Disclaimer: Kripke is the magnificent bastard that owns these characters. Blame him for your pain. I know I am.
A/N: After 5.02, this fic was weirdly cathartic. Pre-Series, Sam's PoV.
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They don't talk.
Dean's got Zeppelin playing in the tape deck (mellow is the man who knows what he's been missing) but his fingers don't keep the beat and Sam tries not to fidget. He fails miserably. His leg jiggles up and down, up and down, the leather squeaks in time with the engine and Sam feels like there's a wad of steel wool trapped in his throat.
They don't talk, not when Dean pulls into the parking lot, not when they go around to the trunk and Sam's reaching for his duffle. His entire world, Sam thinks, everything that's ever been his contained in a single bag. He wants to think it's everything that matters—his clothes and his books and the crumpled acceptance letter—but he knows better.
Dean closes the trunk. Not with a slam or any of the bang and commotion Sam expected would see him off—Dad had no problems meeting his expectations, slammed doors and kicked furniture, demanded and ordered and finally, finally—Sam hangs his head and blinks. His eyes are bone-dust dry and his jaw aches from holding it closed so tightly. Dean shuffles awkwardly; his boots scrape against the asphalt.
The late-August sun glares down at them, sweat settles on his upper lip. The bus ticket clenched in his right hand grows damp, already worried and creased from its overdue stay at the bottom of his backpack. Sam stares down at his brother's boots, the heavy soles and mud splattered leather, shifts from foot to foot, waiting out the game of chicken they've been playing since Dad grabbed his jacket and walked out the front door. Dean clears his throat and Sam thinks it means he's won:
"Take care of yourself Sammy."
Sam nods dumbly, licks at the salt that's gathered at the corners of his mouth. He looks up. Dean's face is still carefully neutral—"You're really going?" he asked in the middle of the kitchen, Sam's acceptance letter in his hand, voice quiet, with disapproval or reproach, or maybe something else all together, before Dad came home and the whole goddamn world exploded—freckled from a summer's worth of sunlight, pink and half-burned at the bridge of his nose.
The hug takes Sam by surprise—"You walk out that door Sam, don't think about coming back."—his brother's arms like a vice around him, and Sam's face is hot and something prickly in his chest expands until its pressing up against his ribs. Sam doesn't know how he's even capable of breathing around it. Dean steps back, claps him on the shoulder, a solid resonating thwack that rings out in the empty parking lot and sinks into Sam's bones.
"Yeah, you too Dean."
Dean nods, opens his mouth again. Sam hesitates, tightens his fingers around the bus ticket in his hand, holds on as though it were a lifeline, rooting him to his conviction (he doesn't need it, not really, he's getting on that bus even if Dean asks him not to, even though Dad told him not to come back. That might make him a selfish bastard, but Sam thinks he can learn to live with it). Dean stops himself with a shake of his head, and offers him a crooked grin that wreaks itself upon his face. "Bye Sam."
Sam tries to smile—tries not to think about all the things he's leaving his brother to, tells himself he's not abandoning Dean to anything he hasn't chosen for himself—then turns to go. Dean's eyes follow him all the way into the Greyhound station but Sam doesn't look back.
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The End
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Feedback is Love
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The title and lyric mentioned in the opening of this fic come from Zeppelin's song Over the Hill and Far Away, on the album Houses of the Holy.