Supernatural Sister Imagines

Imagine #79: Do You Still Love Me?

Imagine: Sam left for college and you believed it was all your fault. Then, a few years later when you go to retrieve him from Stanford, you finally confront him about your fears.

Age when Sam leaves: 14

Age when Sam returns: 16

Warnings: Vulgar language.

Dedicated to spunsugar_ for the dialogue in the beginning.

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     "Y/n? Are you sure you're alright?" Dean stopped me as I tried to sneak away to my bed, noticing the slump in my shoulders with a dissatisfied frown.

     "I'm fine, alright?" I said, my voice a bit snippy as I tried half-heartedly to break from his grip. He pursed his lips together as his brows furrowed and he pulled me to face him firmly.

     "No, you're not. You've been acting weird since I told you we were gonna go get Sam last week. What's going on, baby girl?" He placed his hands on my cheeks, holding that odd space between the bottom of my jaw and my neck, and the touch was just soft enough, just sweet enough to break me. I heaved an angry sigh.

     "If I told you I felt like a phone with no battery and it feels like my skull is in a vice, would you stop asking if I'm okay?" I blurted, my eyes forming a film of tears. His face grew sympathetic as he pulled me into a hug, my face pressing to his toned chest as I sighed into his shirt, my arms around his neck. 

     "Talk to me, baby." He said quietly, stroking my hair with a gentle hand. I gave a small sniff.

     "What if he doesn't love me? What if he never did?" I murmured, my voice tiny and child-like.

     "Baby," Dean kissed my hair softly, "Of course he loves you. He always has. He'll be beyond happy to see you."

"You don't know that," I said, pulling away from him, "for all I know, he left because of me."

"Y/n," Dean's voice was determined as he grasped my shoulders, seizing my chin and forcing me to look at him with a gentle yet firm pull, "he left because he wanted to go to college. You had nothing to do with it."

"What if he doesn't want us anymore?" My voice was so small I thought he didn't hear me, but he pressed a kiss to my head and pulled me to his chest once more.

"He will," He said, but there was something in his voice that wasn't there before. An uneasiness, "family doesn't give up on each other."

There was a moment of silence before he pulled away, pushing me toward the motel bed gently.

"Get some sleep, sweetheart," He commanded, pulling off his jacket and climbing into his own bed opposite me, "We leave for Stanford in the morning."

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     "Are you sure about this?" I asked as I stepped from the Impala, her purr dying away. I looked up at the apartment building anxiously.

     "Y/n, stop worrying," Dean said gently as he cocked his gun and put it in the back of his belt, "everything will be okay."

     "I hope you know what you're doing, Dean." I murmured as I followed him.

After a long bout of picking locked windows and looking for a beer, I found myself in the face of the brother I'd known and the brother that left, the latter of which was pinned to the floor as the former patted his shoulder fondly.

"Woah, easy there, tiger." Dean said cheerfully, pulling Sam to his feet and brushing him off. Seeing his face and his hair struck in me an excitement that I hadn't felt before, and my eyes widened with hope.

"What the hell are you doing here?" And suddenly my spirits fell as Sam questioned his brother, eyebrows cocked in confusion.

"We're here for you," Sam jumped as I snapped at him, both anger and sadness tainting my voice, "In case you'd forgotten, we're family."

"Y/n?" Sam walked toward me slowly, as though he were in a trance.

"Hey there, Sam."

And there was a moment.

A moment that lasted seconds but felt like centuries. A moment where I stared at him and began to get the idea that maybe he was gonna hug me, or tell me he missed me or loved me, and my heart swelled and my arms twitched with the want to hug him back.

"You got taller."

The hug never came.

Sam stepped away from me and everything came crashing back down once again. My eyes welled with tears and my ears burned red as I chocked back an ever-rising lump in my throat and looked away from him.

But then there was an anger. An anger unlike anything I'd ever experienced before, and suddenly I was yelling at him just as loud as I could, and I think he and Dean were equally shocked as I jabbed a finger in his direction accusingly.

"You've got to be shitting me!" I declared, his eyes widening in surprise, "What did I ever do to make you treat me like I'm in some way subordinate to Dad or to Dean? Why is that I had deal with feeling like you hated me and that you left because of me all while you were just fine? I haven't seen you in two years, I'm almost an adult, and all you have to say to me is, 'You've gotten taller?' What did I do wrong?" Tears fell down my cheeks as I waved my hands at him blindly, hitting his chest as he grunted and stepped backward. It wasn't until later that I realized that he was crying, too.

"I love you more than life, Samuel Winchester, and you left me! Left us! And everyday since then I've looked in the mirror and I can't help but to despise what I see! I used to sit and wish for the day that I would die so that maybe you'd have enough means to come see your brother again! I blamed myself for Dean not getting to be with you! I blamed myself, but it was you who split our family apart! Doesn't make sense, does it? I just need to know," My voice abruptly fell silent and I felt my knees might buckle, "What did I do wrong?"

I was met with a silence so strong it was suffocating as Sam tried to compose himself, wiping vainly at his tear-stained cheeks. Behind him, Dean was matching as he rubbed his eyes roughly.

"Y/n," His voice cracked as he said my name and all it did was make me cry harder, "How could you ever think that I don't love you?"

My eyes widened.

"You're my whole world, little girl. I didn't want to leave you, but I couldn't take you away from Dean. I couldn't do that to him. I love you so much, and a part of me left because I thought I'd be giving you a better life. Without me, you'd have one less thing to draw monsters to you, and maybe you'd be safe. I'm so sorry you thought I didn't love you."

     I stared at him a moment, and the hope had barely the time to begin draining from his face before I reapplied it by leaping into his embrace, my arms locking tight around his neck as I pressed my face into his toned chest, my cries muffled by his chest.

     "Please come home," I begged in a whisper, his arms drawing around my torso as he pressed his nose to my head and sucked in a shaky breath, a tear rolling down his cheek, "I need my brother."

     "I love you," He sighed, his voice still wildly emotional, "And I'm sorry."