Set sometime in season 2 after episode 10, "Hunted"

Written for Otorisosa-kan's November Writing Challenge. This month's challenge involved all of us submitting a song to inspire a story, and I got "I Want to Be Alone" by Jackson C. Frank. Thanks to TraditionalGaily for the submission! Sam's POV.

Alone

The sky is a thick blanket of clouds that mold together like cookies placed too close together on a baking sheet. Their edges fold over one another, vying for space inside a suffocating sky. We are standing underneath it and I am looking up, wishing there was even just a sliver of open blue to let the light in.

"Hey," he says, "Are we gonna talk about this?"

I let out a breath but don't answer yet. Still searching that sky. It's weird that I could feel claustrophobic right now. I mean, we're standing outside, leaning against the Impala with a good number of feet between us, but still, I can't really breathe right. Can't really open up my lungs.

"Sammy?"

I didn't notice before because of that stupid sky, but he sounds a little scared. If anyone else was listening in on this conversation, they wouldn't hear it, but no one knows my brother better than me, and I can tell he's freaked out. Can't blame him of course—who wouldn't be? This is crazy even for us. And this time it's not just some creature we can take out with a silver bullet or a blessed blade. This time, it's me.

"What do you want me to say?" I ask, because I know I need to give some kind of response before Dean starts hyperventilating. At least one of us should be able to breathe right. Dean shrugs. I see it out of the corner of my eye even though I'm still not looking at him. The world usually seems so big, but right now, looking up, I just feel trapped—squished beneath all those heavy clouds and all that pressing darkness. Usually the darkness seems manageable, because it only invades from the outside. It creeps in from the corners of our world and it can be defeated by a loaded gun, but now that I understand myself better, I see that it has always been leaking from the inside too; a slow poison. I wonder how my big brother never noticed it before. Dean's has always had this amazing instinct; this uncanny ability to pick out shadows from the deepest corners of the rooms we walked and to immediately know which ones needed killing. So why couldn't he see that the biggest threat was riding shotgun beside him this entire time?

Maybe he just didn't want to.

"I don't know man, I just want you to talk to me," he says now.

He's running a hand down his face and his eyes are scrunched together like he's working through some complicated calculus problem. Dean's a genius, sure, but math was never his best subject. He's always been better with the more obscure problems, the ones not solved with the same equations every time. Dean likes to make his own solutions. It's one of the ways we are different, but maybe it will help us now. Maybe he can save us, or at least save himself before it all goes to shit. Shouldn't be long now. If I were smart, I would leave him behind. I would do the saving by getting as far away from him as possible. And I guess I'm smart in some ways, but I'm not smart like Dean and I'm also not that strong. I've run away before, a few times now, but that was before. That was when I was in control, when I thought I knew myself. I imagine even if I took off now, it'd only take a few days for my big brother to come and track me down. And then he'd never let me out of his sight again. So I have to think this out. I have to think like Dean; find the solution squished between the lines, the one you can't get from a dictionary or the lore or a damn textbook. Maybe it's hidden between the clouds above our heads, a slice of sky nearly impossible to extract from those seeping gray clouds.

More likely, it lies below my feet. A Pit deep inside the earth where the Devil rests his head.

Dean is interrupting my thoughts. He's talking again, filling in the gaps where I should be speaking with his own half-formed answers to questions neither of us have asked aloud.

"We just have to take a step back for a second, I think. We already know where this is coming from, right? So now we just figure out exactly what it means and go from there, okay? I mean, we know there are others like you, right? So we start with that. Maybe we go back and talk to Andy, see if he…"

"Dean."

Dean stops talking. He swallows hard, and he won't look at me. Because he's scared. Of me. Because we both know that what I did just a few hours ago wasn't normal. I'm sure he drove as long as he could with me in the seat beside him, and I'm sure he warred with himself for a while before pulling over on the side of the road and forcing himself to get out of the car as slowly as possible so it didn't seem like he was terrified just to be near me. He doesn't have to say any of this, but I know it to be true. I can see it in the way his eyes are flickering like a dying flashlight, desperate to look at anything but me, and in the way he chews on the inside of his cheek while he waits for me to talk.

