[Fic] Well, We're Always On Our Way
Title: Well, We’re Always On Our Way
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean
Warnings: some language
Spoilers: through 8x03 - Heartache
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3,400
Beta: winter_hermit, though I went back and couldn’t stop fiddling, so any remaining mistakes are my own
Summary: Sometimes Dean feels like Purgatory has left him raw, like his clothes and his skin have been ripped away, nothing left but blood and guts and a heart that beats for this - for this road, and Sam next to him, close enough for him to reach out and touch, if he needs to.
Notes: So. This is my first attempt at writing fic for these guys, and this fandom, so any thoughts/comments would be greatly appreciated. <3 Basically, this fic is set around 8x03, and contains a lot of driving in the rain, a few failed attempts at conversation, and a bunch of angsty Dean thoughts. Which kind of sums up my thoughts thus far on what’s been going on between Sam and Dean since the beginning of S8. ;) Quotes and title are from the Radical Face song We’re On Our Way.
Show your hands
If you need a new coat of paint
If your bones are now heavy things
Like anchors hidden somewhere 'neath your skin
**
The Impala hums along the road. Dean can feel the vibrations of the engine all the way down to his core -- all wheels and tires and speed and miles of open fucking road. Well, okay, maybe not so much speed, not on this slick patch of interstate, but the point is he’s here, behind the wheel with Sam across the seat from him, just like the old days.
The buzz in his head, the slightly manic bubble that he can feel knocking around in his chest sometimes when he looks across the dashboard is, well, let’s just say he can’t think of anything he’d trade this in for. Except maybe Kevin and the tablets and a one way ticket to closing the door on demons forever, but even then, honestly? It’d be a tough call. And yeah, he’s well aware of just how fucked up that thought is.
Just like old times.
Sam is zoned out, half-staring out the window like he’s a million miles away, or wants to be, his hair falling into his eyes, and his shoulders slumped forward, but still with that line of tension in them, like he wants to fall asleep, but can’t. And just like that, the buzz is gone.
College, Dean thinks. Fucking college. Again.
He should have seen it coming. He would have, maybe, a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago. But Purgatory has changed him. Sometimes he can’t help but wonder if it’s softened him. Because the idea of doing this alone again, the idea of Sam walking out of some run-down motel room with his backpack slung over his shoulder and Dean not knowing when he’ll be back, well… There’s a sick feeling deep in his gut every time he thinks about it, threatening to claw its way up and out of his throat if he’s not careful. Then again, maybe that’s just the Purgatory talking.
Because this is what Sam does. It’s what he does, and then he comes back. And that’s the important thing.
It feels different this time though. Dean can’t deny that. It’d felt different from the moment Sam showed up at the cabin, to the messages from Kevin that he ignored, all of it - it had been obvious. Probably. Sam’s heart wasn’t in this anymore. Maybe it never had been.
Not that Dean could blame him. It’s not like there was all that much to get excited about coming back to, anyway, right? It’s not as if they were any closer to figuring out how the hell to stop any of this crap from happening than when they’d started out years ago. They’d lost Kevin, had no leads on anything. Flying blind, as usual. Who could blame Sam for wanting out.
And it wasn’t as if Dean hadn’t tried that whole normal life thing once too. Just because he was too messed up for it, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be happy for Sam. That after all Sam had been through, he could enjoy a life like that. Could set all this aside for a girl. And a dog. A fucking dog.
Dean flips on the wipers. The rain is really coming down now, blanketing the windshield in heavy sheets that seem to be coming at him sideways most of the time. He can barely see a thing.
“Dean?”
Sam has switched off the radio, is sitting up straight in his seat now, his eyes filled with what was probably perfectly reasonable concern. Right there across the seat from him, like the last year had never even happened.
“What?” Dean barks, blinking at the blur of the road in front of them. “Let me guess - you want to tell me to slow down again?”
“No, I just… Look, maybe we should pull over for a few minutes. Let this storm pass.”
“We? How many of us do you see driving here Sammy?”
Sam sighs, rolls his eyes. “Fine. Dean, would you mind pulling over?”
