucky.

Sometimes, Sam Winchester dreams of you.

—

Sam wipes his eyes as he stands over your bed.

It’s your actual bed, and not one at a crappy motel in the middle of nowhere. It’s unfortunately humid since it’s creeping toward the middle of August, but Sam doesn’t care. It’s a pretty special occasion — you’re taking a break from hunting for a few days.

He’d been beyond surprised when you’d told him. Catching you at your house during the summer was near impossible with the way your parents ran you around the country, so all your free weekends were taken advantage of.

John had dragged him and Dean to a case just a state over from yours, and Sam had realized it was the closest they’d been to your house in a while. The second the bones had gone up in a pile of salty flames, he was halfway to the nearest bus station and on his way to your city.

The bus pulled in late, and the long walk to your neighborhood meant Sam arrived even later. He wondered if your parents were home and decided he hoped they wouldn’t be. The last thing he wanted them to see was the pitiful sight of him walking through their front door at four in the morning.

And despite the way you insisted it wasn’t true, Sam knew your parents didn’t like him. He’d probably be seeing the barrel of your mom’s revolver before he saw her smile at him.

(“It’s not smart to be telling people the code to your house alarm.”

You laugh in that girly way you do sometimes. Sam imagines you twirling the coiled wire of your phone cord and his throat runs dry.

“Come on. It’s just you, Sam. And how else are you going to sneak into my house?”

Your parents change the code to disarm the alarm every two weeks as a precautionary measure, and you never forget to update him everytime it changes. Sam thinks it’s sweet, but the both of you know he’s barely lucky enough to get the time to call you. The stars would have to align for him to come visit.

“I’ll go in through your window,” Sam says.

There’s a small lift in your voice. “I’ll make sure to double check it’s not you when I throw a knife at the freak climbing up the side of my house.”)

Zero-five-zero-two-eight-three, you’d told him last week.

He’d gone silent on the other end when the numbers clicked in his mind — his birthday. The code to your house right now was his birthday.

Your dad had been too busy to set it, so you’d done it yourself, using the first six numbers that came to mind.

His birthday, apparently.

Sam tries not to think about it too hard.

But now he’s here, standing over your bed and trying not to pass out from exhaustion on your carpet.

Your room looks slightly different from the last time he visited. The walls are a new shade of your favorite color, and the old desk that was in the corner has been replaced with a vanity. There’s pictures of your hometown friends pinned all around the glass, but there’s a few photos he does recognize.

One is from your ninth birthday. Dean had smashed your cake in your face, as expected from the then thirteen-year-old, and you’d clocked him with your fist a second after. The photo was taken post-punch, and you’re grinning through the frosting on your eyes while Dean clutches his face.

The other picture is of you and him from when you were both about twelve. He’s sitting between your legs, laying against your stomach with your American Girl doll in his lap. He’s braiding her hair using the instructions in an old book of yours, and you’d shoved the camera in his face before he could stop you. The photo captured him glaring into the lens of the camera, his thick brown hair pulled into two pigtails on top of his head.

It’s nearly cut out of the frame, but you’re smiling so hard behind him it makes your entire face light up. It’s one of Sam’s favorite pictures of you.

Now, you’re a lump on your full sized mattress, a new step up from your trusty twin bed. The blanket thrown over you has little flowers on it that match your bedsheets, which he already knows you’re very proud of. Still asleep, you roll over onto your back, and that exhaustion from earlier comes back with a vengeance.

Sam drops his jacket onto the heap of clothes on your chair and works to unzip his jeans before his legs give out.

If you were awake, you’d slap him on the back for that, a teasing grin on your face. “I would’ve brought some cash if I knew you were going to strip for me!” you would probably say, like a menace.

He can’t wait for you to wake up so you can annoy him even more.

Sam’s left in a pair of boxers and a baseball t-shirt from a supermarket in Pennsylvania, sweating even in your air conditioning. When he lifts the covers off the bed, he freezes.

