Sam's feet were freezing.
At first, he was just asleep enough to ignore it- after they'd cleaned up the blood that had dripped over…well, everything, (Dean had forced Sam to hang halfway out the window on the way back to the motel in order to avoid getting blood on the seats) he'd fallen back into bed at the motel and refused to move despite Dean's cajoling from the table when he finally got around to scrounging up dinner. In a way, it was refreshing just to conk out flat and not worry about sitting bolt upright drowning in sweat after seeing Jessica burning to a hollow shell on the ceiling. He shuddered a little just thinking about it- or maybe it was the cold.
Cramming himself into motel bed had been an issue since he was twelve years old and the puberty fairy had seen fit to curse him with the height of a Sasquatch without any of the talent for subtlety. It didn't matter how much Sam contorted himself or how big the bed was-some part of him always ended up hanging out from under the blankets and was usually at least half-frozen by morning. It was normal though-or at least, it was for him.
When something brushed his heel, however, he growled.
"Dean, g'way," came the grunt from under the pillow. Sam heard Dean's laugh coming from the insane brightness streaming in through the window.
"Come on, Sammy-rise and shine! You've been asleep for fourteen hours, Anastasia. Move it or lose it."
"Her name was Aurora, jackass." Sam muttered, pitching a pillow in the general direction of his brother's head. It came back at him, the target apparently unfazed. Sam pulled the blankets up over his head.
"It seriously disturbs me that you know that." A sharp slap to the bottom of his feet with something hard had Sam standing up on the bed so fast that his head nearly popped a hole in the water-stained ceiling. From an even higher vantage point than usual, he saw Dean grinning, casually holding the old research encyclopedia that he had just used to smack the holy hell out of the soles of Sam's feet.
"Dude, what the hell?" Sam snapped, climbing down before yanking the book out of Dean's hands and attempting to take off his head. Dean snorted after dodging a well-aimed swing, putting his arm up to block the next blow as Sam swiped again.
"I wouldn't have woken you up, but we have twenty minutes 'til check out time and your smelly ass needs a shower before we hit the road. Breakfast is on the table, sunshine." Dean's grin was wide as Sam glowered and threw the book on the bed before stumbling over to the kitchenette to pick at his (now cold) sandwich from last night's dinner. It may have been gross for other people, but rule one on the road was to keep the funds stretched out as long as possible. You didn't waste food unless you wanted to go out and hustle up the money to replace it- and that was one thing Sam was definitely not in the mood for at… he glanced at the clock.
Jesus. It was 11:38 in the morning. For the past four weeks he hadn't slept past six AM- usually a result of the nightmares- so it was especially weird to get a good-old fashioned wakeup call from his asshat of a brother like they had done when they were kids. Back then, the roles had been somewhat reversed, with Dean moaning and groaning and retreating into a nest of blankets while Sam did everything he could to be as annoying as humanly possible: flinging curtains open, banging around the kitchen cupboards, threatening to play with Dad's explosives and repeatedly poking his brother's face before deciding to get bored and see how many ice cubes he could stack on Dean's stomach before he woke up. That last one hadn't ended well- Dean had woken up in a puddle of freezing water with Sam hovering over him trying to get number thirty seven to keep from sliding off of its rapidly melting cousins.
On second thought, maybe he had deserved the book-smacking after all.
"How're you feeling?" Dean asked, sitting down across from him with a much more serious look on his face. Sam poked at his food, avoiding his brother's steady gaze.
"Okay, I guess. Still kicking, right?" The old joke fell flat as Sam chewed and Dean raised an eyebrow.
"If you're sure."
Sam sighed loudly. "I am sure, Dean. Stop treating me like I'm gonna break, okay? I'm good. I promise."
It didn't escape him that Dean shook his head in disbelief, but what mattered was that he shut up about it. Sam scrambled to change the subject before the quiet could get too awkward, talking with his mouth full to escape the silence.
"So where are we headed next?"
