Archive of Our Own ^beta

The pick-up follows the bend of the road. Dean watches until the truck, and the trailer, and his brother, are lost to the curve. He takes one huge breath in and lets the air go slowly, in bursts, before standing and heading to the car.

Sam's left a water bottle, almost empty, in the front seat. Dean nudges it into the passenger foot well. When he drives off, it rolls to the far side of the car to rest against the door.

He lowers the windows one at a time. The driver's side is easy, the handle right there by his elbow, but he has to wait for a stoplight to lean across the seat and do the passenger side. The wind whips against his face once he turns onto the highway, almost blowing too fast, and he turns up the music.

The freeway takes him north, when he last saw Sam going further west. They're not exactly getting closer, but they're not going as far apart, as quickly as they could, either.

West: mountains turning into desert; the ocean; California. West is a four-letter word, as far as Dean's concerned.

He snorts and turns the music higher. He drives until the sun starts to set, then pulls off at the next off-ramp with a fork and knife symbol on the exit sign. He passes a McDonald's and a Starbucks before seeing a diner, tucked at the edge of a strip-center's parking lot. It's fake-retro, with one of those metal exteriors that gleam too perfectly to be more than five years old, but the parking lot is more than half filled with local license plates. A sign inside the door says Please seat yourself!, and he almost makes it into a booth before catching himself, and heading for the counter instead.

"Hey there, I'm Lucia and I'll be your server tonight." A waitress comes down the counter, wiping a rag over the Formica as she goes, and grins at him. Her hair's wavy, not straightened past the point of looking real, and it falls in her face when she hands him a menu. Dean's pretty sure that's against some health code, loose hair around food, but it looks nice on her, and he doesn't give a damn anyway. "You look like you could use some coffee over here."

Dean winces, mostly for show, and tilts his head to the side as he looks up at her. "That bad?"

"Nah, I'm betting just a long day." Lucia takes a pot from the station behind her and raises it, along with her eyebrows. When he nods, she pours a cup and slides it over. "You need some time with the menu?"

Dean glances it over, then shakes his head. These places are all a variation on a theme he already knows. "Pancake special, scrambled eggs, link sausage."

She nods and makes a note on her pad. "Anything else?"

"Nope." He gives back the menu and smiles at her. It's not until she brings his order out, faster than he'd expected, that he realizes he can't steal from Sam's habitual side of fruit if Sam isn't here. Dean stares at the plate, where his eggs are the most colorful food he ordered, for long enough that Lucia mentions it.

"Everything all right?" She's flipping through her order pad, double-checking, and Dean shakes his head. It's not her fault.

"Looks great," he says, and cuts into the pancakes with the side of his fork as proof. "Maybe some syrup, though?"

She nods and goes after a bottle. It's artificially flavored, says so right on the label, and almost sickly-sweet. Dean slices his sausage thin so he can have a piece with each bite of pancake. The meat tempers the syrup, but he poured too much, and everything's soggy. Dean wishes for blueberries, sliced strawberries, neat cubes of cantaloupe, something that grew in the ground, something he could swipe from Sam's plate and eat with a forkful of fluffy pancake.

When he's finished, he asks Lucia for a slice of pie, whichever's her favorite. She brings cherry, but Dean lets it sit long enough before eating that the fruit goes mushy, the syrup solid. The crust is awesome, though, and he scrapes his plate for the last of the crumbs.

Dean holds his phone while she figures up his check. He hasn't missed any calls and he doesn't make any, but he thinks through the various ways he could get Sam. Sam's the first number in Dean's speed dial, in his made calls, in his received calls, in his incoming texts, in his outgoing texts. Dean would have to scroll down to get in touch with anyone else, but he can talk to Sam with no effort at all, if he wanted.

He traces his thumb over the screen but doesn't do anything else.

Dean doesn't know what the hell Sam thinks he's gonna do – is there a rehab for everything, out there? Is he going to buy a carton of cigarettes and distract himself from the old addiction with something new? Is he going to find Al-Anon groups and lie his ass off? Dean's sat in on meetings for meth and narcotics in the past, working jobs, and there's no way Sam'll be able to be honest, in one of those places.

It's cloudy and dark when Dean gets back on the road. He keeps going until the sky clears above him, then pulls off at the next rest stop. The picnic tables are all east of the road, with parking spots facing them, and Dean backs the Impala in. He scopes out the place on his way to and from the bathroom. Except for a few parked eighteen-wheelers, it's deserted.

Sam's water is too warm when Dean fishes out the bottle, but he uses it to brush his teeth, and drinks the rest anyway. He lies on his side in the front, looking toward the steering wheel, and sleeps facing west.