Who: Sam Winchester and Sarah Reynolds.
When: A few days before December 5, 2005. (Estimated.)
Where: Catasauqua, Pennsylvania.
What: Grieving over Jessica and suffering from nightmares and insomnia, Sam goes out for a drink--or five--and meets a pretty blonde looking to forget for a while, too. They spend few hours together.
Rating: R, but it's... tasteful R.
Notes: In "Phantom Traveler" S1, Dean says he was up at 3 and Sam was watching infomercials. He is back by then; it gives him plenty of time to sober up, and you have to give it time and take a shower before you stop smelling like serious booze, which Sam would have an interest in doing before talking to his brother. He probably went out and got that coffee at 4:30 AM after the shower, and was back by about 5 to wake a grumpy Dean up and have one of those totally useless Winchester bonding talks. After, Dean got the call from the guy who tips them off to the plane crash.

Catasauqua, Pennsylvania was undoubtedly the most boring town in the world, in Sarah's humble opinion. Nothing ever happened here, apart from the raging arguments with her mother. Her mother had moved here right after Sarah had started college two years ago, and Sarah had made it a point to visit as little as humanly possible. Today she remembered why.

Sarah had stormed out of the house earlier that evening after an epic row with her mother over finals. Sarah just happened to be in classes that only had papers due, which her mother interpreted as a sign of slacking off. Unable to take any more of her mother's headstrong belligerence, Sarah had left without a plan or purpose. All she knew was that she did not want to go home tonight.

By ten o'clock, she had had a long dinner and watched some brainless slasher flick. It had all really been an attempt to waste time until she could be where she was now - outside McKinney's, the only decent bar in the small town. After checking her teeth in her visor mirror and adjusting the straps of her white dress one last time, Sarah walked through the noisy room directly to the bar at the back. It was only after she had a drink secured in her hand that she turned around to survey the room. There must be someone in here worth her time. There simply had to be. Sarah wasn't a large believer of God, but if there was only one night when he was listening to her prayers, she hoped that this was the one.

Sam Winchester was getting drunk. He had reached the limit of life that a man could cope with sober, and he was taking a few hours to get stupid drunk before he had to go back to coping. Dean was back in the motel room, asleep like the dead, and Sam wasn't interested in watching another infomercial. The chances he'd be back before his brother was even awake were good anyway. McKinney's was within five minutes of everything in this town, but the bar was sparsely populated. Sam had not come looking for company, anyway; quite the opposite. By this time, the alcohol haze was so thick he probably wouldn't have noticed if a pair of zombies had stumbled in and started chewing on the bartender's head.

When Sarah turned around, he was hunched over a glass at one end of the bar, staring at a television screen without watching it. (It didn't take much. One beer and then he had asked for something stronger: something that ended up tasting like throat-searing gasoline and put everything into a pleasant haze in no time at all. Jess used to call him a cheap date.) It was 10 PM, and about an hour ago Sam had dreamed a dream so vivid that he could still feel the heat of the flames against his face and hear Jessica's voice. The last few times, she had started pleading for his help, and the dreams usually ended with one or both of them screaming.

Sam looked tired and vacant, but he was the only one in the bar under forty and halfway conscious.

It didn't take long for Sarah to spot Sam in the corner of the bar. Under normal circumstance (i.e. back in college) she would have dismissed him as too drunk, but one look around her was enough for her to tell that it was either him or one of the creepy, leering old men she had had to fend of every time she came in. Following up her drink with two quick shots of something strong, she walked over to where Sam was hunched over.

"Hey, is this seat taken?" She gestured to the empty stool besides Sam and waited a moment before settling down. "You look like you fit in here just about as well as I do." Sarah felt slightly awkward talking to a complete stranger, and had to get another drink to stick to her resolve. "I'm Sarah, by the way." She held out her hand towards the tall man, hoping that he wouldn't shut her down.

Even when Sam was so drunk that you could convince him down was up and up was down, he could never leer at anybody. Just then he had a fuzzy, rolled-out-of-bed look, and the brilliant hazel eyes were considerably dimmed by alcohol and exhaustion. Having a girl like Sarah sit next to you tends to straighten your spine, though. Well, he had quite a set of shoulders on him, didn't he? Maybe the last resort wouldn't be half-bad. "Uh," he said, eloquently as she sat. He wasn't quick enough to comprehend her next comment and her introduction at the same time, so he skipped straight to the name--which he promptly forgot. "Uh, hey. I'm Sam."