You’re wearing a shirt he’d given to you as a souvenir a few months ago. A movie theater in Jersey they helped with their ghost problem gave them a free shirt in return. The cartoon penguin smiles at him now, balancing on one foot with his arms out, like he’s surfing. Sam smiles back while he settles in next to you.

Now that your bed is bigger, there’s more than enough room for the both of you, which is good since it’s so hot out. It means there’s no need to sleep piled up like you had to in the past.

…but Sam hasn’t seen you since that time your families had run into each other in New Mexico, and he hasn’t slept with you like this since you’d been home during your finals week a few months ago.

Under the eye of the penguin on your shirt, he slides one arm below your side pinned to the bed and uses it to pull you against him.

You complain up a storm, even asleep, but settle down quickly. He wonders if you’ll kick him in your sleep again, claiming you were dreaming of being a soccer player.

With your face pressed to the spot between Sam’s arm and shoulder, he listens intently to the nonsensical string of words you mumble out against his skin. Your musings only get more muffled as you press even further into him, throwing your arm over his torso and staying there.

Sam’s hand kindly soothes over your hip, where your shorts have little pink clouds printed on them.

“Woah,” you grumble, dragging out the word. Your hand flexes and then clenches into the fabric of his shirt. “Woah.”

His eyes dart to you embarrassingly fast, guilty for disturbing you but more than excited that you’re awake. Your voice always sounds sweeter in person than it does over the phone.

When he finds your face in the darkness, he realizes your eyes are still shut. Sam runs his hand up your side, warm with sleep. “Hey. You okay?”

Your mouth twitches into a frown. “My friend. My friend’ll do it.”

Oh, he realizes. You’re just sleep talking.

“Okay,” he answers quietly. He wants to hear your voice again, but he also wants you to go back to sleep. You only really mumble like this when you’re about to wake up from a dream. “Sorry,” Sam adds, though he’s not sure what for.

Your face screws up, but then you sigh sweetly against his chest. “Dean?”

(Even when Sam dreams of this, he still feels like you’ve beaten him over the head with that single word.)

You’re dreaming, all right. Of his older brother.

“You gotta get rid of it,” you complain, a pout pulling at your lips.

“He will,” Sam agrees, just to appease you. Thankfully, the worry lines on your face flatten out, and you move yourself even closer to him.

You’re quiet for a few seconds, so Sam closes his eyes, squeezing your shoulder in hopes you go back to sleep.

It doesn’t work, though.

You jolt up and practically launch yourself off the bed, nearly slipping on your hardwood floor before you grab onto your bedside table.

Sam calls for you, but you don’t seem to hear him, busy fumbling in the dark for the lightswitch. He leans over and flicks on the lamp, flooding your room with warm, yellow light. “You okay?” he asks.

The way you spin towards him is comically slow, like you’re being spun in a microwave. There’s a crease on your cheek from being pressed to your pillow for so long, and your eyes are barely open. Sam laments the heartbreaking fact that he can’t see you everyday.

Within the next second, he’s being flattened back against your pillows. You’re by his side so quickly, he’s half inclined to ask you if you’ve gained the ability to teleport.

He squeezes your hip. You take the hint and loosen your hug.

“Sam!” you say, at a volume much too loud for four in the morning. You don’t say anything when he tries shushing you, too busy flitting your hands over whatever parts of him they can reach, laughter spilling from your lips. “You’re here!”

“Took you long enough to realize,” he teases. “I could’ve been some kinda killer, and you would’ve gone on sleeping.”

“What kind of killer would have a face as sweet as yours?” You’re kneeling over him now, smiling so wide it makes Sam feel winded. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” he says, matching your smile. “Do you wake up from all your dreams like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve been electrocuted.”

You smile. “I think my brain knew you were here. Made me wake up so I could say hi.”

Sam kisses your forehead. “Hi. Thank you to your brain.”

“Hi. And you’re welcome.”

The two of you sit like that for a little bit, taking in the sight of the other’s face for the first time in months. You seem to enjoy his new haircut, and he studies the new scar going down your bicep while you tell him the story about how you got it.