Dean shook his head in earnest this time before giving the smallest of smirks. "There's nothing on the radar for us right now- couple of werewolves down in Baton Rouge, but Jamie has it handled and those weird opera murders we were going to head after turned out to be a prank pulled by a rival company. So unless you've got a dusty old case packed away in that brilliant brain of yours, I'd say we're free for a couple of days- a week if we don't catch anything worthwhile down south."
"So what do we do?"
"Well, the way I see it we could sit around here twiddling our thumbs and watching crappy soap operas or we could kick it old school."
He sat back and waited for Sam to finish a bite, looking at him hopefully.
"Dean, there has to be something out there."
"I'm telling you, zip. Zilch. Nada. So…?" Dean waved a hand, willing Sam to give the answer that they both already knew Dean was hoping for. When Sam simply narrowed his eyes Dean just finished the sentence for him.
"Road trip, baby! Where do you want to go? Vegas? We haven't done Vegas in forever. I would say New York, but we all remember how well it went last time, am I right? What about Atlantic City? We could get you in to a little sin, college boy. There's a football game in Missouri two days from now and a rock festival down in Illinois if you feel like it."
When Sam didn't respond, Dean tried to hide the fact that his face fell by looking out the window.
"Or we could just hang out here."
There was a small pause as Sam swallowed his mouthful of sandwich and cleared his throat. "If you want to kick it old school, we do this right. You got a quarter?"
There was no other way to say it-Dean lit up like a summer bonfire and dove into his pockets while Sam rummaged behind him in the duffel for a raggedy map of the US that was almost as dog-eared as the abandoned encyclopedia on the bed, spreading it across the too-small table and setting his finger over Toledo, Ohio.
"Point A."
Dean flipped the coin off his thumb and into the air before it landed with a ping and a clatter…on Maryland. Dean raised an eyebrow.
"Point B." He intoned, craning his neck sideways to see where the edge of the quarter had landed. "St. Mary's City."
"St. Mary's City it is, then." Sam scooted the quarter off the map and began to pack up the scattered messes from around the kitchenette, folding everything military style into the bag slung over the back of his chair. Dean looked like he was about to pee himself with excitement.
"Dude, do you know how long it's been since we've done one of these? There was that one time at Coney Island, do you remember; when you ate all those corndogs and then ralphed on Pennywise the Clown? Man, that was priceless. I don't think I've ever seen that many colors on one person before. They have beaches over there. We should hit a beach-or Washington D.C maybe? Wave our asses in front of the feds? You'd probably want to get into all those museums and drool over old rocks. Geek."
Dean's animated chatter followed him out the door on the way to the car and all the way down the first half of the highway as Sam listened to him with a half-smile from the passenger seat. It was weird to be back on the road- with all the windows rolled down and the radio cranked up so that Dean's Credence Clearwater Revival album could be heard over the roar of wind throbbing around them. Dean was happy, which was awkward enough with Dad gone and all of this ridiculous crap going down with the demon that had killed Mom, but the weirdest thing to handle right now was the fact that being on the road again made Sam a little bit happy too. It wasn't the best situation-far from it- but it was nice to have his brother back next to him.
Dean made things okay.
Jessica was gone, Dad was AWOL, and God knew what the hell was going on with the demon they were chasing. Sam's world had gone absolutely sideways in the past few weeks, with the carefully established routine of school and work shattered by his past coming back to haunt him. A lot of the life he'd left behind- the skeevy motel rooms and bad food and being crushed between the dash and seats of the Impala for eight hours almost every day- he hadn't missed at all. But having his brother back at his side made things bearable.
In spite of everything, Dean still used the word dude too much.
He still had cholesterol that was through the roof.
He still talked to the Impala just like he had when he turned sixteen and inherited her.
He still drooled over good food and pretty women.
He still bickered about the stupidest things, like who used the last of the toothpaste or who forgot to gas the car again.
He still flirted with the waitress at every diner they stopped at.
He still sang ridiculously off key and played air guitar when he thought nobody was looking.
He still woke up in the middle of the night to check up on Sam and peer outside the room in search of anything out of place.
