I got to thinking, and I think I might revamp the last part of this story. Right now there's only one chapter left, but from the suggestions I got... my plotbunnies are hopping. Thanks for the reviews!

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Chapter Eight

"I want to get an education, dad! I'm sorry if that doesn't fit into your plans!"

John walked to the other end of the motel room and faced the wall as if he'd rather look at it than his younger son, seeming to be gathering his thoughts. Dean looked over and saw himself – nearly an exact copy now – sitting on the bed. "We're a family, Samuel. And what you're doing is splitting us up."

Sam's eyebrows creased in what seemed to be hurt and disbelief, tossing a hand nowhere in particular. "This isn't a personal attack on you guys, dad! This is about me wanting to pursue what I want. Maybe have a relatively normal life for once."

"You're turning your back on us, Sam! You're walking away!" His father turned around, and the look in his eyes could be described as murder. Murder from hurt – his youngest son was suddenly leaving and apparently he couldn't do anything about it. Suddenly he'd lost control over his boys.

"Don't give me that guilt trip," Sam started, voice low. "Don't."

"It's not a guilt trip, Sam. It's the truth. It's the god's honest truth. You're walking away from us, after everything your brother and I have done for you."

This close to snapping. Twenty pounds hanging from a thread over a waterfall. "Well, you know what? Maybe I want to walk away. Maybe I want to walk away from hunting and driving around the country and dealing with your obsession with the thing that killed mom."

Dean leaned against a wall, watching the exchange between his younger brother and father, glancing every now and then at his younger counterpart who was staring darkly at the opposite wall as if trying to make himself deaf to the anger being parried across the room like a tennis ball. He was tired of fighting, Dean knew. He'd already fought himself out.

John jabbed a finger in Sam's direction. "It's your life! You can't walk away from it! No matter what path you take, it'll always be your life and it'll always be there to stare you in the face. You can't hide from that."

"I'm not trying to hide. I'm just trying to do what I think is right for me without you bossing me around!" Sam voice was thunderous now, and Dean wondered how he wasn't hoarse at this point. Then again, Sam always could last the longest in a shouting match.

"You don't know what's right for you!"

"How would you know? You spent your whole life with us chasing this thing. You don't know anything else! You want your revenge so badly that you're dragging us down with you. Maybe Dean can take it, but I can't."

"I'm just trying to keep you and your brother safe!"

"We're not kids anymore, dad!"

"I don't care!"

It was time for a snap decision; walk off the cliff or face the army behind him. It was obvious that in that moment, Sam decided to take that step off. "Neither do I! Because I don't give a damn what you say; I'm going to Stanford and you can't stop me."

Dean flinched at Sam's words; they were words that replayed in his mind for months after the fight. He watched his younger self look between his father and his brother, and he wished that he had, at that time, gotten up and said something.

"The both of you just shut up!"

At least, something useful.

"Keep out of this, Dean," John said, shooting his look at Dean; the one he'd used since he was a child that said he was the boss and was to be listened to.

"No, I'm not going to keep out of this," he said, anger rising in his voice. "The past two days all you two have been doing is bitching at each other and I'm sick of it!"

"What do you care?" Sam asked angrily, turning to face his brother. "Last I checked you were just fine with doing whatever dad tells you!"

His brother tried to ignore the verbal blow as John gave Sam a look he couldn't quite understand, holding a hand up as he stood between his father and brother. "Look, Sam, I'm all for you going to University. And dad, I get that you're pissed about him leaving. But duking it out in the middle of the living room is a lame-ass way of resolving it."

Dean looked between the three arguers. "I tried."

Sam looked at his brother like he was stupid. "Then why the hell aren't you backing me up on this, Dean?"

He didn't answer. There were too many things he could say, and right now he was torn between his father and his brother.

"Dean?"

"Look, just stop fighting, all right? If you want to go, go."

"Whose side are you on, Dean? It's not your decision to make," John bellowed. At this, his eldest son went silent.

"It's not yours either," Sam interjected, receiving a glare from his father in return.

There was a long silence and the tension could have been cut with a knife and served for dinner before their father spoke again. "Sam, if you're going to leave, stay gone." The look in John's eyes was pure cold, as if Sam was dead and had been since the beginning of their argument. "Don't call us, don't look for us."

Both Deans watched Sam's face as the silence encompassed the room. They watched his eyes as different emotions crossed them: pain, anger, hurt and finally abandon.

"I can do that," was all Sam said, and in a matter of silent moments he'd grabbed his things, shoved them into his bag and left.

The next few minutes were long and silent, painful.

"Dad…"

"Don't, Dean."

He didn't want to see anymore. He wanted out. Out of these memories, out of this motel, out of everything. So Dean closed his eyes, hoping, this time, it would take him home.

Hope, however, is not always met with the desired outcome.

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R&R hopefully I'll have something figured out by the end of the day.