Dean ignores him. Because he can, and because he doesn’t particularly want to stop the car right now. He’s kind of gotten it into his head that things will be okay if they just keep moving. And he isn’t sure he can guarantee what will happen if he stops right now, rain, or no rain.
Sometimes he feels like he has a target on his back, and that it practically lights up with LED-level-brightness when he’s anywhere but in the front seat, his foot on the accelerator. But maybe this is just the Purgatory talking too.
Maybe he’s just so used to running, to moving, to never slowing down, because slowing down, even for a second, even just to catch your fucking breath meant death, meant never seeing the light of day, meant never coming back to this, ever again. That would make sense, really. Much more sense than pretty much everything else that’s happened since he’s been back.
He should be happy for Sam, that he was able to walk away, as crazy and impossible an outcome as that is
for him to get a grip on. And part of him is happy. But if he’s angry, too, it’s because they have a duty, and Sam abandoned that duty, for a full goddamn year, without a care in the world. Dean has a right to be angry. Doesn’t mean he has to like it though. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell half the time.
Sometimes Dean feels like Purgatory has left him raw, like his clothes and his skin have been ripped away, nothing left but blood and guts and a heart that beats for this - for this road, and Sam next to him, close enough for him to reach out and touch, if he needs to. To remind him of how far they’ve come, that they’re both still here. Survivors.
It’s no fun being the only survivor, no matter how hard you fight to earn your spot, or how much blood is left on your hands when it’s all over - if Dean knows anything, he knows this. It’s practically etched into his skin, into his bones. Everything he’s done to survive… It’s been to preserve this. And he’s not sure he even knows what this is if Sam up and leaves it to him.
It’d be nice if there was another way, of course. If he and Sam could just hang out for a while, take a little vacation, re-connect like regular people. A normal, run of the mill family reunion.
The problem is that this - the open road, a job on the horizon - this is the only place Dean knows how to exist, especially with Sam; it’s all he knows.
That, and the fact that when it comes down to it, he kind of enjoys it. Not that he had enjoyed the endless 360-Mortal-Kombat-style of Purgatory fighting, mind you, but this - tracking down a job, killing things before they wreaked havoc on the unsuspecting population of some backwoods town in Idaho, or northwestern Pennsylvania, or upstate New York? This has always felt like home, plain and simple.
And now that he’s back, and Sam’s back, he just wants it to work. He wants to find Kevin, and stop Crowley, and maybe even save a little something here and there along the way.
He knows it’s not working, not really, but that’s actually pretty easy to ignore, most of the time. Dean’s spent pretty much his entire life convincing himself, and Sam, while he’s at it, that everything is going exactly to plan, when usually, they’re two steps away from chaos, from everything falling to pieces around them.
It had been like that when their father had been around, and it’s like that now, too. Worse, maybe, but whatever. Things weren’t all that bad now, and they hadn’t been that bad back then, either. It’s probably all a matter of perspective, anyway.
**
When Dean was fourteen and Sam was ten, and their father left on a hunting trip with Uncle Bobby, their third in two months, at first, all the extended freedom had been kind of fun, like it always was when Dad left him in charge. They ate whatever they wanted and stayed up past midnight all weekend watching Nick at Nite on the cheap motel TV. But then the day Dad had promised he’d be back by had come and gone, and Dean hadn’t heard a word from him, or from Bobby, and for the next two days, he tried as hard as he could not to freak out. On the third night, he walked Sammy down to baseball practice and sat on the bleachers and watched the kids play and tried not to think of how Dad always called when he said he’d call, and he hadn’t so something had to be wrong.
The smell of fresh grass was all around him, and Sammy struck out twice, and then lobbed a nice line drive over the shortstop’s head before practice was over. They’d been in this town for two months, and Sammy had been so excited that this time, he hadn’t missed try-outs for Little League. Dad had been against it at first, of course he had, but in the end he’d given in.
That night after practice, when Sammy asked, Dean told him that Dad had called; of course he’d called. He was just tied up with the job, another day or two at the most, nothing to worry about.