When the recount of how you were thrown out of a window starts turning into more yawns than words, he pulls you back down to the bed.

“How are you?” he asks, like he hadn’t just asked you that this morning.

Your tongue darts over your chapped lips. “Good. Missed you a lot,” you say, for the second time in the past five minutes.

“Your parents are—they’re good too?” he asks, stuttering over his words.

Whatever he feels for you gets stronger every day, but it’s only when he sees you again that he realizes just how much he likes you. He forces his eyes up from your lips and squeezes your side. Sam really wants to kiss you.

You nod, moving his arms around so you can cram yourself as close to him as the world and physics allows. “Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Your dad and Dean?”

Sam hums. “They’re fine. Didn’t even ask where I was going when I took off.”

“You didn’t tell them?”

“I think they know by now. My dad asked about you on the drive back to the motel.”

You’re curled against his left side, your chin resting against his chest so you can stare up at him. It means that his next few intakes of breath have to be done with a lot of careful thought.

“Can I just come join you guys?” you ask, and Sam’s surprised he can’t hear any hint of a joke in your voice. “I’m sick of missing you all the time.”

He makes a fist, and uses his knuckles to drag circles over your back from the hills of your shoulder blades to the jut of your hip bones.

Sam laughs. “I don’t think you’d want that.” He can tell you’re about to argue until he adds, “Moving in with my dad, that is. You know what he’s like.”

“I’d put up with it for you, though,” you say honestly.

“He treats you like shit,” he stresses. “And he likes you. Maybe it’d be better if I moved in with you instead.”

You push yourself onto your forearm so you can give him a real serious look. There’s a sore spot on his cheek from where he’d gotten shoved into a wall by some spirit, and somehow, you know.

You caress his face, dragging the pads of your fingers over it. Sam makes a weird sound in his throat, something like a hiccup, and you thankfully don’t smile too hard about it.

Sam decides that it’s probably best for his health that you don’t see each other too often. He knows without a doubt that his heart would give out if he felt any stronger about you. He soaks up the warmth of your hand on his face before you let it drop to his collarbones.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

You lean down to press a kiss to his cheek before shifting your face into his shoulder. “Just appreciating your pretty face. If you moved in, I think my parents would have your head on a stake by the end of the week.”

It startles a laugh out of him. He can’t quite look you in the eyes because you’re trying to hide from him, but he tries to anyway. “Are you serious?”

“I’m sorry!” you groan, using one of your free hands to push at his face. “I thought they liked you, I really did. But my mom found out what I changed the alarm code to and made me clean every single gun in that stupid closet.”

Cruel and unusual. “All ‘cause of me?”

You think long and hard about it. “I think it was part of it. She was also mad because I forgot to do the dishes last week, so it could’ve been that, too.”

Your parents have quite the array of weapons. The jacket closet turned armory in your living room has enough rifles to arm half the state of Kansas, and Sam thinks about what a sad sight it would’ve been: you on the floor with a cleaning rod in hand, and about fifty more handguns to wipe down.

“Poor girl,” he says, pulling your palm into his hand. He presses into the calluses you have from where your gun usually sits. “You didn’t suffer too much?”

“Nope,” you say, awfully cheerful. Your next blink is slower than the others, so he resumes his ministrations against your back. You go limp again. “Only cause I… knew you were coming over soon.”

His face warms, but he has to poke fun at you before he lets you fall asleep.

“Sam, my parents love you,” he mocks, letting his voice go quieter. “Come over for dinner, Sam. No, my parents won’t mind, they love having you over.” He smiles at you. “Must be why I gotta show up here before the sun is up, right?”

Your chest stutters before you laugh, which usually means you’re really embarrassed.

The dream ends when he takes pity on you and kisses the spots on your arms you tell him are aching from all your hard work.

—

Dean wakes up that morning to the sight of Sam hunched over the old table in the corner of the room. There’s a pile of newspapers at his feet and one in his hands, which he stares at so intently it looks like he’ll burn a hole through it.