It was all those things- the little familiar things, Sam realized- that made the world keep turning at a jolting pace for him. He peeked quickly over at Dean, who was singing into the wind at the top of his lungs with his jacket off and his arm slung out the window to tan in the sunshine tearing holes in the clouds above. Without warning, Dean elbowed him in the ribs and looked over expectantly.
"Come on, you know the words." He said, cranking the radio dial.
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no
Sam shook his head at his brother with a small smile as Dean warbled away over the growl of the Impala's engine.
After hours of loud music and open road with no town in sight, Dean pulled off to the side of the highway and parked the car in a grassy field as the sun went down in a mess of orange and yellow to the west. Dean popped open the driver's side door and stretched his legs out with a sigh as Sam sat back on the hood of the car and watched the first faint glimmer of stars peer out from the stale gold of the last light of day. Even though it was late in the season, the crackling spark of fireflies still occasionally shot through the underbrush and the cornfield as crickets peeped a tuneless song.
They didn't have to say anything- Dean cracked a beer from the battered little cooler they had stashed in the back and tossed another to Sam as the night sky started to reveal itself overhead. Sam remembered camping out sometimes as a kid, on nights when there had been no town or no case to follow- John had taught the boys how to build campfires and swim in muddy creek water and fish for trout with their bare hands. He couldn't help but chuckle as a certain memory surfaced of Dean desperately wrestling with a fish before falling with a yelp into freezing rapids. John had hauled him out by the collar while Sam rolled on the bank, laughing himself breathless until an embarrassed Dean had pitched him headfirst into the water in revenge. What had followed was a messy brawl of mud and creek water, as well as the occasional fishy bit flying through the air to smack someone in the face. (John had not looked good in salmon.)
"Something funny?" Dean asked, taking a swig of his beer and sauntering over to join Sam cross-legged on the hood.
"Something fishy." Sam admitted sheepishly, shaking his head.
"Some days I wonder what it's like in that head of yours." After a moment of silence, Dean sat up a little and piped up, "Hey Sam- tell me something I don't know."
It had been an old game to pass the time when they were smaller and Sam got on John's nerves while they were headed cross-country. Counting telephone poles and playing I Spy or roadkill bingo eventually got old, so Dean would suddenly flip around in the passenger seat and challenge-
"Hey Sammy, tell me something I don't know."
And of course Sam would oblige, spouting useless facts that Dean pretended to be interested in until they got to the next rest stop and were able to run around like hooligans for a few minutes while John bought sandwiches or filled the gas tank.
Sam wracked his brain for a minute, finally coming up with a factoid he had read a couple of months back. "Your hair keeps growing a couple of months after you die."
"What if you're bald?" Dean wondered aloud. Sam couldn't help but snort.
"Okay, a better one then- banging your head against a wall burns 150 calories an hour."
"With all the running around we do, I think we're okay there- but if we ever get old and fat I'll keep it in mind."
"It's not like you have the brain cells to lose." Sam joked. Dean whacked him in the side and he rolled away, hands half up in surrender.
"Watch it, Samantha. I will pour beer on you." His brother warned, bottle tipped so that the alcohol splashed haphazardly inside.
"What, and risk your precious upholstery? I don't think so." Bluff safely called, Sam flung an arm behind his head and stared back up at the sky, where silver stuck to dark blue like scattered beads over velvet. Half distracted by the shimmer above, he murmured a fact that he wished he could be able to forget:
"Human flesh requires extended exposure to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit in order to ignite."
Dean leaned up on an elbow with a concerned expression. "Don't do that to yourself, Sam. There was nothing that you could have done."
He had no idea. About the visions, about any of it. And if Sam had anything to say about it, he wouldn't ever have any idea. The last thing that he needed was to have Dean looking at him like he was a freak too.
The way that Dean was looking at him right now.
With a yawn that was only half faked, Sam handed his beer over to Dean and slid off the hood. "Here, finish mine. I think I'll just- turn in for tonight."
Dean nodded. "Right out here if you need me."
Thank God, he was.