Author's Note: I've decided it's time. After dabbling in Supernatural one-shots and vignettes, I've decided to write something with ... like ... a plot ... or something. Wish me luck!
This critter is set in Season One, when John's still out there somewhere. I've only seen three and a half seasons so far and it seemed safest to stick with the early stuff.
And Miles To Go Before I
Chapter One: Sleep
What I remember from then is what my geek brother Sam would call sensory impressions: the smell of black coffee and run-over skunk, the worn warmth of Dad's hand on my shoulder, the grinding clatter of Sammy's voice from the back seat, spouting poetry he learned for an English teacher who wouldn't hear it, since we were never going back. The sight of rain in rivers down the windshield and the taste of terror slowly fading.
For hours and hours after.
I ain't trying to dredge up before, and it stays more or less hidden.
After comes in bits and bursts. When I blink I see green mile markers flying past, and a dotted white line sliding back and forth underneath the tires. I can feel the leather under my fingernails as I gripped the edges of my seat, pushed breath past pursed lips, tried focus on the radio. Three Dog Night, Mama Told Me Not To Come.
Dad never let go of my shoulder.
"Whose woods these are, I think I know …" Sam started again and his voice was all keyed up, the way it got before he crashed. I prayed that moment would come soon. In my current state, I wasn't sure how much more Robert Frost I could handle. Each time through, Sammy got faster, stumbled over the words a little more. The poem didn't make any sense at all now, mostly disjointed words and bungled syllabes spat at a psychotic rhythm,and Sam's voice sounded like my own mouth tasted – scared.
Dad was the only one calm.
Least I thought so then. It occurs to me now that Dad must only have been playing calm. Much like Sam's doing now, because he's trying to keep me from losing it entirely.
I hate being the one close to losing it. That's supposed to be my brother. Fuck.
"Dean." Sam brings me back – modern-day grown-Sam, not Robert-Frost-spouting Turbo-Sammy. "You okay, man?"
"I'm fine." Heels of my hands grinding into my forehead and my eyes screwed shut. Sam volunteered to drive this stretch of road, for obvious reasons. I try not to draw his attention to me because I want his full focus on my car and its well-being. Not on me and my girly-ass nervous breakdown.
But nothing doing. Sam's onto me.
"Hour or two, this'll be over," he says, like it's nothing, except I hear the tiny catch in his voice. Makes sense, too. He was there, right at the center. He saw. He even blamed himself, probably still does. He's getting wound up a little, even now at the age of 22, and I think of 12-year-old Sam's voice rambling: "He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow …" while Cory Wells competed: "That ain't no way to have fun, son …"
I thought it wouldn't affect me.
I was sixteen and full of hot air and I thought I could do … what I did … and it wouldn't mean anything. Sucked while it was happening and then it was over. It wasn't till we all made it in the car, it wasn't till the car started booking down the highway, it wasn't till mile marker 19, 18, 17 that it started to sink in.
This will never be over.
I peek one eye open and I see the mile markers slipping away. 28. 27. 26. Won't be long till we hit 21, where, ten years ago on a December night, I committed the only out-and-out murder I ever care to.
After – which is what I think about to keep from thinking about before – my dad drove us as fast as he could down the highway, shimmying on black ice while I breathed through the panic and breathed through the panic, and my little brother repeated in a voice like bottles smashing, "Miles to go before I sleep …"