It wasn’t always that easy - sometimes Dean had entire phone conversations with himself, for Sam’s benefit, the cheap plastic of the motel phone squashed up tight against his ear so that Sam couldn’t hear the silence on the other end of the line.
Not tonight though. Tonight they’d order pizza with the cash Dad had left them and watch rerun after rerun of MacGyver, because it was the only thing on, and secretly, because Dean really liked it. He’d learned a lot of useful tricks from that bastard. Someday, he planned to test them all out. They propped their pillows up against the headboard and Sam fell asleep with his head against Dean’s shoulder, and Dean fell asleep with his fingers tangled up in Sam’s hair where he’d been absently smoothing the pads of his fingers against the warm press of Sam’s forehead.
The next morning, just after the sun had started streaming in through the thin motel blinds, Dad came back. And Dean had been both relieved and a little disappointed, because it’d been kind of nice, being the one in charge for so long.
Over the years, he’d gotten really good at protecting Sam.
Sam, who cried when Dean made him watch The Goonies when he was six. Who cried at everything back then, even cartoons on Saturday morning, when he thought Dean wasn’t looking. Sam, who seemed very much like the kind of kid who needed protection, and Dean, the kid who’d had no choice but to become stronger. To become the person his father had wanted him to be.
Protecting Sam is the one thing Dean is pretty sure he’s the best at, actually, which is kind of pathetic, given how things have gone. But all the same, it’s something Dean is proud of, even now.
Hell, they’re both still breathing, right? That’s got to count for something.
**
“Jesus Christ,” Sam swears, as Dean skids to a stop along the shoulder, the wind and rain driving against the car with such force it feels like an eighteen wheeler has just passed them in the next lane, huge sonic waves of storm, surging around them.
“Happy now?”
He’d given in eventually, after another mile or so, because Sam just wouldn’t shut up about the rain, and about the tires on the Impala not being what they had been a year ago, and okay, maybe he couldn’t actually see the road after all.
“I’d just like you not to get us killed today, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It’s just a little rain, Sammy.”
“Visibility is like, zero, okay?”
Dean shakes his head.
The words sound like Sam, but something’s different; it’s like he’s left a piece of himself off somewhere else this past year. Like he’d left something behind on purpose. So that he’d have a really great reason to go back. That sounds like Sam alright.
So maybe this wasn’t going to work. Maybe Sam had been right, and Dean didn’t need him. Maybe he’d be better off on his own, cruising down interstate 80 through the rain, just plowing right through it all until the day it finally caught up with him.
The problem with that is he’s tried it. He’d rather not think about putting a number on how many times, but the point is -- it won’t work. He’s not sure how long he’d last out there on his own anymore. He’s not sure he wants to know.
The rain pounds against the doors and the roof, surprisingly loud, filling the car with white noise that Dean listens pretty intently to for several long minutes. He wishes Sam would say something to break the silence, but his brother looks pretty content where he is. Where he’s been for the last few weeks - compliant, and distant, and quiet as hell.
There’s a lump in Dean’s throat that he powers past, swallowing hard. He has no idea what he means to say. It’s just harder to ignore the thoughts that have been rattling around in his head all night when they’re sitting here alone like this.
“So about this college thing,” Dean starts, and watches Sam raise his eyebrows.
It happens a little faster than he expects, but Dean isn’t exactly surprised when Sam shuts him down without even opening his mouth, with nothing but the look on his face.
And so everything Dean probably wouldn’t have said anyway just vanishes, dries up and fades away somewhere. Some crap about regrets, and about how he wasn’t going to be like Dad about this, no fucking way. Dean hadn’t really wanted to say any of that just yet anyway though, so he figures it’s just as well.
“I didn’t ask for your permission, Dean,” Sam says finally. “And I told you, that’s just one option.”
“Right. Yeah, I get it.”
Dean lowers his eyes at the rain coming down outside the window and wonders when the hell they can get moving again, because this, right now, being trapped in here, not having this conversation - this sucks.
And then Sam gets that thoughtful look in his eye, like he feels sorry for Dean, or something, and says, “Have you ever thought about-"
“No.”