His hand was cool and damp from his glass, but it totally dwarfed hers. His shake was solid but gentle. No woman ever had to fend this man off. Especially not in this state. He offered her a crumpled, tipsy smile. His thought process went something like this: pretty, nice, girl, and... pretty. "M'not from 'round here." That sentence took a lot of planning to execute properly. A distant part of Sam's mind said, I am SO drunk right now. "And'm SO drunk right now." Wait. He just said that out loud. Oh hell.

Sam straightening up next to her was the first good sign of the evening, and the width of his shoulders was the second. What could she say? Sarah loved her a tall man, and Sam was as tall as a lot of the others even while he was sitting down. So far so good. It was still pretty early in the night, she had found herself a normal looking guy to talk to, and the alcohol was finally starting to kick in...hard. Sarah would be lying if she said she didn't perk up a bit more upon hearing that Sam wasn't from around here, because it automatically put him a league above anybody else in the room. It was exactly like the way her friends in college reacted when they heard a foreigner's sexy accent... except this one sounded like a tipsy and American and was just a foreigner to this podunk town.

Hey, that was good enough for her.

Sarah laughed at his second proclamation. The fuzziness of the alcohol in her body was making everything he said sound terribly attractive and funny. "Give me ten minutes, and I'll be right there with you." Sarah ordered yet another shot for herself, but this time gesturing to Sam as well. "And one for this gentleman as well, if he'd like." She turned back to Sam once the bartender left, intent on making more small talk. "So, Sam. What brings you to this part of nowhere?"

Sam's mind tripped at being called a gentleman. By the time the shot came, he was in full "what-the-hell" mode. He drank it, whatever it was, mouth contorting at the burn before he could speak properly. Nope, this man was definitely not a regular drunk. He half-laughed at her question, or rather, at the real answer. "Oh y'know." He waved one of those wide palms out into the air on the other side of him. "Jus' passing through." Careful, whoa balance. Need that. ...Okay, we're good. Balance is good.

Sam turned his chin to eye her curiously. Definitely pretty. She talked like Jess. "What 'bout you?" The shot hit his mind and this conversation just got a whole lot funnier in ten seconds flat. "What with th'--" wait, where was he going with that sentence? Oh right, "the not fitting."

Sarah had to shake the grimace off her face before responding to Sam. Damn, that was STRONG. "I wish that were the case. I'm here for a few weeks, with family. I reall..." She paused to stabilize herself against the bar, as the world decided to swim in and out of focus. "Whoa. That last one might not've been a good idea." Sam would probably not be able to tell just how drunk Sarah was at the moment, since she was usually coherent (at least verbally) all the way until she was passed out. She had had two drinks and four shots in the last ten minutes; it was a surprise a girl her size was still upright on the barstool.

Sam's pause in the middle of his last sentence struck Sarah as being hilarious. She laughed freely at just how drunk they both were, because honestly, it was ridiculous. Her laughter subsided, and she dropped her voice to whisper conspiratorially. "My mom moved here after the divorce. Worst. idea. EVER!" Sarah's eyes widened at the volume of her last word, and she clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles. "Whoops," she said sheepishly, looking around to make sure no one had heard her, "sorry about that."

He put a hand on her back as she tipped from side to side, somehow managing to keep her steady and stay on the stool himself. The bartender was rolling his eyes at the ceiling. Sam was laughing. He had a soft laugh, like he wasn't absolutely sure he should be laughing at anything in life, but it was there and earnest. He leaned a little in to hear this great secret, but like everything else it was funny as hell. He managed to process some of it, though. "Bet th'olidays coming up are going to be fun," he said rather sympathetically.

The Winchesters had a great time doing their damnedest to endure the holidays with whatever place they made home. It wasn't something Sam looked forward to, but it wasn't pure hell, either. Now holidays at school, without Dean and Dad... that had been hell. Jess had taken him home with her once. The memory physically hurt. It probably showed.

The hand on her back was warm...and she liked it there. Sarah was glad he left there, even if only to make sure she didn't slide off the stool completely. She narrowed her eyes exaggeratedly at the bartender's back. She had seen him judging them. Oh, she was on to him. But Sam was worth much more of her attention at the moment. "Tell me about it," she said, rolling her eyes, "maybe I'll just come down the with the flu or something and spend the entire week in my room."

