Tyger, Tyger for thnks-samulet

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Title: Tyger, Tyger
Recipient: thnks_samulet
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 5,747
Warnings: Violence and minor character deaths
Author's Notes: Written for your amazing prompt of pyrokinetic Sam (preferably younger)
Summary: Sam can’t remember a time when he didn’t dream of fire.



Sam can’t remember a time when he didn’t dream of fire.

In his dreams, it’s always the same. The flames swirl around, chasing him and Dean down dark hallways. They can’t see Dad behind the wall of flames but they can hear him screaming, calling their names. Sam doesn’t know if Dad is hurt and needs their help or if they’re the ones in danger; he only knows that they can’t reach Dad.

He wakes to sweaty sheets and the stink of sulfur in the air. Dean is there with a towel and a cold glass of water.

“Sammy, drink it,” he says, mumbling the words, half asleep and going through the motions. Sam does. The water is cool going down his throat. The mineral tang on his tongue from the cheap motel faucet washes away the taste of rotten eggs, and he feels clean again. He sets the glass down and settles back into bed, trying to ignore the sweat-damp sheets and focus on his breathing the way Dean taught him when he was little.

The mattress dips as Dean returns from the bathroom and climbs in on the other side.

“Thanks, Dean,” Sam says.

His brother grunts his welcome, still barely awake. Dean starts to snore a few minutes later, and it’s a familiar lullaby. A glance at the empty bed by the door makes Sam’s stomach knot and twist; Dad isn’t back from the hunt. They didn’t expect him for a few days but each morning that passes with Dad’s bed still empty makes Sam anxious. He’s not sure if it’s worry or relief that Dad isn’t here.

Pushing the bad thoughts away, Sam pulls the covers up to his eyes and turns his attention to the water stains on the motel room ceiling, counting the rusty spots until he reaches thirty-six and slowly drifts back into sleep.

~~~

When he wakes up again, the sun is glowing around the edges of their curtains, slits of bright light cutting around the squares of darkness and piercing across the carpet and beds. Sam doesn’t move, too comfortable in his spot under the covers, and watches the dust motes dance across the beams of light to disappear into the shadows of the room.

Today is the first day of middle school. Dad wasn’t sure he should go but Sam begged him. His last elementary school two years ago was a disaster. It was a nice school, a nice neighborhood, unlike some of the ones that he and Dean had attended, but underneath that nice exterior and the colorful banner about Respect and Responsibility hanging over the entrance, it was a nest of bullies. Walking through the halls, he was called freak and loser more times than he can remember while teachers and administrators walked on by. On his last day, one of the worst kids and his gang of friends confronted him in the playground after school, itching for a fight. Sam could have beaten the kid fair and square physically—Dad and Dean had taught him ways to fight a bigger opponent but that was for monsters, not some stupid bully who was robbing kids of their lunch money. Then the sweats had come and it scared Sam. Dean always said to back off when he felt the heat coming on. Keep a lid on it, Dean said, just walk away. He was one second from taking that advice when the kid called Dean a weirdo. Big brothers don’t hang out with little brothers unless they’re stupid or a pervert. “So, which one is Dean?” the kid asked. It was enough to blow the lid right off any control Sam had. He squeezed his eyes shut and the boy’s sleeve caught fire and a vice-principal walking by had to roll the boy in the grass to put the flames out. The other kids swore to everyone there from the vice-principal, their parents, and the EMTs that worked on the boy that Sam threw a match or lighter. He sat miserable and mute afterward in the office as he waited for Dad to pick him up. The school expelled him and Dad hustled him out the office that day, insisting it was just a phase and not to call the cops.

Now, he was older and ready to try it again with Dean’s help.

A movement in the shadows makes him freeze. The dark form on the other bed smells of sulfur and gunpowder and it throws Sam back into his nightmare. He wants to run or yell for Dean but can’t move because this is real. The shadowy greys become clearer as his eyes adjust, and he sees it’s not a monster but a man sitting on the edge of the other bed. The beard, the broad shoulders slumped down inside the leather jacket. Sam lets the smallest of breaths out because Dad is home. He sits facing their bed, not sleeping, not drinking, still sitting in the clothes he wore yesterday so either the hunt isn’t over or it went really bad.

Dad’s face is a battlefield of emotions that Sam studies undetected from under the covers, a mask that morphs from intensity to softness and back again, his eyes turned down and crinkling at the corners like it does when he thinks of their mom, and coldness creeps down Sam’s spine. Maybe Dad lost one of the few hunter friends he has or he couldn’t save one of the victims. A sawed-off shotgun dangles from one of Dad’s hands to rest on the ugly green carpet between the beds and Sam holds his breath again. Dad shifts the shotgun soundlessly to his left hand, the one that is dark with ropey burns that climb up under the sleeve of his leather jacket. Dad sighs but makes no move to put the gun down. It isn’t right. Weapons are always put away in the trunk of the Impala or tucked into a bag after a hunt and never handled in the motel room unless you’re cleaning them. It’s a rule Dad never breaks—until now.

“We’re leaving today,” Dad says. He meets Sam’s eyes, knowing that Sam has been faking, and then points with his chin at the lump on the other side of the bed. “Get your brother up. We’re leaving in twenty.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam answers.