“How do you even know what I was going to say?”
“Lucky guess.”
Sam just plows right on, of course he does.
“School. A job. Another life. It’s not impossible for you, Dean. I know you think it is, but…”
It’s like every muscle in Dean’s body has tensed up at once. He grits his teeth. “Shut up, Sam.”
“Haven’t you at least thought-"
“I haven’t thought about anything, Sam, no.”
Dean’s head feels like it’s on fire -- the anger is white hot, searing through him. The intensity of it surprises him.
“And you know why I haven’t thought about what it would be like to have a nice, simple happy life playing house with some girl I met after I hit her fucking dog? Because I was in Purgatory. Okay? I didn’t exactly have a lot of free time.”
Sam shakes his head, lets out a breath. “Fine.”
“Okay,” Dean says, and thankfully, beautifully, there’s a break in the rain. He doesn’t wait to see if it will last, just turns the key in the ignition and feels his baby hum to life around him.
He takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. It’s like he’s crawling out of Hell, out of Purgatory, out of that damn fire all over again. He feels alive again, almost.
Sam is staring at him, like he’s about to say something again, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re moving - through the rain, though it’s lighter now, the lines of dark trees just gliding past behind them.
“It wasn’t her dog,” Sam says after a minute.
“What?” Dean asks, distracted, staring at the lines on the road, trying to block the last five minutes out of his mind.
Hell, the last few weeks would be fine, too. Better yet, they could go back to that first moment -- Sam walking through the door of the cabin, and this time Dean would just hug him first, maybe, and not let go, just bury his face in Sammy’s stupid chest, until all he could hear was the steady thumping of his heart against his ear, and that would just be it. Game over. No Kevin, no demons, no tablets, just the cabin, and his geek brother, and the Impala parked out front, ready to take them wherever they wanted to go.
“Nothing,” Sam says, and his voice is soft, less angry, easier. “Never mind.”
Dean sighs. Dammit if he isn’t actually curious.
“Come on, tell me already. How the hell did the dog lead to this epic hook up of yours if it wasn’t even hers?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the tiny curve of a smile on Sam’s lips.
“She’s a vet.”
Dean raises his eyebrows. “Nice,” he says. “Classy.”
“Yeah, she, uh… Patched Riot up, and then things kind of went on from there.”
“Wait, Riot? You named the dog Riot?”
Sam lets out a tight laugh. “Her idea, not mine. I was still calling him ‘dog’ after the first month.”
There’s a long moment of quiet that stretches on longer than Dean means it to. Finally he says the thing that’s been on the tip of his tongue for pretty much forever.
“So, what, not your type in the end? What the hell happened?”
Sam tilts his head, smiles a little, nostalgic and fond in a way makes Dean’s heart seize up tight, just for a second.
“No,” Sam says. “Actually, she was great. We were… Things were really good.”
“So what happened?”
“I… Well. I had a change of heart, I guess.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, measured and calm, but there’s something else there, too, something Dean can’t put his finger on. The same thing he hasn’t been able to put his finger on for weeks now, probably. He watches Sam frown, then shrug.
“Huh,” Dean says, raising his eyebrows. “Just like that.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yeah, I guess so.”
And for a second, Dean thinks maybe he was wrong. Maybe things aren’t so different after all. Maybe it’s just this simple, and this time, they’d catch a break. Hasn’t happened before, but what the hell, first time for everything, right?
At least the rain has finally stopped. Dean flips off the wipers. His chest feels light, not quite buzzing, but close. He glances over at Sam, at his profile as he stares out the window, at the smear of water against the glass and Sam’s long legs folded up in front of him, broad shoulders braced back against the seat, his hair grazing his shoulders, and the curve of his neck, weirdly graceful as always.
Purgatory had been pure, but, well… There’s something pretty damn pure about this, too.
In any case, at this rate, they won’t have to stop moving until morning.