“Y’know, if you keep scowling, your face is gonna get stuck like that.”

Sam doesn’t grace him with a glance. It’s clear he’s been up for a few hours already. “I think I got something.”

—

Rachel Anderson and John Hansen were two college kids from the suburbs of Virginia. Both were from respectable families, both were straight A students, and both were well-loved by the community.

Two nights ago, John left family movie night to shoot himself in his backyard. And last night, Rachel drowned herself in her bathtub during a sleepover with her friends. In the center of their bedroom floors were identical suicide notes. Each in their own handwriting, but not a single difference in wording or sentence structure.

Sam has to park the car down the block when they arrive outside Rachel Anderson’s house. The street leading up to the building is lined with shiny new cars — Mercedes, Lexus, and BMW logos as far as the eye can see — making the Impala stick out like a sore thumb.

Dean cranes his neck to look up at the houses on the same street as the Andersons. Pretty suburban towns like these scare him a little more than he’s willing to admit.

He whistles. “Didn’t know they made BarbieLand a real place.”

Sam cracks a smile at that. “How many of these people do you think have a membership at that country club down the street?”

The two of them snicker all the way up to the front door. Sam knocks, his brother too busy looking around at the rest of the neighborhood.

“If any of your little college friends have houses as nice as these, maybe we should make a quick visit the next time we’re in California,” Dean jokes, eyeing a neighboring pool.

Sam stops rolling his eyes because the door swings open, and he plasters on his most sympathetic smile for whatever grieving family member is on the other side of the door.

It’s a guy about his age, wearing a crisp black sweater. The dark circles under his eyes make it clear he was close with Rachel — a man plagued with grief through and through.

“Hey,” Sam says. “This is Rachel’s house, right?”

The man flicks his eyes from Sam over to Dean, who’s only now looking away from the nice looking houses to join him at the front door.

“Yeah. This is it,” he answers, though he still doesn’t open the door fully. The three of them stare at each other for an awkward second before the guy clears his throat. “If you guys don’t mind me asking, who are you?”

“I’m Sam, and this is my brother Dean,” he explains. “Me and Rachel had psych together. She saved my grade in that class last semester.”

Sam’s not surprised at how easy the lie rolls off his tongue. Lying is almost as important to the job as the guns in their trunk are.

The man, satisfied with the answer, lets the door creak open. “Oh, I see. I’m Will. Thanks for coming, you two. Everyone’s out in the backyard.”

A girl’s voice floats to the front door from somewhere nearby. “Will, is it Deb?”

William Anderson was mentioned in the article about Rachel’s death. He’s the girl’s older brother, who pivots to face the girl speaking from behind him.

“These are friends from Rachel’s psychology class,” he says, stepping out of the doorway.

Olivia Anderson was mentioned in the paper too. The youngest child of the family, just a year younger than her older sister. For a second, Sam thinks he’s hallucinating. She looks just like her and a little like Will too, down to their twin black sweaters.

A different voice responds, and something about it makes the hair on the back of Sam’s neck stand up. “Psych class? Rachel didn’t—”

The closest Sam can get to describing this moment is like the seconds before a spirit manifests. His heart kicks up a little bit quicker. Alarms ring in his head, and the area around the Andersons’ front door turns electrified.

It’s you.

You get pulled into view by Olivia Anderson, a deer caught in headlights wearing your own matching black sweater.

Sam doesn’t want to blink, certain that your face will shift and it’ll be some sick trick of the light. A dream haunting him even while he’s awake.

“Rachel didn’t what?” Will asks, not suspicious, just curious.

Your mouth opens and closes, like you’re fumbling for something to say, and Sam doesn’t blame you.

For one, you’re going to lie for them. Both him and Dean are beginning to realize that Rachel didn’t take a psychology class at all, and you’re trying to figure out how to twist your sentence into an excuse that makes sense.

And two… you’re standing in front of your best friend who you haven’t spoken to in four years. Sam isn’t surprised that you have nothing to say to him.

