A/N - This is my first attempt at Supernatural fanfiction, so advice/constructive criticism is greatly appreciated! This story takes place somewhere around the beginning of season three. As soon as I finished writing it, I suddenly thought of the lines, 'Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets/The muttering retreats/Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels' from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot; hence, the title of my story. Thanks for reading! Oh, and I don't own Supernatural.

Sam limped determinedly onward, holding one of his shoes in his hand. His left foot was bare; he had somehow lost his sock, and he was unwilling to put his shoe back on until he located the missing article of clothing and put it back where it belonged.

He turned the corner of a building, and recognized it as an elementary school in Michigan that he had briefly attended as a child. There was an enormous hole in the side of the building, filled with swirling aquamarine light. People – strangers – were lined up in front of it, stepping into it in pairs, holding hands. Bobby strolled by, wearing a dinosaur-shaped inflatable life preserver around his waist. He got in line, looking expectant.

Sam heard his brother come up beside him. Together, they watched the line dwindle for awhile. Then Dean said, "How much shampoo do you think it takes to keep that portal going?"

Sam's eyes flew open. Unsure of what had jolted him awake, he sat up, feeling groggy and disoriented. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean look up from the late-night re-run he was watching with the volume turned down low.

"What's up?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, trying to clear the fog. "Uh – nothing. Just a dream."

Dean frowned. "Like a vision?"

"No, just the regular variety." At least, I hope it's the regular variety, thought Sam. I don't think Bobby is the inflatable dinosaur type.

"Well, good. Keep it that way." Dean went back to his TV show, the flickering light reflected in his eyes. Sam glanced at the clock. It was nearly three in the morning.

"Dude, why aren't you sleeping?"

Dean didn't take his eyes off the screen. "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

"You know, I don't think that's funny," Sam said, and his tone made Dean look at him sharply.

"That's because your sense of humour sucks, Sammy."

Sam stopped short of rolling his eyes, but his expression remained decidedly unimpressed. Dean grinned obnoxiously at him, which set Sam off at once.

"First you eat a cheeseburger for breakfast – "

" – A cheeseburger with maple syrup – "

" – and now – Dean, that's disgusting."

"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it."

This time, Sam did roll his eyes. "Whatever. My point is, just because some demon set you a – a – deadline doesn't mean you have to act like an idiot."

"I'm not acting like an idiot," Dean retorted. "I'm making the most out of the time I have left."

"By watching re-runs of Seinfeld in the middle of the night?"

"Yeah, man! It's a good show."

"Yeah, and when you're pushing up daisies, I'm so sure you're gonna be thinking, 'I'm deliriously happy that I got to see the Low Talker episode one last time'."

"Nah, 'cause if you had it your way, I'd be thinking, 'Wow, I'm sure glad I ate my wheaties and went to bed early and jogged five miles every morning and didn't bang that hot waitress who may or may not have had herpes. It's sure doing me a lot of good now that I'm dead!'"

The two of them glared at each other for a moment. Sam looked self-righteous; Dean looked annoyed. Finally, Sam rolled over with his back to his brother and closed his eyes. They had had this conversation half a dozen times already, and it always came to a similar conclusion. Sam was too tired to dissect it all again. If Dean wasn't going to be reasonable, that didn't mean that he had to miss out on his rest, too.

As he drifted off to sleep, he could hear the familiar, comforting sounds of Dean shifting in his chair, laughing quietly at some inane joke on TV, even just breathing. His heart skipped painfully when it occurred to him that before the year was out, he could be lying in another motel room just like this one, and the only breathing he would hear would be his own.