~~~

Dad doesn’t offer up anything and Dean doesn’t ask as they shower and pack their duffels.

“How was the hunt with Caleb?” Sam finally asks. Dad’s face is grim as he loads the trunk, lips pulled tight underneath his stubble and he doesn’t respond as he slams the trunk shut.

Dean is loading the green cooler in the backseat and stops at the question, studying Dad’s face. Caleb is one of the few hunters outside Bobby that their dad trusts, plus he’s Dean’s friend being closer to his age than Dad’s. Caleb didn’t mind Sam and was always sneaking beers to Dean when they went out shooting in the woods. His brother must recognize something in their dad’s face that Sam can’t see, something that he sets aside to talk about later, because he finishes loading the Coleman and goes back inside the room.

“It was supposed to be my first day of school,” Sam says and looks wistfully at the frontage road in front of the motel. He studied the school bus route yesterday and knows his stop is just a block down in front of the diner.

The gravel under Dad’s feet crunches as he comes back around the car to crouch beside Sam. Even with the latest growth spurt, he feels small next to his dad. “You gotta trust me on this, Sammy. If we could stay and be safe, we would.”

He nods. It’s not Dad’s fault that they have to leave again. They criss-cross state lines as Dad picks up hunts and they try to stay under the radar of cops and social workers, anyone who might ask questions about an unemployed father traveling with two young sons in a big black car. But in the end, it’s not law enforcement that Dad worries the most about—it’s the other hunters.

“Don’t forget your books, squirt,” Dean says. He walks back out of the motel room door and tosses Sam’s backpack at him.

“They’re not my books—they’re from the library,” Sam responds.

Dean shrugs. “Might as well take ‘em. We won’t be back.”

~~~

After the first fifty miles, they’ve left the Black Hills behind and crossed into Montana with its long, flat bowl of prairie grass rimmed by hills in the distance. Sam sighs and pulls his backpack from the wheel well. It jostles loose the small fire extinguisher from under Dean’s seat which rolls on the floor mat with a hollow metallic sound. Sam carefully tucks it back into place.

If he was at school, it would be third period right now - Mr. Peters for Algebra - so he flips through his math textbook and sketches out equations and answers for homework that he’ll never turn in. In the front seat, Dean changes out the cassette tape in the player from Zeppelin to Metallica and Sam watches his dad over the seat waiting for the grumbled complaints. It’s not Dad’s favorite band but he doesn’t seem to care. Normally his arm drapes across the back of the front seat and he taps out the rhythm of the music as he drives; today, he stares intently at the blacktop with both hands gripping the wheel. When he glances at the rearview mirror, his eyes meet Sam’s and hold them, deep brown pools that hold back a world of dark secrets and desperate feelings that Sam can only guess at. The moment holds but then Dad switches it off and looks back to the road with the same intensity as before.

The math is easy and the ride long so Sam settles in against the cooler with his backpack as a pillow and shuts his eyes. Math equations are replaced in his dreams by Boo, the teddy bear with one eye that Dean found at a rest stop. He would hold Boo tight to his chest when he got scared. In the dream, he is crying and Dean’s face screws up in frustration and anger and he tells Sam to shut up. He squeezes Boo tighter to him but the bear is gone and there is nothing but a pile of ash on his lap. His screams in the dream shake him awake but he must not have made a sound because Dad and Dean continue to talk softly in the front seat.

“We have to be prepared,” Dad says softly to Dean. “I can’t lose another person in the family to all of this.” He reaches across the back of the front seat to pat Dean on the shoulder, and Dean nods. “If he comes after us, you may have to shoot him.”

Circle of two, Sam thinks. He should demand answers, be worried, jump out at the next gas station, but this is his family. He backs off and closes his eyes again, pretending to be asleep.

