Another night in another nameless town and the only comfort was a familiar pale white glow from a laptop.
Aside from his sleeping brother, that is.
Sam stared at the screen. The cursor blinked, appearing and disappearing, waiting for him to type.
He couldn't, though. It was late. Or early. Typing needed effort and thought and it was too late or too early for either.
Sam looked over from where he sat. Dean was sprawled and comfortable, one hand tucked beneath his riding t-shirt and the other dangling off the bed.
For all of his thirty-something years, at the moment Sam's big brother didn't look a day over five.
Good, though. One of them should sleep like a baby. Should sleep at all, really. Sam was glad it was Dean, too.
He turned back, back to the laptop and the blinking cursor in the search box.
They were in no-where Ohio en route to no-where Virginia.
The lead was a little thin, but it was something and something was better than nothing.
It was better than having time to just sit and think, even though truth be told they could probably both use it.
Sam was tired. Really tired, bags under the eyes, sticky-dry eyelids, and almost painful yawning tired.
He couldn't sleep though.
Caffeine would help, maybe. He loved coffee, one addiction he'd never be able to break – which was a little funny, all things considered.
All things considered. See, this was the danger with having that "thinking time."
Addiction. Seemed like Sam was hardwired for it.
Well, he was probably. But that didn't exactly excuse the issue.
Sam… had done a lot.
In fact it was rare to have a day where some echo of something he did wrong didn't happen. Lazy days, nice days - even they were tainted.
If he were sick and stuck in bed, Sam read. And when he read he learned. You could kill a Flatwoods Monster with copper bullets, for example.
Hunting and the supernatural, they bled into and ruined every molecule of the life of Sam Winchester and his brother.
And that was before things got… complicated.
Sam didn't want to be sitting in the glow of his laptop. He could feel the color leaving his face. He could feel exhaustion making the skin around his eyes purple and red.
But Sam had done a lot of things. Who was he to have the gall of wanting something?
He'd wonder sometimes where it had all gone south, where it all went wrong, but he knew the answer and it wasn't any semblance of comfort.
He was where it all went wrong.
Sam was wrong.
When times like this came, nights in the dark with soft snores from someone who deserved so much more, Sam just sort of stopped.
He'd gotten closure with most of this. There was nothing that he'd been keeping buried, not any more.
But acknowledging and patching up the wounds, no matter how old, didn't erase them.
The bandages would peel back sometimes and everything underneath was raw and ruined.
And now, add to all that, another healthy dosing of guilt because was Sam really, truly actually feeling sorry for himself?
There were people in the world who dealt with worse and bore their crosses with grace.
And here Sam was, feeling bad for himself. Safe (more or less) in a hotel. His brother alive and dreaming a few feet away.
He could be in a war zone or hungry or ill.
He could be alone.
He had no right to feel bad or piteous.
And the wheel in the sky kept turning. The cycle rolled on and on.
Sam closed the laptop. That familiar glow disappeared and the room was dark except for a sliver of the neon light outside peeking in through the curtains.
He should do something. Maybe go drive and take some time to think. Or he should find a hunt. Find something to kill, someone to save.
He should do a lot of things but he wouldn't because right now was that weird hour. The one where all the bad stuff happens but know one knows about it yet.
So he just sat, staring at the wall. He absently rubbed at his palm, the one with old cut and faded stich marks that still sometimes felt fresh.
Why was he alive? Why was he ever alive, in the first place, when most of his existence was just… existing?
A snore and friction between cotton and leather caught Sam's attention.
Dean passed out on his coat- really?
Sam smiled. It was tired and small.
Well. We all have our reasons for living.