d r i v e . u n t i l . y o u . l o s e . t h e . r o a d

Drive Until You Lose the Road
[by victoria p.]

Rating: PG

Summary: He has no idea where they're going, and he doesn't really care. He just keeps heading west, following Dean's lead.

Spoilers: through All Hell Breaks Loose, part 2

Notes: Thanks to luzdeestrellas for betaing. Title from The Fray.

Word count: 2,365 words

Date: June 4, 2007

The sun is rising at their backs when they pull out onto the road. Dean's behind the wheel, still pale and shell-shocked, freckles standing out like daubs of blood on his dirty, scruffy face, his eyes as green as hope.

Sam sits in the passenger seat, exhausted, barely able to keep his eyes open, but he won't close them, not now, not yet, not until he's sure it's not just a dream, that they did it, and Dean is safe, going to live for however many years he's got left until some vengeful ghost, jealous boyfriend, or irritated beyond bearing little brother actually kills him.

His ears are still ringing, but he's soon soothed by the familiar, steady rhythm of tires on asphalt, and he falls asleep without even realizing it, wakes when the car stops moving, heart lurching in fear that saving Dean was all a dream and now that he's awake, Dean will be gone.

"Gotta take a leak," Dean says, opening the car door.

Sam grunts in response, unfolds himself from the seat, and follows Dean into the rest area.

When they get back into the car, Dean drops a bag of pretzels and a bottle of Gatorade in Sam's lap, and holds up the receipt, the checkout girl's name and phone number scrawled across the back.

Sam can't remember the last time Dean actually called a girl who gave him her number, but he still takes them and preens like he did when he was fifteen, and it happened for the first time.

Sam rolls his eyes and opens his drink. "You wanna stop for a quickie?" he asks in disbelief, tipping the bottle to his mouth.

Dean looks over and grins--he's washed his face, and without the smoke and dust, he looks younger, even though there are lines radiating out from the corners of his eyes, and dark shadows under them--and says, "Why? You offering?"

Sam snorts Gatorade through his nose, which hurts, dammit, and makes his eyes sting. He blinks back tears (he didn't let himself cry earlier, didn't let himself acknowledge that he could have failed), and Dean looks delighted.

"Dude, you better wipe that shit off the dashboard before it dries and gets sticky."

Sam flips him off, but pulls napkins out of the glove box and wipes the dash clean.

Dean finally gives in and lets Sam drive just east of El Paso, sinks down into the passenger seat and sleeps, exhausted and full of truck stop meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Sam keeps an eye on him, occasionally reaches out to touch, to make sure he's still solid, there, breathing, but he pulls his hand away quickly, feeling silly, and afraid to wake him.

He has no idea where they're going, doesn't think Dean does either, and he doesn't really care. He just keeps heading west, following Dean's lead.

He drives into the sunset, through the night, hypnotized by the steady black and white ribbon of road scrolling out before him, headlights cutting through the darkness, and highway lights lining the shoulders like low yellow moons in the distance, the occasional eighteen-wheeler their only company.

They're alone and safe, or as safe as anybody gets in this world, he thinks, remembering long night drives on unlit country roads, his father's hands steady on the wheel and his brother snoring beside him, the only true home he can remember, and that feeling of safety lingers, even after everything that's happened. He lets it envelop him, relaxes enough to turn the radio on to keep him company while Dean sleeps, snatches of half-familiar songs breaking through the static.

At midnight, somewhere in New Mexico, he's kept awake by the tired voices of the lovelorn calling in to an all-night radio show; they tell their stories to a woman with a smoky voice that makes Sam think of good whiskey and sex. She reads soppy dedications to long distance lovers and plays love songs for them, the kind of crap Dean would never allow if he were awake, and it makes Sam laugh, because he knows the cost of dying or killing for love the way most people never will.

Dean wakes around three a.m., yawning and stretching, stomach rumbling, and Sam realizes he hasn't eaten anything in hours, and suddenly he's ravenous.

