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Sam appreciates the responsibility and the concentration that comes with driving a car. Eyes up on the road ahead, check the mirror, remember to blink, keep a steady pace. Routines, rules, regulations: It kept him busy with a simple task, and his mind couldn't be anywhere else.
Normally, when he's on his side of the car, he reads maps, checks his phone or newspaper for possible cases, or, when there's nothing else to do than to wait for their next destination and listen to his older brother hum to the tunes, Sam thinks about it all. His life, what it has been, what it is, and on a very rare occasion, what it will become. Well, what he is hoping it will become. Eventually. Someday.
With the headlights on the road at night it looks like the car is swallowing up the endless yellow stripes in the middle of the road.
He sighs.
Who is he fooling? Even while driving his mind slips. As soon as no-one is speaking to him, his thoughts cloud his mind and fight for his attention.
He hates it. Thinking about it makes him uneasy and ill at ease. To Sam it's like picking at a scab; he knows he probably shouldn't, knows it will only make things worse, but he does it anyway. While it is perfectly normal to think about one's own life and experiences, one's dreams, it doesn't do much good for Sam Winchester. 'Perfectly normal' had never been a part of his life. To him, 'normal' was just a word he had tried to figure out for a very long time. To him it was a word with weight, and importance. He hated that his 'normal' consisted of being able to handle a dozen-something different weapons, reading Latin to summon or exorcise something, not being able to tell people what he did for a living. His throat would tighten and his hands start to shake when he thought about how his “normal” had forced him to watch his girlfriend paralysed by fright and pain, burn in front of his eyes on the ceiling, just like his mother also had. It was so many years ago, and even though he had accepted that Jess was gone, that he grew up without his mother, he did not want to accept that this would continue to be his life until the day he died. Really died. The shitty motels, the fake names, hustling pool and scamming credit cards to get by, lying unsuspecting, friendly strangers right in the face to obtain information? It made him sick. And he would quit it all, in a heartbeat, had it not been for his brother.
They never talked about it, but Sam was pretty sure that Dean never thought of the future. His own future. It didn't seem like Dean had any higher dreams or hopes for himself than to gank evil 'till the day he would go out, shotgun in his hand and a promise to continue hunting evil bastards in the afterlife, be it up in the penthouse or down in the cellar. His brother had, on several occasions, indicated that he wanted Sam to have a normal life. Picket fence, barbecue, a 9-to-5, the works. That he wanted it to be a time when Sam would step out of the car, slam the door shut, and instead of entering yet another motel he would enter his own house, perhaps with a wife there on the porch welcoming him home. Sam wanted these things, and he knows that Dean knows. Thus he also knows that his big brother will fight tooth and nail for it to actually happen.
What would become of Dean, then?
Sam tries his best not to go near that question.
The way they lived, what they do, what they know, where they've been, what they've seen. How they're brothers, best friends; Together, or nothing at all. That's how it works. They couldn't do it without the other. If Sam ditches out of the equation, goes on to live a normal life, then what about Dean? His brother that he owed so much to, who had raised him, been more of a father to him than what John ever had, his brother who, without giving it a second thought, had sold his soul to a crossroads demon so Sam could live. His brother, whose 'normal' meant the two of them, on the road, in the car, working together, watching out for each other. If Sam ditched out, then what about his big brother?
“I'll look out for him, Sam.”
Castiel's voice is gentle, understanding.
Sam was startled out of his train of thoughts; he had almost forgot about Castiel quietly sitting there in the back seat. He shoots him a glance in the mirror. Castiel is looking right back at him, eyes almost sad and with a tiny, honest smile playing at his lips. Sam has to swallow, once, twice, he hadn't noticed the wet streak rolling over his cheek until now and quickly dries it away with the back of his hand.
“I know, Cas.”, he says and coughs, sits up straight.
“And thank you, but... it's not that simple.”
Eyes on the road ahead. Keep a steady pace.
“I understand.”, comes the gruff answer behind Sam.
I'm sorry, Castiel, but I don't think that you do, Sam thinks to himself and looks up at the dark skies above. It will probably rain tonight.
I really don't think that you do.