**
Yeah, tomorrow I might wake up nice and clean
And I might believe the things I said I didn't mean
And this might turn and wind up just the way we'd dreamed
And I might become the things I swore I'd always be
Well, we're always on our way
We're on our way
**
end
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean
Warnings: some language
Spoilers: through 8x03 - Heartache
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3,400
Beta: winter_hermit, though I went back and couldn’t stop fiddling, so any remaining mistakes are my own
Summary: Sometimes Dean feels like Purgatory has left him raw, like his clothes and his skin have been ripped away, nothing left but blood and guts and a heart that beats for this - for this road, and Sam next to him, close enough for him to reach out and touch, if he needs to.
Notes: So. This is my first attempt at writing fic for these guys, and this fandom, so any thoughts/comments would be greatly appreciated. <3 Basically, this fic is set around 8x03, and contains a lot of driving in the rain, a few failed attempts at conversation, and a bunch of angsty Dean thoughts. Which kind of sums up my thoughts thus far on what’s been going on between Sam and Dean since the beginning of S8. ;) Quotes and title are from the Radical Face song We’re On Our Way.
Show your hands
If you need a new coat of paint
If your bones are now heavy things
Like anchors hidden somewhere 'neath your skin
**
The Impala hums along the road. Dean can feel the vibrations of the engine all the way down to his core -- all wheels and tires and speed and miles of open fucking road. Well, okay, maybe not so much speed, not on this slick patch of interstate, but the point is he’s here, behind the wheel with Sam across the seat from him, just like the old days.
The buzz in his head, the slightly manic bubble that he can feel knocking around in his chest sometimes when he looks across the dashboard is, well, let’s just say he can’t think of anything he’d trade this in for. Except maybe Kevin and the tablets and a one way ticket to closing the door on demons forever, but even then, honestly? It’d be a tough call. And yeah, he’s well aware of just how fucked up that thought is.
Just like old times.
Sam is zoned out, half-staring out the window like he’s a million miles away, or wants to be, his hair falling into his eyes, and his shoulders slumped forward, but still with that line of tension in them, like he wants to fall asleep, but can’t. And just like that, the buzz is gone.
College, Dean thinks. Fucking college. Again.
He should have seen it coming. He would have, maybe, a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago. But Purgatory has changed him. Sometimes he can’t help but wonder if it’s softened him. Because the idea of doing this alone again, the idea of Sam walking out of some run-down motel room with his backpack slung over his shoulder and Dean not knowing when he’ll be back, well… There’s a sick feeling deep in his gut every time he thinks about it, threatening to claw its way up and out of his throat if he’s not careful. Then again, maybe that’s just the Purgatory talking.
Because this is what Sam does. It’s what he does, and then he comes back. And that’s the important thing.
It feels different this time though. Dean can’t deny that. It’d felt different from the moment Sam showed up at the cabin, to the messages from Kevin that he ignored, all of it - it had been obvious. Probably. Sam’s heart wasn’t in this anymore. Maybe it never had been.
Not that Dean could blame him. It’s not like there was all that much to get excited about coming back to, anyway, right? It’s not as if they were any closer to figuring out how the hell to stop any of this crap from happening than when they’d started out years ago. They’d lost Kevin, had no leads on anything. Flying blind, as usual. Who could blame Sam for wanting out.
And it wasn’t as if Dean hadn’t tried that whole normal life thing once too. Just because he was too messed up for it, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be happy for Sam. That after all Sam had been through, he could enjoy a life like that. Could set all this aside for a girl. And a dog. A fucking dog.
Dean flips on the wipers. The rain is really coming down now, blanketing the windshield in heavy sheets that seem to be coming at him sideways most of the time. He can barely see a thing.
“Dean?”
Sam has switched off the radio, is sitting up straight in his seat now, his eyes filled with what was probably perfectly reasonable concern. Right there across the seat from him, like the last year had never even happened.
“What?” Dean barks, blinking at the blur of the road in front of them. “Let me guess - you want to tell me to slow down again?”
“No, I just… Look, maybe we should pull over for a few minutes. Let this storm pass.”
“We? How many of us do you see driving here Sammy?”
Sam sighs, rolls his eyes. “Fine. Dean, would you mind pulling over?”