That's when she noticed the look on Sam's face. "Rough time for you as well, eh?" She tilted her head to study him some more, since this new bond between them (because there quite assuredly was one) was sky-rocketing his attractiveness in her eyes. Dear god, his eyes were beautiful. She'd kill for eyes lashes like that. But...she was digressing. Sarah forced herself to focus on the train of thought she had been having before she got distracted. "Sorry to hear that."

She was very vibrant, this girl. Alive and interested in him. He missed having someone to talk to that had nothing critical to say; Dean was watching him like most people watch trains wreck, and Sam got tired of it. He shrugged it off. "It's no big deal. Lots of things to distract me, y'know?" Seraphic smile. It was not a line. Sam didn't have lines. He literally meant that there was plenty for him to do to distract him from the holidays, and the authenticity was there. Now, if Sarah wanted to take it as a personal compliment, that was pure luck in Sam's department. The alcohol was starting to put down bets and "pretty" was fast accelerating into "irresistible."

Later on Sarah would say that the thing that attracted her the most about Sam was not just the fact that he was striking, but that he wasn't trying to pick her up. This wasn't the way most guys acted around Sarah the few times she had been this drunk, and Sam's subtle hint at being distracted by something (because she really couldn't be sure whether he was talking about her or something else, which made it even better) increased her desire to touch him.

It was a shame this place had no music to dance to, or else she would have asked. Not that either of them were co-ordinated enough at this point to attempt to dance, but hey, it was the thought that counted. So Sarah bravely did what she had never really done before. She carefully slid off the stool and on to her feet, a feat that was much harder than it should have been, and spoke directly into Sam's ear. "You got something to distract you tonight?" It didn't really come out the way she wanted it, but the meaning behind the words were clear.

Sam abandoned his glass because he was still concerned with keeping Sarah upright--though he probably should have been more concerned for himself. He was still chuckling over absolutely nothing as she stood up, but once she got there his hand slid reluctantly over her hip and off her back. Yet she seemed in no hurry to go, and he turned his head to give her a questioning look, overcompensating and bumping a knee against hers as he did so.

Now, even drunk, Sam knew an offer when he heard it. His befuddled expression cleared.

Even if Sam had been capable of coherent thought, there wouldn't have been much of a pause to consider options. Because without Sarah's tempting distraction, his alternative was going back to the dismal hotel room and watching either late-night television or his girlfriend burning alive on the ceiling. No contest. "No," he told her, in a low whiskey tone to match hers. He seemed not to know what to do after answering, so he watched her for some kind of cue he could read through the drink-haze.

There is something important to know about Sarah - she wasn't one to go out to get drunk alone often, and she had definitely never picked up a guy from a bar before. That just wasn't something a girl like her did. But looking at the way Sam was looking at her, matched by her own desire for him, she was beginning to wonder why she hadn't tried it earlier. But that may just be the alcohol speaking.

She leaned in to speak in his ear again, this time placing her hand on his arm for 'support'. "Want to get out of here?" She pulled away from Sam, running her hand down his arm until his own hand was in her grasp. There was no way he could misread the sign she was giving him now. Hell, there was no way anyone in that room could.

A second ticked by. It might have been two. "Yeah." And just like that, decision made, problem solved, issue at rest. Sam was drunk but he was also tired. He was tired of caring and tired of dreaming and tired of driving and tired of hunting. He was tired of the way Dean treated him like he was a kid again, and he was tired of feeling lost. It was time to make a decision, and it could be stupid in the morning.

Sam stood up too; all six foot four of him. That was a lot of height to stand up to, and it turned out those shoulders weren't the least of him. He put his jacket on--it smelled of car leather and coffee, and just a brief hint of something that stung, like smoke--and then he had a possessive arm over Sarah's shoulders like he had known her a lot longer than fifteen minutes. The bartender barked over at him twice before he remembered to dig out a crumpled bill and leave it. The two of them were going to have to prop each other up, because otherwise this was going to be a short trip. Sam chuckled again. "Anyplace around to go to?"

Sarah had to keep herself from giggling as Sam stood up and put his arm around her. She had figured he was tall, but damn. She was in three-inch heels, but he was still a good six inches taller than her. This also means that the walk that lay ahead of them would be an interesting one, what with her having to support his weight and balance on heels simultaneously. "Yeah, there's a place right around the corner." The place was a tiny motel 6, but she doubted Sam would care either way. Not if he was as impatient as her.