There's a rest stop and a Denny's grand slam with his name on it in twenty-three miles, but when he suggests getting a room at the next Econolodge they pass and actually sleeping in a bed for the first time in days, Dean just shakes his head and holds a hand out for the keys.

Sam doesn't remember falling asleep this time--when he closes his eyes, they're pulling out of the parking lot, and when he opens them, the sun is high overhead and they're pacing traffic on I-10. Dean's got the window down, left arm already starting to freckle, and "Bitch" by the Stones is blaring from the radio.

Sam's clothes are sticking to him, and they're both a little rank from the heat, from wearing the same clothes for the last forty-eight hours. From fighting hellhounds, and the red-eyed demon who'd tried to claim Dean's soul. He rolls down his window, closes his eyes and lets the wind dry the sweat in his hair.

Eventually Dean pulls over into a rest stop, and after Sam picks up a frozen yogurt (chocolate and vanilla swirl with sprinkles), he strolls over to the bookstore, where Dean is flipping through a comic book.

"Hey, did you know Scott Summers and Jean Grey broke up?" he says, looking up from the page and shaking his head. "He's banging Emma Frost now." He puts the comic back on the shelf and leads the way back to the parking lot, stopping only to get a cup of coffee and a chocolate doughnut.

"It must be cool to have a telepath for a girlfriend," Sam says, holding his hand out for the keys. Dean gives him the patented Dean Winchester, are you fucking kidding me? look and slides in behind the wheel. Sam sighs in resignation and climbs in beside him. "You'd never have to worry about miscommunicating; you'd always know how she felt, and she'd always know how you felt in return." He wishes sometimes he could read Dean's mind, wonders if it's one of the gifts the demon talked about, but the visions stopped when the demon died, and he hasn't tried to flip any switches in his brain, still afraid of ending up like Ava or Jake.

"No fucking way, Sammy." Dean gives a full body shudder that'd be funny if his face weren't so serious. "I got thoughts I don't want anyone else to know. Everybody does. I mean, Emma Frost is hot, don't get me wrong, but what if I was in the mood for a brunette that day, or a redhead?" He sounds like he's joking, but his hands are tight on the wheel, and Sam knows he means what he's saying. "I don't need her laying the smackdown on me because I was thinking about Rogue or Storm while I was whacking off."

"I can't read minds," Sam says softly. "And even if I could, I wouldn't. I mean, I'd respect your privacy."

Dean shoots him a startled glance, and Sam knows he's hit the mark. "Dude, I know that. You're a giant boy scout, like freaking Superman." He smirks, and Sam can see him covering up, deflecting, the way he always does. "At least you wear your underwear on the inside nowadays."

Sam feels the tips of his ears burn in embarrassment. "Jesus, Dean, I was five."

"You were a goofy little kid, Sammy, just admit it. I mean, why would you pick Superman when you could be Batman?"

"Dude, we are not having this argument again." But Dean is shifting in his seat, settling in for a long drive. There's traffic as they merge onto the Five heading north, and Sam recognizes where they're going. It's his turn to shoot a startled glance in Dean's direction, but he can't read minds, and he's never been as good at reading Dean as Dean is at reading him.

"That's because you know I'm right. Just admit Batman's superiority, and we don't have to talk at all for the next three hundred miles."

Sam knows he should. They've been having this argument for as long as he can remember, and neither of them will ever change their minds, so he might as well just concede, because Dean never will. He's sure he's going to, opens his mouth to say, Sure, Dean, whatever you say, but what comes out is, "But Superman is invulnerable. And he can fly."

The argument--expanded at certain points to include Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Magneto--keeps them occupied for almost a hundred miles, even after it degenerates into, Now you're just being a dumbass, Sammy, and, Shut up, Dean, I mean it.

Sam's legs are stiff and achy, and his ass is practically numb, when he stumbles out of the car.

