Small Cuts (Supernatural Dark!fic)

f o u r t e e n

"Time keeps movin' on
Friends they turn away
I keep movin' on
But I never found out why
I keep pushing so hard the dream
I keep tryin' to make it right
Through another lonely day"
Kozmic Blues - Janis Joplin 

The bunker's library was quiet, the only sound coming from the soft shuffle of pages turning and the occasional scrape of a chair against the stone floor. The stillness should have been comforting, but for Amara, it was anything but. Dean had been distant ever since the ritual, retreating into himself in a way that left her unsettled. Castiel's sporadic appearances around the bunker weren't helping either. Every time she felt his presence, a wave of tension knotted in her chest, the anger and skepticism she harboured bubbling up.

But here, in the library, things felt... different.

Sam sat across from her at the long table, his attention fixed on an old tome, the dim light casting shadows across his face. There was a quiet between them, but it wasn't uncomfortable. For the first time in days, Amara felt like she could breathe without the weight of the past pressing down on her. Sam's presence was calming in a way that Dean's had never been, and yet there was something beneath the surface—something darker, more dangerous—that flickered in his eyes from time to time.

They had been like this for a while now, just sitting in silence, and Amara found herself glancing at him more often than she intended. The soft sound of pages turning, the way the light caught his features—it was all so unassuming, and yet there was a tension brewing beneath the surface that she couldn't quite place.

Sam caught her looking and raised an eyebrow. "What?" He asked, his voice soft but teasing.

Amara blinked, a small blush creeping up her cheeks. "Nothing," she mumbled, looking back down at the book in front of her. She hadn't been reading for a while, her mind too focused on the quiet tension between them.

Sam smirked, closing his book and leaning back in his chair, his long frame stretching out in a way that seemed both relaxed and predatory at the same time. "You're terrible at lying, you know."

Amara rolled her eyes, trying to ignore the way her pulse quickened at his teasing. "I'm not lying."

"Uh-huh," Sam said, his tone playful. "You've barely looked at that book in the last twenty minutes."

She felt the heat rise in her cheeks again and tried to think of a comeback, but nothing came. She shifted in her seat, suddenly hyper-aware of the space between them—or the lack thereof. The air felt thicker now, charged with something she couldn't quite name.

"You know," Sam said, his voice dropping a notch, "if you wanted to spend time with me, you didn't need to pretend to be interested in dusty old books."

Amara's heart skipped a beat. She stared at him, her mind struggling to catch up with the shift in tone. Was he... flirting with her?

"I—what?" She stammered, feeling a rush of warmth bloom in her chest. She hadn't expected him to say something like that, not Sam. Not the quiet, controlled version of Sam she'd grown used to.

Sam's eyes sparkled with a hint of mischief, but there was something darker beneath it, something that sent a shiver down her spine. He leaned forward, just a little, his gaze locked on hers. "You heard me."

Amara opened her mouth to respond, but the words seemed to die on her lips. She could feel her pulse racing, her body suddenly hyper-aware of everything—his proximity, the way his voice had dipped into something more intimate, more dangerous. She couldn't look away from him, couldn't break the magnetic pull between them.