A/N: Thank you so much to toridw317 and ImpalaLove for reviewing the last chapter. Idk guys, all of a sudden I'm on a roll, so here is yet another chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

Spoilers: Season 3

Various Locations

2008

Sam still has the scar.

A thin, three-inch line running down his vertebrae that burns every time he remembers: three months.

Sometimes…

Sometimes, he hates him. It's the little moments, when he twists the top off a bottle of beer or hums the tune to Jukebox Hero, when he just wants to throttle him for acting normal, and the hate fills him like molten lava. His world is collapsing around him, and Dean doesn't even have the decency to act like it.

He wants him to scream, he wants him to cry, because that's all he feels like doing.

Caring and sharing?

No. He knows better than to expect that.

But he just…

He doesn't know. He doesn't truly know what he wants, what he needs. All he knows is it's not this.

Dean catches him standing at the sink, staring at his own face in the mirror and trying to read his brother's into it. Someday, this is all he'll have to remember him by. They don't look very much alike.

Dean squints at him from the doorway, hands on his hips. He looks like he wants to say something, like maybe he knows.

His features relax and he lilts, "Chop chop, space cadet. We gotta go."

Sam crams his toothbrush into his toiletry bag, hands shaking. He fumbles with the toothpaste cap and it rolls towards the drain.

"Y-yeah," he stammers. "Okay."

Sam zips the bag.

On his way out of the room, he scratches absently at the scar that will kill his brother.

.

.

.

.

.

The only time he ever witnesses even a flicker of sadness is in the Impala.

Every so often he'll say something like, "Make sure you change the brake pads every six months," or "The engine is fussy but more often n' not if she's actin' up you just gotta tweak the float valve."

He's teaching him how to take care of the car when he's gone.

Sam couldn't care less about the stupid car – who's going to take care of him?

He has so many things to say, so much indignation bubbling up inside him, threatening to explode out of his mouth. He suppresses it to the best of the ability, but sometimes he can't help it.

He spits, "Just shut up about the goddamn car, Dean."

His brother glances at him in surprise, as though he's been physically struck.

"You're going to die," Sam blurts out plainly. "You're gonna die in two months, if we don't find a way to stop it. How the hell can you talk about the Impala?"

Dean drags his forefinger across his pursed lips, eyes fixed steadfastly on the road.

"I'm not leaving anything behind," he says finally. "Nothing but you and the Impala. You're it. You're-" He stops himself and sighs heavily, a fire sparking in the back of his throat.

"We're what?" Sam presses, relentless. "Your legacy?" His voice breaks.

Dean refuses to look at him. He doesn't answer.

.

.

.

.

.

There is one emotion that overshadows all the others: anger. He wonders if maybe this is wrong, if maybe it should be sadness or something less… violent.

He's growing to resent his brother, resent him for making him need him so desperately, for making him love him so much. It shouldn't be this way, should it? He should cherish his remaining time with him, right?

In the careless blink of an eye, three months has whittled down to one. A matter of weeks, of days.

Dean acts the same, but every laugh rings hollow, every smile seems strained. His brother doesn't want to die.

Sometimes, Sam just cries. He can't help it. He feels pathetic, like a lost, blubbering child, but he just can't help it. There's nothing he can do – he tried, he tried, but he couldn't-

It's only when Dean can't see him, but he knows he knows. He runs the water. Always. But they both know Sam doesn't take twenty-minute showers.

How could he do this to him? How could he bring him back and make him live with this?

Sam was born with a volatile temper. But he can't hurt Dean (fragile Dean), so he savages anything else he can get his hands on, animate or inanimate. It doesn't make him feel any better. He doesn't really expect that it would, but every monster he kills leaves him feeling emptier than before. Every attempt at feeling better is a failure. He feels like he's trapped inside a well, clawing at the slick walls. Every time he finds a foothold, he slides back down. And now he's sitting in a puddle at the bottom, fingernails bloody and no closer to the top.

