Dean woke up to Sam manhandling him to the passenger seat. He'd fallen asleep at the wheel and Sam had to coast the car to an emergency stop. Dean only remembered as he felt Sam's gentle fingers on the nape of his neck, adjusting him in the seat, that he'd forgotten to stop to eat or sleep for days on end.
Sam reached behind them in the back seat and pulled up a blanket they'd often fought over as kids. It was the designated "car blanket" a soft blue terry-towel of a thing. Sam wrapped it around Dean's waist, up to his chest.
"Sammy, what the hell?" Dean groaned groggily. Sam laughed softly through his nostrils. Dean saw the glint of headlights off his teeth as he smiled in the dark, looking back at the interstate as he backed up again onto the interstate.
"You're like a damn toddler, Dean. Shh! Go to sleep." Sam laughed softly as Dean tried to protest, but almost immediately sagged back into his fitful rest.
Dean had one last clear thought as he slipped off into sleep. A sudden, intense surge of anger that almost woke him up but simmered under his obelisk eyelids, weighed down by the stones of sleep. A monster couldn't do what Sam had just done. A monster didn't laugh with a soft little chirp like a bird or get that kind of little glittering smirk on its face when it got to drive its big brother's car.
Of course, Sam wasn't a monster then, was he?
Sam sat there in the cab in the silence. He studied the road as it filled up with the fog of this nowhere night somewhere in New England (Sam had fallen asleep a few hours ago, woken up by Dean's sudden collapse.)
Sam chanced a glance over at Dean as the interstate lights ran across his face. Only in his sleep, with his hair tousled, did it register to Sam how young he was himself. Dean had always been a solid rock to Sam. He considered him as much of a parental figure as a Mom or a Dad as well as his big brother. Looking down at him now, he saw that he was still just a kid himself, for God's sake!
Sam sat there in the cab, too numb to cry for all of this. He bit his lip feeling the whisper of his demons come back to haunt him. They kept him alert in a way that no espresso ever could.
"You're...keeping me human, you know that?" Sam looked down at Dean, realizing that, for the first time in his life, Dean was completely at his mercy. That Sam was responsible for Dean's survival because Sam, with whatever these psycho powers were, was the one that Dad and his tag-team was after.
Sam felt something sink like a stone in his soul when he remembered his father, who had spent his whole life fighting evil, now considered him evil worth setting everything aside to chase after.
Then, a tiny thought occurred to Sam. A whisper louder than his demons.
I wouldn't be sad Dad isn't helping people anymore if I really was a monster...
Sam smiled. Almost proud of himself for holding on to his humanity for one more day.
Another thought, a little louder than the first.
Maybe I can change my destiny. I could do it. I could save people like Dad used to do...
That thought scared him. He had spent his whole life running away from hunting.
But then, this wasn't his life, anymore, was it? He wasn't Sam anymore, was he? Not according to the rest of the planet.
Dean woke up about three hours later, sitting up slowly, blinking at Sam as the morning sun filled the cab and illuminated his face. Sam turned to him and his face lit up with the brilliance of Vegas and Christmas colliding at once.
"Good morning! Gotta say, the Sandman beat you with a stick last night, scared the hell outta me..."Sam giggled. Dean eased up a little more, processing his very human brother behind the wheel of his car.
"You um...you've been driving me around for...for how long?" Dean bit his lip. Sam laughed.
"Don't worry, your precious baby is fine. I've been a gentleman..."
They fell into silence. Dean yawned as big as his face. Sam chuckled at the shine in his eyes. In the morning, Dean reminded Sam of a chipmunk with the way his hair stood up on one end. He was softly snickering when Dean blurted_
"What's got you in a good mood this morning? Mind sharing it with the class?" Dean was still internally fuming from his last thought before he fell asleep. Sam wouldn't be rolling with pure laughter if he was a monster.
"Well, I've got a new lease on life, maybe..." Sam smiled as he pulled over at a drive-thru. He knew Dean would want breakfast.
"How? Half of the people you know are coming to kill you!" Dean's eyes were electric. Sam grinned.
"Dean, I've been thinking...I want to save people and hunt things. For the first time in my life, I genuinely want to pick up where Dad left off...And that means...That means I'm not a monster." Sam smiled.
Dean stared at him, surprised.
"Okay, so first, that's not a terrible idea...I mean, we can hunt the general run-of-the-mill of evil SOBs, and eventually, if we exercise a little bit of strategy to it, we will shake down Yellow Eyes and his plans. But you...if you're sitting around thinking up ways to prove you're not a monster...You need to cut that crap out because...You are not a monster, Sam." Dean frowned.
"Yeah, I hear you, but see we have proof. This was my idea. I'm still a person...I can still hunt." Sam smiled.
Dean nodded. Sam noticed the concerned glimmer in his eyes and turned to order their breakfast.
Sam was bending over backward to prove his humanity to himself. That somehow was more hurtful to Dean than the fact that their own Dad was gunning for them.