Dean ignores him. Because he can, and because he doesn’t particularly want to stop the car right now. He’s kind of gotten it into his head that things will be okay if they just keep moving. And he isn’t sure he can guarantee what will happen if he stops right now, rain, or no rain.
Sometimes he feels like he has a target on his back, and that it practically lights up with LED-level-brightness when he’s anywhere but in the front seat, his foot on the accelerator. But maybe this is just the Purgatory talking too.
Maybe he’s just so used to running, to moving, to never slowing down, because slowing down, even for a second, even just to catch your fucking breath meant death, meant never seeing the light of day, meant never coming back to this, ever again. That would make sense, really. Much more sense than pretty much everything else that’s happened since he’s been back.
He should be happy for Sam, that he was able to walk away, as crazy and impossible an outcome as that is
for him to get a grip on. And part of him is happy. But if he’s angry, too, it’s because they have a duty, and Sam abandoned that duty, for a full goddamn year, without a care in the world. Dean has a right to be angry. Doesn’t mean he has to like it though. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell half the time.
Sometimes Dean feels like Purgatory has left him raw, like his clothes and his skin have been ripped away, nothing left but blood and guts and a heart that beats for this - for this road, and Sam next to him, close enough for him to reach out and touch, if he needs to. To remind him of how far they’ve come, that they’re both still here. Survivors.
It’s no fun being the only survivor, no matter how hard you fight to earn your spot, or how much blood is left on your hands when it’s all over - if Dean knows anything, he knows this. It’s practically etched into his skin, into his bones. Everything he’s done to survive… It’s been to preserve this. And he’s not sure he even knows what this is if Sam up and leaves it to him.
It’d be nice if there was another way, of course. If he and Sam could just hang out for a while, take a little vacation, re-connect like regular people. A normal, run of the mill family reunion.
The problem is that this - the open road, a job on the horizon - this is the only place Dean knows how to exist, especially with Sam; it’s all he knows.
That, and the fact that when it comes down to it, he kind of enjoys it. Not that he had enjoyed the endless 360-Mortal-Kombat-style of Purgatory fighting, mind you, but this - tracking down a job, killing things before they wreaked havoc on the unsuspecting population of some backwoods town in Idaho, or northwestern Pennsylvania, or upstate New York? This has always felt like home, plain and simple.
And now that he’s back, and Sam’s back, he just wants it to work. He wants to find Kevin, and stop Crowley, and maybe even save a little something here and there along the way.
He knows it’s not working, not really, but that’s actually pretty easy to ignore, most of the time. Dean’s spent pretty much his entire life convincing himself, and Sam, while he’s at it, that everything is going exactly to plan, when usually, they’re two steps away from chaos, from everything falling to pieces around them.
It had been like that when their father had been around, and it’s like that now, too. Worse, maybe, but whatever. Things weren’t all that bad now, and they hadn’t been that bad back then, either. It’s probably all a matter of perspective, anyway.
**
When Dean was fourteen and Sam was ten, and their father left on a hunting trip with Uncle Bobby, their third in two months, at first, all the extended freedom had been kind of fun, like it always was when Dad left him in charge. They ate whatever they wanted and stayed up past midnight all weekend watching Nick at Nite on the cheap motel TV. But then the day Dad had promised he’d be back by had come and gone, and Dean hadn’t heard a word from him, or from Bobby, and for the next two days, he tried as hard as he could not to freak out. On the third night, he walked Sammy down to baseball practice and sat on the bleachers and watched the kids play and tried not to think of how Dad always called when he said he’d call, and he hadn’t so something had to be wrong.
The smell of fresh grass was all around him, and Sammy struck out twice, and then lobbed a nice line drive over the shortstop’s head before practice was over. They’d been in this town for two months, and Sammy had been so excited that this time, he hadn’t missed try-outs for Little League. Dad had been against it at first, of course he had, but in the end he’d given in.
That night after practice, when Sammy asked, Dean told him that Dad had called; of course he’d called. He was just tied up with the job, another day or two at the most, nothing to worry about.