“Rachel didn’t like anything about that class,” you decide on, your eyes shifting from Sam to Dean then back again.

You swallow hard. It looks like you’ve—

“—seen a ghost?” you ask, grinning.

The duffel bag in Sam’s hands hits the motel floor, but he’s too stunned to even wince at the sound.

“Looking a little scared there, Sammy,” you tease, pushing yourself off of the old bed in the center of the room. “A little old, too, honestly—”

He’s crossed the room before you can finish your sentence.

You squeak at the impact, your arms being crushed to your sides with the way he captures you in a hug. The two of you stumble two big steps back so you don’t tip over.

“You’re here,” Sam says, like he can’t quite believe it. You manage to work your arms away from your body so you can hug him too. “What are… How did you—”

“Dean finally remembered my phone number,” you joke, squeezing him with a big smile on your face. “I know you guys have to drive out early tomorrow — uh, I guess today, actually — but you know I had to come see you on your birthday, Sam. Even if it’s just for a few hours.”

It’s seven minutes past midnight on the second day of May.

Sam Winchester is eighteen.

“You’re here,” he repeats. He doesn’t bother trying to wipe the smile off his face. “I can’t believe it.”

When Dean had clapped him on the back and told him he’d booked him an extra room for his birthday, Sam was shocked. Birthdays weren’t anything special to either of them, so he’d been thankful, but also very confused. Buying another motel room wasn’t cheap, yet he’d done it anyway.

From the adjoining room next door, Sam’s sure his brother has a shit-eating grin on his face. He’s probably going to hold this over his head forever, claiming how much of a great brother he is, and Sam will let him.

He hasn’t seen you in four months. He thinks he might throw up.

“You drove here all by yourself?” Sam asks you, once the two of you have settled on the bed. He takes a seat cross-legged and both of you pretend like you’re not about halfway into his lap.

“Yep,” you say proudly. “Dean had to teach me how to parallel park over the phone so I would have my license in time.”

Sam’s heart swells ten sizes. “Thank you. I can’t believe you came out all this way.”

You hit him on the shoulder. “Of course. You’re my best friend, did you really think I was gonna miss your eighteenth birthday?”

He leans in close enough to the point that it’d be easy to kiss you. So, so, so easy.

He doesn’t, though, and you don’t push it. You reach for one of his hands in his lap and trace over the ridges of his knuckles, a little smile on your face.

His hair has finally recovered from the Nair that Dean had put in his shampoo a while back, so it hangs just over his eyebrows and curls around his ears again. You blow the brown locks out of his eyes and then smile a little wider.

“I have a gift for you.”

You slink out of his lap, and Sam tries not to frown when you get up to grab your backpack. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Stop worrying,” you chastise, dropping your bag onto the bed to look through. “I’m your actual birthday gift. This one’s just extra, so it’s nothing fancy.”get

“You being here is worth more than any fancy thing you could've bought me at a store,” he says, and you brush his hair from his face affectionately.

“I’m happy you think so, Sammy.”

Too wrapped up in the sight of your smile, he forgets to say something about the dumb nickname.

“I got this from the grocery store down the street before you got here.” It’s wrapped in the plastic bag you’d bought it in, but Sam takes it from your hands like it’s made of gold. “Consider this one… supplemental.”

You huddle close while he takes the gift out of the bag and reads it.

“Thirteen Ghosts,” he says, flipping the DVD case over in his hands.

“Figured we could watch a movie together.” You poke his side. “See how funny they make their monsters look.”

This isn’t the first time you and Sam have watched a movie together. There was that one time when you’d watched Notting Hill on your couch, but your parents kept giving him warning looks from in the kitchen and he’d made sure to keep the bowl of popcorn and half of the couch between you two.

And Sam will always hold some level of respect for your parents because they’re your parents, but he could not be more glad to be hundreds of miles away from them right now. Because the second that he comes back from popping the DVD into the player, you’re very kindly asking to spoon, and Sam is not well known for being able to say no to you.