In Sarah's opinion, the road to the motel was entirely too wobbly and slopped. The pair kept staggering from one side to the other, as his size and her heels kept getting overcompensated for. Sarah never fell (although she did come close a few times), which in itself was miraculous. She wasn't sure how they managed to check in and get to a room, but less than ten minutes after leaving McKinney's, Sam and Sarah were alone. Finally.

The decision was already made, and the door shutting was just a formality. Sam didn't bother with the lights, because what he wanted he already could see in his memory, and that was the way he wanted it. He kissed her once before he pulled off his jacket, a brief taste of booze and heat, then came back for more once his shirt was off. The big hands were practiced and clothes were just something that kept him from showing her the way he could make her burn under her skin; something for her, and not him. The smell of liquor was stronger now, and so was that smoke sting, a gunpowder smell that was quickly being overcome with the salt-sweet of sweat and sex. On the bed the height difference didn't matter, and when he told her he wanted her neither of them noticed that he was talking to someone else.

There was a whole of two seconds between the door clicking shut and Sarah's being attached to Sam's lips. Sure, she wasn't playing it cool like she should have been, but fighting the urgency would require both sobriety and patience, neither of which were qualities she had at the moment. At this point, her white dress was simply an obstacle in the way of her feeling his skin - something she had wanted to do since she sat on that stool in the bar - and the sooner he was able to send it to the floor, the better. She pulled him closer to her, her soft curves her body melding perfectly with his hard lines, and before long Sam had made her forget both her thoughts and herself.

Sarah didn't know at what point they had fallen asleep, but when her thirst woke her up a few hours later, Sam was already dressed. "Hey." Her bleary-eyes tried to focus on his face. "What time is it?"

"Two in the morning." The room was still dark. A car passing on the street lit the room in lines through the blinds. Sam stood in the middle of the room, jacket hanging from his hand. He had good night vision, and moved quietly. There was no way to tell if he intended on waking her or not. The light slid over his expression: an uncertainty, but a hard one. A grim one. He was leaving. "I have to go." He wet his lips, which no longer tasted of alcohol or Jess. His mind only had reality to show him now.

But Sam liked to think he was better than the kind of man that would sleep with a woman and then sneak into the night like some kind of thief. He walked across the carpet and sat down on the edge of the bed. It took him a minute to find the switch for the tiny light at the bedside, but once he did the room had a dingy glow. Sam's expression now matched the one she had first seen on his face, alone at the end of the bar. Tired. "You gonna be okay?" They used protection (thanks to her, not him): that wasn't what he meant.

Two in the morning? Well that explained why she was having such difficulty seeing. But the headlights of the passing car helped her catch a glimpse of the look on Sam's face, a look which brought reality back, crashing in. She was suddenly very aware of the fact that she had just slept with a random man; a man who had actually been drunk enough to blurt out some other girl's name and not apologize for it afterward. Not that he had needed to, of course. What happened between them had been what it was, and she wasn't going to try to make it look any other way.

It took about half a minute for her eyes to re-adjust to the light of the lamp, and she wished almost instantly that he had kept it off. Because now she could see the tiredness in his face, and the barest traces of pain behind his eyes. Whatever hesitation she had felt was replaced by empathy as her heart went out to him, simply because in that in that moment he reminded her of herself. Sam had unknowingly helped her out in a rough place; Sarah could only hope that she had done the same for him. Or at least help him forget whatever it was he was trying to get away from while he had been with her.

A slight smile flit across her lips at his question. "I'll be fine. What about you?"

It seemed like Sam wasn't going to pretend either. He didn't seem capable of falsifying for her sake, not after what just happened. He didn't know what he said, but he knew what he had done, and that was put Jessica's face on another woman. He had managed to forget she was gone for a while, and now that he had done it, he felt sick and dingy, like he was rotting from the inside. There was nothing that Sam wanted more than to get out of there and scrub that feeling away with a shower and the thickest coffee he could get his hands on. "Yeah, sure. Got someplace to be."

He felt an obligation, like he should say something to her that meant something, since none of the rest of it had. But he could not. He couldn't even lift a hand to touch her, because she reminded him too much of how weak he was. Sam sat on the edge of that bed for a moment longer, then looked away from her. "Better go, then." He stood up, and the edge of ground coffee and smoke came off the jacket again as he put it on. "Thanks." Disgusted, Sam reflected on the man he became as he walked out of that dim little room.