He's watched his brother die every day for a month straight. He should be numbed to it by now. But he's not numbed to it. He's maybe a little bit insane, but he's sure as hell not numb.

Dean has noticed this turn towards manic.

In a diner in Reno, he says, "It'll be okay, y'know. You'll be all right."

Sam glares at him furiously from over the laminated menu.

The sun is filtering in from the floor-length window next to him, illuminating a glistening in Dean's trademark green eyes that he might not have otherwise noticed.

He insists, "You will."

Sam swallows carefully. His eyes flit down to the table as he formulates a response.

"I know you're mad," says Dean. "And I guess I don't really blame you. I sure as hell would be too. But you'll be all right. You'll be better off than I was-"

Sam starts, "How can you-"

"Let me finish," he interrupts. "Please. I know you will be. That's why I did it. I know you've been wondering, and that's why. Without you, without Dad, I'm not-I'm not anything… But you – you can have a normal life. You always said you wanted to get out of this. Now you can."

Sam's rage cools to icy sorrow in a millisecond. His eyebrows merge as he whines, "Dean, please tell me you don't think that little of yourself."

His lips flicker into a semblance of a smirk, but this time he doesn't bother to disguise the melancholy behind it.

The scar on Sam's back is aching. He demands, "How can I ever have a normal life knowing you died so I could live it? How can I live knowing that? How can I ever look at myself in the mirror again, knowing that you're not here because I am, that you're dead because of me?"

"It's not like that," he chastises. "I made my own choices."

Sam scoffs incredulously, throwing down the menu.

"That's exactly what it's like."

"You'll be all right," he repeats. It's starting to become a chant, a mantra. "You'll be fine. You're..."

Before he can finish, the waitress comes over with a megawatt smile. To Sam, she's nothing more than a reminder that no one else is living in the same Hell he is, that the world is oblivious to the well he's trapped in. Her eyes are too bright, her voice is too cheery. She thinks they're just a couple of friends ('brothers, maybe,' she muses to Kelly when describing the two handsome guys at table seven) grabbing a bite to eat.

Dean grins back at her. He orders a cheeseburger, and Sam can't help but think he's one meal closer to ordering his last.

.

.

.

.

.

It's the middle of the night. One week to go.

Sam wakes up at 3 AM, migraine blaring, ripping through his brain like a chainsaw.

He sits up, tries to blink away the pins and needles poking at the backs of his eyeballs. He massages his temples and eye sockets for one, two, three, four and then out of nowhere he his hands are wet and he realizes he's crying. And it hits him like a flood, bursting out of him, and he doesn't even care that the water isn't running.

Dean wakes up in a haze of confusion and concern, and sees his little brother hunched over the edge of the bed with his face in his hands.

"Sammy…"

He reaches his hand towards him in the dark, but Sam jerks away.

"Don't," he hisses. "Don't touch me."

"Sam," he pleads, a look of profound hurt spread out across his face.

"How could you do this? How could you do this to me?"

"Sammy, you know it's not like that," he chokes. "You have to be strong."

It's the middle of the night, and Sam feels overtired and out of control. One week to go.

He's not himself, but this is a conversation that he could only ever have when he's not himself.

"I can't do this without you. I can't."

"You… You have to."

His hand falls on his shoulder, and he moves to sit beside him. This time, Sam doesn't pull away.

"I can't. I don't want to."

"I know, but you have to," he reiterates sadly, in a tone that seems to indicate it's okay if he doesn't want to. His hand moves to the center of his spine, a radiating heat right over the scar. "You'll be all right."

He sinks into his older brother, and Dean pats him on the back, slowly, patiently, and methodically. Dean is dry-eyed, like a martyr. They could be five and nine years old again. They might as well be.

A fleeting thought crosses both of their minds: What if Mom and Dad could see us now?

A/N: I know NOTHING about cars, so if that bit about the Impala didn't make sense I apologize haha. Also, I've been working on another chapter of 'Life in the Fast Lane' for like a decade (it's long af), so with any luck I can finish that up soon and post something more plot-centric. I hope you guys aren't sick of me by now lol.