You tuck yourself against his front, and he slips his arms around your middle. You trap his hands there by slotting yours together, tracing over the lines on his hands like a palm reader. Sam watches you while you watch the movie, pretending to follow along with the dialogue and your whispered commentary.

The lights of the TV flicker on the side of your face as you poke fun at the actors, and he’s hit with a wave of anticipatory sadness. Sam prays to whoever’s listening that he never falls asleep. Prays this night lasts forever, and that you don’t have to go home and he doesn’t have to leave in the morning. If the rest of his life is bad horror movies and sleeping next to you, he’d die happy.

You laugh at something that jumps on the screen, and Sam can’t help himself anymore.

When he says your name, he practically winces hearing the sound of his own voice. It’s shaky and nervous, and you shift to look at him with concern in your eyes. One of the actresses screams on screen, and you squeeze his hand that you still haven’t let go of.

“You okay? Did you wanna turn the TV off?”

“I love you.”

You turn to face him completely, and Sam Winchester, the luckiest eighteen-year-old in the world, is able to watch the smile light up your eyes.

You let go of him to hold his face, like he’s something to be treasured. “I love you too, S—”

“—am, and I’m Dean,” his brother says, offering his hand for you to shake.

Your grip looks solid when you reach across the threshold of the Anderson house to take his hand in yours, as if you’re meeting him for the first time.

The whole thing feels like a nightmare.

It’s unnatural to watch your tight lipped smile and awkward shuffling while you stare blankly at Dean. You let go of his hand like he hasn’t pulled you off your couch and taught you how to dance in the middle of your living room. Like he hasn’t let you finish the rest of his food at rundown diners just because you ate yours too fast.

You turn to Sam next, and his stomach does a backflip.

Four years was a long time.

Sam knows he’s not the same person who left you on your front porch. He’d held you for longer than usual that day, and left you with a promise to visit that he hadn’t meant.

He doesn’t think you’re the same girl who was left there either. You look different. A little older, a little more mature.

(At eighteen, you would’ve given him a nasty look for that. “Older? You can’t say that to a girl, Sam.”

“I said you looked older, not old!” he would’ve defended frantically. “There’s a difference!”

“Why the hell would I want to be told I look older, you jerk!”)

And he loves you, but it’s true. You look older, but it means you look as lovely as ever. Grown into yourself and radiant in ways you hadn’t been at eighteen. You look like you’re glowing.

Your hair is also done in a way you never liked to do by yourself. He knows it for a fact, because you’d always complain to him over the phone about it, wondering how he was able to do it for you so nicely.

(He’d always said it was because he was patient and you were clearly not, but it was mostly because he’d practiced it on your old dolls a bunch of times before he’d asked to do it on you.)

Your hair now looks nicer than anything Sam could’ve done for you. He wonders if you did it yourself—if you had to learn because he wasn’t around anymore, and was never coming back.

Sam wants to tell you that he’s missed you, and that there hasn’t been a day he hasn’t thought of you.

He wonders what you would say. He wonders if you'd sound the same, and he’d be able to tell, ‘cause of how often he plays your old voicemails over when he misses you. He remembers just how you would sound when you were laughing and remembers precisely how much slower you would speak when you were upset.

You don’t extend your hand for him to shake, and Sam’s left to wonder if your hands would still feel the same in his.

And when he meets your eyes, he reads the hurt written all over your features. Hurt that he put there. Hurt that’s probably healed over in the last four years, leaving a nice long scar he’s sliced open again just now.

You nod at him. “It’s nice to meet you, Sam.”

He digs his fingers into his palms. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

notes: the party ended four years ago and she JUST GOT HERE!!!! LMAO ive been infected with the sam winchester virus but who can blame me look at his face

charlie bushnell the man you are

my man my man

Him in this lighting, I fear I may faint😵‍💫

This is absolutely sick and twisted

mind u walking on a dream is one of my favorite songs …. he wants to be me sb

happy fourth i need to fuck luke to the sound of fireworks