It wasn’t always that easy - sometimes Dean had entire phone conversations with himself, for Sam’s benefit, the cheap plastic of the motel phone squashed up tight against his ear so that Sam couldn’t hear the silence on the other end of the line.
Not tonight though. Tonight they’d order pizza with the cash Dad had left them and watch rerun after rerun of MacGyver, because it was the only thing on, and secretly, because Dean really liked it. He’d learned a lot of useful tricks from that bastard. Someday, he planned to test them all out. They propped their pillows up against the headboard and Sam fell asleep with his head against Dean’s shoulder, and Dean fell asleep with his fingers tangled up in Sam’s hair where he’d been absently smoothing the pads of his fingers against the warm press of Sam’s forehead.
The next morning, just after the sun had started streaming in through the thin motel blinds, Dad came back. And Dean had been both relieved and a little disappointed, because it’d been kind of nice, being the one in charge for so long.
Over the years, he’d gotten really good at protecting Sam.
Sam, who cried when Dean made him watch The Goonies when he was six. Who cried at everything back then, even cartoons on Saturday morning, when he thought Dean wasn’t looking. Sam, who seemed very much like the kind of kid who needed protection, and Dean, the kid who’d had no choice but to become stronger. To become the person his father had wanted him to be.
Protecting Sam is the one thing Dean is pretty sure he’s the best at, actually, which is kind of pathetic, given how things have gone. But all the same, it’s something Dean is proud of, even now.
Hell, they’re both still breathing, right? That’s got to count for something.
**
“Jesus Christ,” Sam swears, as Dean skids to a stop along the shoulder, the wind and rain driving against the car with such force it feels like an eighteen wheeler has just passed them in the next lane, huge sonic waves of storm, surging around them.
“Happy now?”
He’d given in eventually, after another mile or so, because Sam just wouldn’t shut up about the rain, and about the tires on the Impala not being what they had been a year ago, and okay, maybe he couldn’t actually see the road after all.
“I’d just like you not to get us killed today, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It’s just a little rain, Sammy.”
“Visibility is like, zero, okay?”
Dean shakes his head.
The words sound like Sam, but something’s different; it’s like he’s left a piece of himself off somewhere else this past year. Like he’d left something behind on purpose. So that he’d have a really great reason to go back. That sounds like Sam alright.
So maybe this wasn’t going to work. Maybe Sam had been right, and Dean didn’t need him. Maybe he’d be better off on his own, cruising down interstate 80 through the rain, just plowing right through it all until the day it finally caught up with him.
The problem with that is he’s tried it. He’d rather not think about putting a number on how many times, but the point is -- it won’t work. He’s not sure how long he’d last out there on his own anymore. He’s not sure he wants to know.
The rain pounds against the doors and the roof, surprisingly loud, filling the car with white noise that Dean listens pretty intently to for several long minutes. He wishes Sam would say something to break the silence, but his brother looks pretty content where he is. Where he’s been for the last few weeks - compliant, and distant, and quiet as hell.
There’s a lump in Dean’s throat that he powers past, swallowing hard. He has no idea what he means to say. It’s just harder to ignore the thoughts that have been rattling around in his head all night when they’re sitting here alone like this.
“So about this college thing,” Dean starts, and watches Sam raise his eyebrows.
It happens a little faster than he expects, but Dean isn’t exactly surprised when Sam shuts him down without even opening his mouth, with nothing but the look on his face.
And so everything Dean probably wouldn’t have said anyway just vanishes, dries up and fades away somewhere. Some crap about regrets, and about how he wasn’t going to be like Dad about this, no fucking way. Dean hadn’t really wanted to say any of that just yet anyway though, so he figures it’s just as well.
“I didn’t ask for your permission, Dean,” Sam says finally. “And I told you, that’s just one option.”
“Right. Yeah, I get it.”
Dean lowers his eyes at the rain coming down outside the window and wonders when the hell they can get moving again, because this, right now, being trapped in here, not having this conversation - this sucks.
And then Sam gets that thoughtful look in his eye, like he feels sorry for Dean, or something, and says, “Have you ever thought about-"
“No.”
“How do you even know what I was going to say?”
