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Dean is apparently living at Jo's. Leah is working and while she usually has time for a drink, Sam doesn't want to interrupt her, or hang around too much. No jobs to do, that he knows of. No real desire to go out by himself to do them, either. There's nothing wrong with his car and he's not Dean - meaningless tune-ups don't interest him. His guns and knives have been cleaned and polished, he's stocked up on bullets, salt, holy water. Ransacked more than a few bookstores and churches. Sat around the apartment he usually shares with his brother and stared at blank walls.

Sam is bored. Very, very bored.

And in Kansas.

Metropolis is a few hours from Lawrence. What's in Lawrence is... complicated. But maybe it's time he finally checked it out. Looked it in the eye and addressed it's existence.

(the "it" in question is debatable)

For now, Sam Winchester is sitting on the front step of the apartment building he sleeps in, frowning to the north.

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Jo's out today. She's been doin' a lot of that. The whole getting out and taking in the sunshine crap.

There's a black clinging hoody, left open with the hood down and her hair loose over her shoulder and back. And she's not really paying attention to a whole lot of anything until she spots Sam.

There's a small pause to her step before she makes herself keep going.

"Hey."

Sam looks up at the sound of footsteps - or, really, the not-sound, the break in the pattern. Hesitation.

He doesn't move but there is a sudden tensing in his form once he spots her.

"Hey."

Her hands in her pockets stretched the hoodie outward, with a gesture that could have been questioning as much fidgety or just stretching. Her expression was remote enough for any of them.

How's things
And where's the party
And even I haven't seen you a while
All clog strangely in a mishmash and Jo tilts her head.

"You as bored as you look?"

He's not sure what he expected. Especially after the last time they spoke. Maybe the most realistic, imaginable response would have been a hello as Jo walked on by. Ignoring what had happened, how they'd reacted, what they'd said.

Sam wasn't expecting the question - which is made more than a little obvious when it surprises a smile out of him, crooked and mused.

He glances north again, then shrugs, arms on his knees and hands laced loosely together. "Probably. You?"

Not that she looks bored.

"Depends on how bored I look."

It's faintly caustic, with the smallest twinge toward what might become a smirk.

The glance Sam gives her is still amused, with a dash of admonishing. For teasing him, being deliberately obtuse. Something.

Being Jo, maybe.

He starts to speak - How's Dean doing? - stops and starts again - How're you and Dean doing? - stops, pauses, and starts again.

"How's things?"

Jo shrugs, a movement of black-covered shoulders and blonde curls more than any other part of her. "It could be worse."

Then she shifted her weight on her feet obviously, with a light. "Walkin' and talkin'." Since she hadn't been so very recently. And it was easy to compare how better didn't have to be good not to be bad.

"You?"

She'd been talking last time. Not so much with walking, though. Or any kind of movement at all, at the time.

He could say bored, though she's already noticed. He could shrug it off.

Sam smirks a little, "Could be worse."

It's getting slowly easier to roll with it.

People talking. Conversation happening. Responding to it.

"And the plan for how to stop being bored?"

Hesitation. Sam tilts his head slowly to the side, considering, eyes tracking north again.

"...could also be worse."

He could already be on his way.

Jo tilted her head looking up the street. As to her it was only that, the street and the buildings to the North of where he sat and she stood.

"How much?"

Edited 2009-09-22 13:09 (UTC)

A shrug, a shake of his head, sending getting-long-hair flying a little. But Sam's eyes don't immediately pull from the north.

"I'm not sure," he replies, once he's looking at her again - or near her, squinting in the sunlight, still hunched and still. "Probably doesn't matter."

From the look on Dean's face whenever he spoke of Lawrence, he's not sure the trip would be worth getting punched.

She's not Dean. And the list of things she's done that others wanted to get her for isn't exactly short. But her tone is calm and as faintly curious as it is simply remarking.

"You don't seem so sure."

"I'm not."

Said simply, unashamed. This isn't hunting, it's a release from boredom. Maybe even an innocent one.

Brown eyes are tracking north again.

"...how long's it been since you were in Lawrence?"

Her eyebrows lifted only just barely. It went from quiet recognition straight into thinking about the questing in under a second.

"Few months." Before -- Before those few months. Before that Horror World. She frowned absently. "Maybe longer."

Quiet again. Considering. Not so much what to tell her but why, exactly, does he want to go.

It's not completely out of boredom.

"Do you think they're still there?"

Jess. Deana. Mary.

Another Sam.

It's not exactly a grimace, or a shrug, when she shifts her shoulders. "Maybe. It's been a while since anyone checked in there."

Sam nods.

That's more of a reason to go, really. If he takes the Porsche and there are people there, they won't recognize the car and he won't get out to greet them. And if they're not there then...

Well.

It's almost awkward without quite being so.

Dean's in her house and Sam on their stairs and she knows where he's going and she's not inclined to lie to at least two of the people who've done what can't be thanked in words....and at the same time, she's not thinking about that.

She's watching Sam nod, watching Sam watching the northern sky; hating that the multiverse is ripping into someone new in front of her.

"When are you thinking about going?"

"I don't know. Today, maybe."

He should tell Dean. Actually, no, he shouldn't, because Dean will get that look on his face from when anybody mentions the "other" Sam and this Sam doesn't want to see it. Or hear about what a bad idea it is, or how what's in the past should stay in the past, or how it won't help...

Or anything else Dean ever says to keep Sammy from delving too deep.

Sam looks up at her again, as if suddenly reminded that Jo is there and watching him. "It's no secret," he points out, smiling a little, maybe at the look on her face, maybe about the look on his. "What's Dean doing today anyway?"

"He's on a quest for the holy grail snack food," Jo said, a little tighter than blase. But her face said, really what could you do, Dean was a pig where it came to food and Sam knew that already.

Which explains his smirk-and-snort reaction, shaking his head a little. Fond amusement.

There's no one more important in Sam's life than his brother. But that doesn't mean, and has never meant, that they should share everything.

He pushes up from the porch, hands slipping into the pockets of his jacket, where keys jingle. "I should get going before it gets dark," he says, as if it explains everything.

Her shoulders settle, watching him stand, watching him become the tower that bores over her in the still present light. She wonders if she'll ever not stop a second in her head to notice it, even if it doesn't cross her face.

Which thinking that, makes it even odder.

"You don't have to go alone."

And maybe somewhere she's thinking Dean left her with Rachel in tow to go with Jack to her trashed home, and he left her in a bar in a home she can't reach, and in a bar at the end of the universe.....and that he's stayed, he's stayed now....but that doesn't mean she has to leave Sam just this second.

She gets that some things are bigger than your past and your debts.

Edited 2009-09-22 13:51 (UTC)

He looks at her again and there's something-- else in his gaze. Open, like the shades have been drawn and for a brief moment, there's an intense vulnerability there. Like the first time he ever looked at her, young and still hurting from the loss of his father.

Sam almost turns her down by rote, habit. If it's not Dean, they shouldn't be in the car. But it's the Porsche that's waiting and a town filled with mirrors and Dean shouldn't have to go back to a place that makes him look like that.

A shrug, a nod toward the car painted midnight blue.

Jo stood there--

For a second, a second here and then gone, lost in the autumn wind that ruffles her blonde curls against her cheeks, because like she had she meant to offer herself? and she wasn't about to leave them yet before it was all only the chill on her skin.

--and then she walked to the car.