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Sam's dreams might be able to tell the future, but Dean isn't without talent himself. He has two nightmares: his father dying, and Sam leaving. Both of them come true, so maybe that destiny shit runs in the family.
Sam's always leaving; he's left before. The first time Dean had to track him down and drag him back. The second time Sam returned on his own. But it's the third time that finally sticks.
His father dying, that only needs to happen once.
--
The East Coast is always the worst. He told Sam that once, when they were making their way up through Massachusetts. Sam wasn't paying attention to what Dean was trying to say, convinced that they had missed a turn somewhere and would end up in Canada instead of Vermont.
"Why are we near the ocean? I think we need to be heading inland," Sam said, turning the map in his hands clockwise. He frowned, turned it clockwise again.
"That's exactly why, Sammy. The ocean."
"What?" Sam glanced out his window, at the grey waves crashing violently up against slick, wet rocks. He looked back down at the map like maybe it held the answers. "What are you talking about?"
"Why I hate the East Coast. There are no beaches, no sunshine, no girls in bikinis. How can you call this an ocean? The Pacific would never look like this."
"You're insane. What about that time we went to Washington? I remember you bitching about the rain the entire time." Dean didn't answer, just made a face. Sam folded and unfolded the map twice, unable to get it neat and flat again. "And Miami. You love Miami."
"That's not my point. My point is the Atlantic is the Atlantic, the Pacific is the Pacific, and they mean different things." Dean snatched the map out of Sam's hands and threw it into the backseat, twisted and creased in a million places. Sam laughed and called him insane one last time for good measure, but didn't argue with him anymore. They came up to a slight bend in the road that reminded Dean of the curve of Sam's neck, so he placed a hand in the space between Sam's shoulders. Sam sort of relaxed into it, and they made it the rest of the way to Vermont like that.
It was winter, Dean remembers, because the trees were bare and every state they drove through was grey. Looking back now, that was probably where it all started, that moment he placed his hand on Sam and Sam didn't say anything, just let it happen. A week later, in a dingy motel room just like every other one they'd stayed in before, Sam moved toward him without saying a word. Dean didn't think to stop him, not because it happened so fast but because it happened so quietly. Sam's mouth found his and his breath was heavy, but all Dean could hear was the quietness that settled over everything – the occasional car that drove past, the hum of the radiator, the shifting of the sheets. All of that was a kind of silence.
--
His father says, "Do it, Sam" so Sam does, and Dean's yell is louder than the gunshot. If there's blinding light or a rip in dimensions like last time, Dean doesn't see it. He turns around to throw up in a corner, and when he turns back, the only paranormal thing left in the room is Sam. His father's body is lying broken on the floor, strangely human and utterly lifeless. The Colt is just a gun, and Dean watches it fall out of Sam's hand as Sam collapses into a heap on the floor.
Dean cries. He sobs actually, in heaves. Just like when he was a boy and his father would leave him alone with Sam in a motel room. He'd turn around in the doorway, his face stern and hard, and say once, just once, "Stop it, Dean." And Dean would swallow it, hold it in until holding it in was all he knew how to do.
This time, though, he chokes on the blood in his mouth.
He doesn't know how long they stay like that. Hours, maybe. Dean forces himself to stand up and place a hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam looks up at him like he doesn't see him, but then he blinks, once. "Dean?"
"We have to salt and burn the bones."
--
The last time either of them lost this much blood, it was fighting a shape-shifting demon and Sam was the one practically coughing it up. Afterwards, Dean had to half-carry him back to the motel, past the beds and straight into the bathroom.
He stripped off both their clothes before heaving Sam and himself into the shower stall, turning on the burning hot water. Sam yelped, showing signs of life again, and jumped into Dean because there wasn't much room to go anywhere else. They stood there for a while like that, watching the blood slide off each other's bodies and swirl down the drain.
When Dean wrapped his arms around Sam, holding him tighter than he probably should have someone bruised like him, Sam gasped, water sliding off the tip of his nose. I can't. I can't, he said.
Dean didn't let go though, and that was the first and only time they ever said anything about it. This. Them.
--
The stench of burnt flesh still clings to Dean's clothes. He starts loading the equipment back into the Impala by himself; Sam isn't any help. He's pretty much dead weight, watching the whole thing with wide eyes like he's not the one that did this.
Dean has to half-carry him into the passenger seat and buckle him in like he's a child again. When he starts up the car, Dean doesn't really have a destination in mind, but he ends up heading west, towards the Pacific.
To Stanford, maybe.
--
Dean was so used to it just being the two of them that when their father came back, he didn't know where to put his hands. In his pockets, by his sides, but never near Sam. He was very careful about how close he stood to his brother, and maybe that was his first real admission of guilt.
Their father in the next room. Two beds spaced five feet away from each other, but that night, it might as well have been five miles. Dean pretended to be asleep, listening to Sam breathe, and he couldn't say for certain that Sam wasn't doing the same.
Not talking about it didn't mean that it wasn't happening. Not talking about it only meant that they couldn't stop. Ending it would take words, an admission that something had started in the first place. It was just easier to keep quiet, to keep going.
In their line of business, beginnings happen wordlessly, creeping up so slowly and quietly that they become myths, urban legends. Nobody knows where or how exactly, or even if it ever really happened. Endings are more definite, though. They're loud and messy, and almost always they involve blood.
--
The road is open and empty. Dean feels like speeding recklessly, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Sam gripping onto his seat as the speedometer pushes eighty. Ninety. A hundred. Dean is so distracted by the clenched line of Sam's jaw that he almost doesn't see the headlights of the 18-wheeler. He slams on the brakes – hard and sudden – and they're both thrown forward, Dean's head almost hitting the steering wheel and both of Sam's hands pressing up against the windshield, bracing himself. The truck speeds by like it hadn't come this close to broad-siding them.
"Fuck!" Sam is yelling and kicking the glove compartment. "Fuck! We could have been fucking killed!"
Sam's wiping away tears from his eyes, and Dean doesn't know what he's crying over anymore. Over this, their near-miss with the truck, or maybe over all their near-misses. Over surviving. Over their father not surviving, or Jess or their mother. Over them, being together like this.
Dean yanks at his seat belt and gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He kicks the hubcaps. He shouts a long string of curses into the surrounding forests. He places both hands on the trunk, bending over and taking deep breaths.
When he gets back into the car, Sam is staring straight ahead, dry-eyed and calm like nothing even happened.
Dean closes his eyes. He knows exactly how many miles it is to Stanford.
"It's over," Dean says and starts the car. "It's over."