"Dean, I think this is a private beach," he says, though it's deserted at the moment.

Dean raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything. He hunches over to untie his boots, and then strips off his jeans.

By the time Sam processes what he's doing, Dean is down to his boxer-briefs, which hit the sand next, and then he's running into the water, amulet bouncing against his bare chest, early evening sunlight gilding his skin. He dives into an oncoming wave, sleek and graceful, and pops up, hair slicked back off his forehead. He's laughing and jumping waves, and his voice echoes out over the water.

"Come on, Sammy, you could use a bath," he yells. "Don't punk out on me now."

Sam dips his toes in and yelps. "The water is fucking cold, man. "

"It'll put hair on your chest. You worried about shrinkage or something?"

Sam shakes his head, grunting in annoyance, as he starts to undress, because there's no way he can get out of this now, not unless he wants to hear about it for the rest of his life, and he knows the water is freezing, and they didn't even bring the blanket or the towels down from the car.

The water is icy on his skin when he dives in, and when he resurfaces, he can barely breathe from the chill of it, but already he feels cleaner, fresher, more awake than he has in days, weeks, possibly even months. The burden of saving Dean's soul from hell has finally been lifted from his shoulders, the last strain of it washing away with each lap of the waves. What's left is the familiar, not always comforting weight of being a Winchester, of being Dean's brother, of knowing he'll never stop fighting for Dean, the way he knows Dean will never stop fighting for him. The weight of knowing that, for them, the fight will never end.

Dean's teeth are chattering and his lips are tinged with blue when they come out of the water. He makes Sam go back to the car, shirt wrapped around his waist for modesty, to grab some clothes, the towels, and the blanket.

When he comes back, Dean's already got a little fire started, and he's feeding bits of paper into it--the receipt with the checkout girl's phone number, something that looks like the temporary library card Sam got when they were in New York last fall, and promptly lost, the suicide king from their deck of cards, and other things Sam doesn't recognize, that Dean produces from the pages of his journal. Sam opens his mouth to ask, and then closes it again, letting Dean perform his ritual in silence.

Sam dries himself off, pulls on a pair of jeans, and settles onto the blanket, staring at the sea. When Dean's done feeding the fire, he does the same. The sun is going down now, huge orange disk sinking into the sea, painting the sky pink and purple, and Dean tilts his face towards it, eyes closed, mouth curved in a quiet smile.

He leans over, bumps Sam's shoulder with his, and says, "I used to come here after I checked up on you at school. It's part of the country club, I think. I don't know. It's always pretty empty."

Sam nods, shifts closer, seeking the heat of Dean's body. He smells sharp, of salt and sea and sand, of smoke from the fire, of safety and home, and Sam breathes him in, content. Dean's stomach rumbles, and Sam's gurgles in response, but they wait until the sun is down to move. They don't have to rush anymore.

When they get back to the car, Sam doesn't give Dean a chance to argue--he gets behind the wheel and holds his hand out for the keys. Dean tosses them over, grumbling about the sand getting into everything, and how he'll have to vacuum the car in the morning. Sam refrains from pointing out that the beach had been his idea.

"I know this great Japanese place," he says instead, remembering the nights he took Jess there, and how it'll be nice to take Dean there, too.

"Sounds good," Dean says around a yawn that takes him by surprise.

Sam taps the back of Dean's head. "Have a nap. We'll be there in half an hour."

"Don't need a nap," Dean says, but his eyes are closed and he's already hunching against the door, jacket balled up beneath his head. Sam is surprised when, five minutes later, he murmurs, "Actually, I bet Wonder Woman could kick both their asses. I'd pay a dollar to see that." And then he's asleep, wheezing a little in the silence.

Sam laughs, happy in a way he hasn't been in far too long. The road stretches out before them, Dean's next to him, and somewhere out in the darkness, there's evil to fight. It's comfortable, familiar, home, and it's theirs now for however long they can hang onto it, no demons with a claim on them anymore.

end

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