"Andy doesn't know anything," I say finally, watching Dean breathe out of the corner of my eye. I still haven't turned to look at him. Makes us even, I suppose.

"He might be able to…"

"Dean," I say again, more forcefully this time. His jaw clamps shut and he waits.

"I think you should go," I say.

I turn to him, and finally, finally he looks at me too, his confused stare meeting my resolute one. He shakes his head and opens his mouth, but I don't let him speak at all this time.

"Get in the car, and drive away. You know it's the right thing. Well actually, the right thing is to put a bullet in my head and then drive away, but we both know you won't do that, so this is the next best."

Dean won't stop staring now, mouth still halfway open in an attempt to dispute my words. But he can't. Because he knows I'm right. I know I'm right too, but Dean's silent admission still feels like a blow to the gut, and I do my best to swallow past it. Maybe if I just keep talking, he'll climb into the Impala like I'm telling him to and drive away so he doesn't have to hear what comes next. If the words hurt enough, maybe he'll go.

"Sammy, I'm not going to do that."

I should've known better. Dean has never been one to leave. He lets everyone else do that. He is no longer leaning against the Impala with his hands in his pockets, half-facing me like before. Now he's looking at me head on, palms curled non-threateningly at his sides, fingers rubbing together like he's scattering ashes into the wind. My stomach tightens again, this time in anticipation of the blow I am about to inflict upon my brother. All I know is that I can't let him ruin himself trying to save me. All I know is that he will be better off without me.

"Well those are your choices. You either kill me, or you get the hell away from me," I growl, watching his face crumple in the kind of pain he usually reserves for vampire teeth and bullet-holes.

"I won't just…"

"I could've killed you," I yell, my voice carrying out across the choking sky, burrowing into the small sockets that have begun to form between the clouds. One might think the sky is finally clearing up, that we will soon have the sun back, but I know different. As if to prove my point, the first raindrops begin to fall. One catches on my eyelash.

"It was just a nightmare…" Dean tries. Another raindrop lands on the collar of his jacket, and he flinches, exposing his neck enough that I can see the ugly purpling marks that now cover it.

"And if I hadn't woken up?" I ask, taking a step towards my brother. He automatically takes a step back, recognizing the mistake as soon as he's made it. He swallows again, eyes sliding back down to the pavement beneath our feet.

"Look Sam, you didn't know what you were doing, okay? It's not a big deal…"

"Not a big deal?" I am exasperated now, pacing just a few feet in front of Dean, who seems to be actively focusing on not moving from his current spot, as if he is afraid to further anger the beast he has unknowingly unleashed. "Dean, you were two seconds away from passing out. I didn't even have my hands around your throat and you were just...just suffocating. Choking. And I was doing it from the other bed. Without even touching you. You think that's normal? You think that's 'no big deal'? That means...that means I'm well past the point of sitting around brainstorming what you think it means. It means I'm dangerous and you have to put me down. Simple as that."

Dean is shaking his head like he's trying to get water out of his ear, and I am sliding well past terrified because he still doesn't see it. Blind, blind, blind, and there's no way I can change his mind. I watch his mouth move again, swallowing over the uncertainties so that he can try to sound like he knows what he's doing, but I hear the tremble in the words, the plea beneath the command.

"Get back in the car."

I shake my head.

"Sam, get back in the damn car. Now."

I cross my arms over my chest and take one step back. Dean opens his mouth again. Two more steps back. Dean steps towards me. Five more steps back.

"Stop. Stop it." Maybe Dean really did have to get water out of his ear. Problem is, it still sounds like he's drowning.

"Just give me time, Dean," I say. Three more steps back. "I need to be alone for a while. I promise I won't do anything drastic, okay? I just...I want to be alone."

I turn away from my brother's expression. The rain begins to fall harder, soaking into my skin, and I lose track of the number of steps it takes to walk away.

Hope everyone who celebrates has a very happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful week! Thanks for reading, and please leave your comments if you have time!