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With the vast and uninspiring parking lots of Wendover behind him it's another, what, fifty minutes of twilight highway until he gets to Wells. Sam keeps the needle on a sensible 70. Even so close he’s not dumb enough to rattle the old wagon too much, or risk Highway Patrol around here, notorious for speed freaks. Sometimes he pushes it, when Miracle starts to look restless. Maybe thirty-five, forty minutes. Fourteen hours since they hit the road; fourteen and a half hours since he'd dug up the blade, three days since they got the call, about ten hours’ sleep in all of that. He flexes his hand around the wheel and stifles a yawn.
So much time. He can stand another forty minutes.
At least he's out of the salt flats, the horizon drawing up sharp now, gnawing the sunset. He's listening to a podcast on the Reformation. Part 3, the Council of Trent. He keeps zoning out and having to figure his way back into it, his mind flagging, his eyes grainy and the road straight, the scenery numbing; he’d rather be shotgun. It’s a Dean kind of drive, stretching out and then up into the mountains, enough trucks around to get annoyed at without slowing him down any. Dean would have run it fast, coming through with a life on the line, no dog to force him out the car every few hours. Sam didn’t resent it so much, having to stretch his legs, despite the delay. It was good for him. He wasn’t getting any younger.
Most of these breaks, he would pull out his phone and contemplate his speed dial. Dean's text, from the night before, read: dude in hosp, bitch back in hibernation. how long does it take to find a sword asshole come on. In fact it had taken two archive rooms, seven books, and a crash course in Albanian but Sam hadn't bothered to say so. He'd sent back Soon. Cope, his thumbs moving slow on the screen. He never called. He wasn’t sure what to say; or, there was too much to say, and he was too far away to say it.
Wells, 40 miles. Getting there. The road takes him though a parted range, flanked by mountains, and begins a slow and steady rise. Orange bollards squeeze him to the left: they’re doing something to the verge, dozers and diggers hulked and silent. Miracle takes the slowdown as an opportunity to squirm his way over to the back seat, reassess any trash tossed back there for crumbs and snuffle through Sam's bags again, knock the smell of sage loose. The lamb's blood and sword are safe in the trunk. Sam's about 90% sure it'll do the trick. Last time they had a bolla on the books Cas had hopped across to smite it for them. Back in the bad old days; it had been a distraction from the seals, the catastrophe of Dean's loss and return, his own ineradicable mistakes. No angels to hand any more. It seemed to Sam sometimes that every few years his life would pivot around some fundamental change, his landscapes rewritten, some further piece of himself carved out, and to replace that loss, in his hands, what? What had he needed, anymore? There wasn't so much he'd wanted. A scrap of peace. His brother.
He wasn't getting any younger. He had a dog and a scrap of peace. And at the start of the week Dean's phone had rung and Dean had fumbled his lamp on and grunted his way through a conversation with Jody, making an extravagant unhappy face related less to what he was hearing and more to the taste in his mouth. Jody couldn't get on scene to follow up weird snake deaths in Nevada and if she was right, tomorrow some mysterious terrible thing would wake, and, and–. Dean had made promises and tossed his phone into a ripple of sheets and frowned, careful and still. Soft stubble on his jaw. Knockout. Sam knew all this because he'd been there at the time, in Dean's bed, next to Dean, in their shared and stale warmth, and he had a semi which was half a hangover from last night and half the arousing nuclear shock of waking up naked in his brother's bed with his hand in the bend of Dean's hip. He'd watched doubt resolve into action and back into doubt again.
“Snakes,” he’d said, through a dry constricted throat. “Why’d it have to be snakes,” and Dean had looked at him in mild and warm surprise, lips parting. “Go, I’ll meet you.” He squeezed Dean's hip and then fell back stunned by the intimacy of it, as Dean rose and dressed and set his focus on the case ahead.
The summit's not much of a summit, but it is flat after the climb, and there’s a rest stop. He lifts his foot unthinking and slices two lanes to the slip road, parks in front of the toilet block and quiets the engine. On his podcast they’ve stopped talking about faith and good works and started talking about Squarespace and he silences that, too. Breathes and watches the cars go by. Opens the door on cold night air and the dry crunch of compacted dirt underfoot. No view at all here, except up. The scrubby sagebrush dissolved and the starry sky broad and bright and clear. Miracle snuffs about, lifts his leg on a trash can, picks up dirt in his whiskers. Circles back around to Sam eventually and sits at his feet, looking up, waiting. Sam frowns at him.
"I don't know," he says, flexing his hand around the keys. He stretches, because he’s stiff, and it seems like maybe that’s why he’s pulled over. Rolls his shoulders and yawns, cracks his neck. These places are the same all over right down to the scratched-up No Dumping sign but he reckons he’s been here before. He can’t pin it to a time. He'd had to contend with a maze of big rigs that dwarfed the Impala, and in his memory he’s miserable in their shadows, one of those sick old times, chasing or running, dragging the shit he’s been dragging all his life, under the oppressive eyes of a thousand greedy assholes and Dean, constant. This is something new. An empty lot, alone. The stars are just stars, blazing. He thinks about getting to Dean, as he has been, hours and days and decades it turned out of waiting to get Dean and how the other day he'd quit waiting. All this endless drive itching to lay his hands back on his brother and now he’s waiting again. Holding himself up with Dean at the other end of this. He’s a lunatic. Certifiable. Who would ever choose to be Sam Winchester?
“Cope,” he says, ironic, to Miracle, and has to laugh; shakes his head, and laughs again, amazed. His aches flush away. He’s awake. He’s alive. He grins. “All right. Are you ready?”
The rest of the drive is silent and fast. First glow of Wells on the horizon and the signs start ticking him down. Casinos, gas. A mile to the exit. This food and that food and more food here. Lodging. Wells’ Famous Nuts and Bolts Bar, whatever that is.
He takes the exit barely slowing, and hits the town limit, such as it is, a barricade of gas stations lit up like launch pads in the dark. There's not much else in Wells to stay him: a few traffic lights, an awkward turn or two.
The Desert Rose Motel, a familiar car and unexpected familiar movement under the verandah. He swings into a space next to the Impala and pins Dean in his headlights. Dean has the room key in one hand and a sixpack in the other, and at the first full sight of him yellowed and startled Sam grins involuntarily, a wide overtaking grin that starts somewhere in his chest and nearly cracks his face in two. He pulls the handbrake on and pushes a frantic Miracle off of his lap and out the door.
“Hey hey hey boy,” Dean says, staggering, wrestling down onto his knees, “you hairy monster, good boy, yeah, were you a good boy for Sam?”
“He was good.” Sam sits on the hood of the wagon and puts his hands in his pockets in case the trembling, light-headed feeling taking him over shows in them. Here he is then. A thousand miles in a day. He's dumb from the drive. He's dumb from from seeing Dean.
Dean squints up at him. “Got here quick,” he says, after a moment. He looks good.
“Yeah,” Sam says, through a dry mouth, and licks his lips.
Dean pushes Miracle back to the ground, curls his fingers around the beer and stands. He makes a little sound, an amused, superior hum, his chin tilting up in the air, crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Well,” he says, and scratches the side of his nose, a little abashed now, and nudges the door with his foot. It opens on a king bed. One bed. He meets Sam’s eyes, and shrugs, smile brushing his mouth, and Sam laughs and pushes himself upright, and follows Miracle inside.