“Lucky guess.”
Sam just plows right on, of course he does.
“School. A job. Another life. It’s not impossible for you, Dean. I know you think it is, but…”
It’s like every muscle in Dean’s body has tensed up at once. He grits his teeth. “Shut up, Sam.”
“Haven’t you at least thought-"
“I haven’t thought about anything, Sam, no.”
Dean’s head feels like it’s on fire -- the anger is white hot, searing through him. The intensity of it surprises him.
“And you know why I haven’t thought about what it would be like to have a nice, simple happy life playing house with some girl I met after I hit her fucking dog? Because I was in Purgatory. Okay? I didn’t exactly have a lot of free time.”
Sam shakes his head, lets out a breath. “Fine.”
“Okay,” Dean says, and thankfully, beautifully, there’s a break in the rain. He doesn’t wait to see if it will last, just turns the key in the ignition and feels his baby hum to life around him.
He takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. It’s like he’s crawling out of Hell, out of Purgatory, out of that damn fire all over again. He feels alive again, almost.
Sam is staring at him, like he’s about to say something again, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re moving - through the rain, though it’s lighter now, the lines of dark trees just gliding past behind them.
“It wasn’t her dog,” Sam says after a minute.
“What?” Dean asks, distracted, staring at the lines on the road, trying to block the last five minutes out of his mind.
Hell, the last few weeks would be fine, too. Better yet, they could go back to that first moment -- Sam walking through the door of the cabin, and this time Dean would just hug him first, maybe, and not let go, just bury his face in Sammy’s stupid chest, until all he could hear was the steady thumping of his heart against his ear, and that would just be it. Game over. No Kevin, no demons, no tablets, just the cabin, and his geek brother, and the Impala parked out front, ready to take them wherever they wanted to go.
“Nothing,” Sam says, and his voice is soft, less angry, easier. “Never mind.”
Dean sighs. Dammit if he isn’t actually curious.
“Come on, tell me already. How the hell did the dog lead to this epic hook up of yours if it wasn’t even hers?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the tiny curve of a smile on Sam’s lips.
“She’s a vet.”
Dean raises his eyebrows. “Nice,” he says. “Classy.”
“Yeah, she, uh… Patched Riot up, and then things kind of went on from there.”
“Wait, Riot? You named the dog Riot?”
Sam lets out a tight laugh. “Her idea, not mine. I was still calling him ‘dog’ after the first month.”
There’s a long moment of quiet that stretches on longer than Dean means it to. Finally he says the thing that’s been on the tip of his tongue for pretty much forever.
“So, what, not your type in the end? What the hell happened?”
Sam tilts his head, smiles a little, nostalgic and fond in a way makes Dean’s heart seize up tight, just for a second.
“No,” Sam says. “Actually, she was great. We were… Things were really good.”
“So what happened?”
“I… Well. I had a change of heart, I guess.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, measured and calm, but there’s something else there, too, something Dean can’t put his finger on. The same thing he hasn’t been able to put his finger on for weeks now, probably. He watches Sam frown, then shrug.
“Huh,” Dean says, raising his eyebrows. “Just like that.”
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Yeah, I guess so.”
And for a second, Dean thinks maybe he was wrong. Maybe things aren’t so different after all. Maybe it’s just this simple, and this time, they’d catch a break. Hasn’t happened before, but what the hell, first time for everything, right?
At least the rain has finally stopped. Dean flips off the wipers. His chest feels light, not quite buzzing, but close. He glances over at Sam, at his profile as he stares out the window, at the smear of water against the glass and Sam’s long legs folded up in front of him, broad shoulders braced back against the seat, his hair grazing his shoulders, and the curve of his neck, weirdly graceful as always.
Purgatory had been pure, but, well… There’s something pretty damn pure about this, too.
In any case, at this rate, they won’t have to stop moving until morning.
**
Yeah, tomorrow I might wake up nice and clean
And I might believe the things I said I didn't mean
And this might turn and wind up just the way we'd dreamed
And I might become the things I swore I'd always be
Well, we're always on our way
We're on our way
**
end