FADED ▷ Sam Winchester [2]

28 | HURTS TO BE HUMAN

I find myself restless in the middle of the night, so I make my way downstairs to the lobby of the hotel. I'm wearing my pajamas but what's the big deal? Nobody is going to be awake in here this early.

I take my laptop with me. Furrowing my eyebrows, I realize that they are already serving breakfast. It's only four o'clock in the morning. Huh.

Since I'm down there anyway, I decide to grab a few pieces of bacon and toast. I'm sitting down a little while, goofing off on the laptop, when I look up to see Mick coming in the front doors of the lobby. I furrow my eyebrows at him. He notices me looking at him.

"Good morning," he says. It may be my imagination, but it seems like he's guilty of something.

"Yeah, morning," I mumble, still not quite awake yet. "Where were you?" I ask out of curiosity. When he doesn't answer for a little bit, I look back up at him from the computer screen.

"Taking a walk," he says. "That morning air is refreshing."

"Uh-Huh," I say, trying to push down my suspicious feelings. Sometimes I like to get outside, and sometimes it's early in the morning. Who am I to judge what he does? We don't know each other. However, the thing that's making it difficult for me to do that is the fact that he looks so guilty.

"Are you researching anything in particular?" Mick asks me, changing the topic and taking a seat across from me.

"No, just goofing around," I admit. "I couldn't sleep."

"Are the beds not comfortable?" Mick asks me curiously.

"I got too much on my mind, I think," I say. "Worried about finding Kelly Kline, if Cas is having any trouble. Sam and Dean are stressed about it too, which doesn't help, so..." I look up and see Mick's bright blue eyes. "Sorry, I guess I don't need to tell you that. We hardly know each other."

"No, it's fine," he says, shaking his head. 

We sit in silence for a moment. "I should get a couple more hours of sleep," I say, closing my laptop and standing up. It's kind of awkward trying to talk to Mick.

"I'll walk you," he says. I don't have the courage to tell him no. It's only a few minutes walking anyway. I'm surprised when we start up the steps and Mick speaks up. "You still don't trust us, do you?"

I glance at him, then turn my gaze ahead again. "I understand. After what happened to Sam, and the relationship you two have—"

"Whoa," I stop and put my hand on his shoulder, stopping him. "Keep that out of this." I look away again, running a hand through my hair, thinking. "That's not the only reason, okay? You guys are shady." I turn and start back up the steps, talking to him at the same time. "I mean, if you guys are so much better than us, why did you wait so long to come to our aid?"

"I... honestly can't say," he says. "The incident with the Darkness is what got our attention."

"The 'incident'?" I laugh (humorlessly) at how he put that. "Okay, then." We start down the hallway towards my room. "You just- you guys make things easy."

"That's bad?" He asks.

"Of course," I reply. He furrows his eyebrows.

"Would you care to explain that to me?" He asks me. I sigh.

"I guess I can't," I say. "It just... doing it your way, after all these years of doing it our way, it feels like... cheating."

"It's not," Mick says. I shake my head and sigh.

"Good night, Mick," I say. Yeah, it's early morning but I'd like a couple more hours of sleep. "Or... morning, whatever."

"Good night," he reiterates as I step inside my room.