CHAPTER 2

The last time Sam had been to the Oasis, it had been John behind the wheel. This time, it was Dean who eased the Impala to a stop beneath the watchful eye of the old Apache. The bronze menagerie was still standing as it was, frozen in time. Sam didn't think it was fair that something could remain so unchanged when his own life had been battered beyond recognition in the meantime. The antelope, the elk, the buffalo - they were all here. But Jess was gone. Dad was gone.

As Sam made his way to the toilet, he was sharply aware of how much his 6 foot 7 inch frame now dwarfed the once-mighty elk. Even Dean called out in jest, "Need a leg up for a ride, Sammy?"

Sam ducked into the toilets without acknowledging him.

The door on the first stall had fallen off since the last time he'd been here. Everything else was exactly as he'd left it. Even the scrawled Eat a dick - though flaking with the avocado paint – had stood the test of time.

Standing at the john, Sam felt a heaviness settle over his shoulders as they weighed his surroundings - and this life - and the knowledge that it had taken him back and forth across the country and somehow always deposited him back here. By now, he assumed he would have found a different destination. He'd be well into law school by now. Married to Jess. Maybe in their own place in California - a real home, a permanent one. Not this endless cycle between one crisis and the next, punctuated with rest stops and motels and greasy diners. Sam had put in a million miles and gotten nowhere.

When he emerged from the bathroom, Sam found his brother pacing, cell phone pressed against his ear, eyes vaguely scanning the flat expanse of nothingness surrounding them. Probably updating Bobby, who had been the source for this sudden detour to Reno. It was a milk run, really. Bobby'd been putting a spirit down when he got thrown into a mausoleum and ended up with a rack of cracked ribs and a broken shoulder. As such, he was far from grave digging condition. Dean, loyal as he was, had no problem with detouring some 400 miles to dig a hole. Sam, on the other hand, couldn't muster the enthusiasm. He felt the same way about cemeteries as Dean did about libraries.

With a lack of enthusiasm came limited patience for his brother's idiosyncrasies. Dean loved the open road. To him, it meant freedom. Sam didn't see the appeal. Freedom from restraint meant freedom from security. Stability. Home. The only constant in Sam's life was his big brother and Dean was as constant as the surface of the ocean. Calm, choppy, storm-tossed, turbulent. Take your pick.

But mostly it was the little things. It was Dean's insistence on blaring the same three cassettes in endless loop. It was the way he drove - one hand laying atop the wheel, the other picking his teeth, his ears, his nose. The way he examined whatever he'd found before rolling down the window to flick it into the wind. Sam imagined there were little bits of his brother strewn back and forth across the country like a trail of breadcrumbs. Then there was the overbearing way he flirted with every waitress in every diner they stopped at. He used the same tired old lines, the same toothy smiles. Half the time, he acted all of thirteen years old. The other half, which Sam actually found more tiresome, he acted like their father.

When Dean finished up the call with Bobby, he joined Sam in the sweltering Impala and brought the engine to the life.

"Coupla hours to go," Dean offered, as they pulled out onto the highway.

"Goody," Sam huffed.

Dean punctuated his return to pavement by twisting the volume knob until AC/DC was back at Volume Level: Deafening. Sam groaned and leaned pointedly into the door. Brian Johnson wailed his way through Highway to Hell, which Sam imagined fit perfectly for the soundtrack to this particular moment in his life.

On top of that, it was hot. Damn hot. It was Death Valley without air conditioning, and the sun pouring in through the windshield and frying him like an ant under a magnifying glass. Sam was so hot, he was starting to get chills. The feeling of being trapped in this miserable assault on the senses collided with the epiphany he'd had of being trapped in his life and Sam blew up.

"Goddamnit Dean, can you turn it down just a little!" he belted over Johnson's tenor scream.

Dean's response, as any big brother's would be, was to crank it up.

Sam knew if he made a move for that dial, they'd end up in combat. The number of slap battles played out in the Impala was beyond measure. Every one had been worth it. So Sam went for the dial.

Sure enough Dean responded with a backhand, which Sam deflected with a bone-to-bone blow that left both of them recoiling.

"Jesus, Samantha. What's your fucking problem?" Dean hissed.

Sam sensed the boil over and tried to change tactics. More heat was the last thing they needed.

"I've got killer headache, okay?"

If Sam had counted on his older brother's sympathy, he forgot to expect his hovering concern. Dean let a few long moments of silence go by before probing, "What kind of headache?"

Sam hadn't had one really, though he was beginning to get one now.

"It's nothing."

"Sam," Dean warned.

"Dean, it's a normal headache."

"You getting enough water?"

Sam scowled. Here it was again. Zero to Dad in six seconds. "Yes."

"You're not still getting that whole freaky mojo thing, right?"

It bothered Sam even more that Dean still skirted around the words, like he was either afraid or ashamed to admit his younger brother was a demon-tainted freak.

"Yes Dean," Sam snapped, "It's a vision. I see you, playing the same freaking tape over and over again for the next 200 miles until my head explodes, but you don't care because you're king of the car."

Dean snapped a look so fierce, it could've given him whiplash. "Sorry if I'd rather listen to something other than your constant whining, because I've had 24 friggin' years of that already, Sammy."

The space between them was exploding at supernova speeds, pinning Sam to the passenger door. He had an unbearable urge to jump out. Broken bones and bruises were nothing compared to suffocating in the heat he knew he'd created.

Without Sam's retort, Dean fell silent, cooling in his usual way - from lava to hard igneous. Sam held onto his anger as long as he could indulge it, before it dissolved into a weary forgetting. He closed his eyes and didn't wake again until the Impala's engine cut off at their destination.