~~~

As they pull up to the cabin somewhere in Idaho, the stars begin to dot the dark sky overhead. Sam recognizes the rundown place as Rufus’s. Rufus has never cared much what other hunters say and he doesn’t care if they squat as long as he’s not there and Dad doesn’t drink his secret stash of scotch. Staying someplace they know—a place that other hunters know—is a red flag that Dad is desperate. He and Dean bring in all of the weapons and line them up on the table while Sam rummages in the cabinets for some canned food for dinner. Normally, Dad asks the boys to clean the weapons in the evenings while he does research but tonight he and Dean match ammo to each gun and load them. Sam watches them work as he pulls some old canned soup out of the cupboard for dinner and puts a pot on the old gas stove. He clicks the igniter several times but it’s stubborn and refuses to light. When John’s back is turned, Sam licks his lips and flicks his finger. A single blue and orange flame erupts from the tip like the old Zippo lighter that Dean keeps in his pocket. He smiles as he watches it burn; he and Dean have been working on control the last few weeks when Dad leaves on a hunt. Dean says he can’t let his emotions push a wall of fire out of him at the wrong moment, but it’s tough to pull the fire out carefully, as frustrating as threading the eye of a needle. A few empty fields and dumpsters went up in flames while they practiced the past few months and there was one old pine tree in Duluth that exploded. When they got caught by a passing cop, Dean said they were setting off firecrackers and talked them out of trouble.

But when it’s quiet and he can focus, Sam is getting better control over it thanks to Dean’s patience.

Sam touches the flame to the igniter underneath the gas burner and it catches, burning a bright blue as Sam stirs the thin soup. When he looks back over at the table, Dad is watching him from across the room, curious but silent as he loads the pearl-handled Colt that he gave to Dean on his birthday and sets it back on the table. Dad knows that they practice, that Dean tries to help Sam control it. They take precautions, never in public and never in front of Dad. There are many holes in Sam’s life that he doesn’t want to examine too closely: Dad’s burned hand, Mom’s absence, the angry way other hunters eyed him as a child. Even when they see Bobby, he keeps his distance from Sam.

That creeping cold Sam felt last night now twists like snakes in his gut.

“You okay, son?” Dad asks. Sam nods. “We’re going to check outside. Lock the door after we leave. If anyone comes to the door and it’s not me or Dean, use this.”

He plunks the other pearl-handled gun, a Taurus 9mm, in the middle of the kitchen table and they both stare at it.

“Who else would come to the door out here?” Sam says. He picks up the gun. It’s still too big for his hand, but he shifts his grip to hold it correctly like Dad showed him. Dad’s eyes get that crinkly, wet look and the moment hangs long and unsatisfactory without an answer to his question. Dad looks away from Sam and the weapon to Dean standing by the front door, and once again, there is a silent conversation that doesn’t include Sam.

“Doesn’t matter, Sammy,” Dean speaks up. “Anyone else shows up, you shoot ‘em. Understand?”

The gun sits heavy on his palm as his gut twists in a new way now. It’s messed up, the thought that Dad is asking him to shoot another human being at twelve years old, but he’s old enough to get it. He checks the safety like Dad taught him and it’s off and ready to go and a new feeling joins the anxiety and fear in his belly. Relief. He’s part of their plans, not the target. The circle of two is now three. Dad nods at him and picks up his favorite sawed-off off the table before he and Dean walk outside.

The soup is bubbling on the stove when he comes back from locking the door and he turns the burner’s blue flame down to let it simmer. His backpack sits on the kitchen table. He can’t face algebra again but there are a few books from his reading list that could be interesting, The Hobbit for one. But the silence of the cabin presses in on him as the minutes go by. If only he could keep busy and help their dad like Dean—

Headlights sweep across the front window, bright and foreign in the gathering dusk. Sam snatches up the Taurus, cocks it and hides behind the kitchen wall. He is drawn forward by the sound of heavy steps up the porch and the deep rumble of his Dad’s voice beyond the front door, and he inches his way to the curtains at the window. Three hunters stand in front of a black Ford pick-up—classic redneck hunter set-up with fog lights and gun racks and a big metal utility box in the back for more weapons. The three men with their beards and trucker hats and plaid shirts are virtually indistinguishable from where Sam hides.

“Winchester, where’s your boy?” the middle one says.

“Jimmy, is that you?” Dad says, squinting as if just recognizing the strangers. He cradles the sawed-off. “I see you brought your pals along for this chat.”

“No chat this time,” Jimmy replies. “It’s time someone took care of the problem since you won’t.”

“No problem here,” Dad replies, easy as if he were replying to a nosy neighbor instead of three armed men. He cradles the shotgun between his hands and Sam wonders why he doesn’t just shoot. “This is my family and my business, Jimmy. You can move along.”

“This can go easy or this can go hard. I got no problem with you and your oldest,” Jimmy says. “You and Dean are good hunters and we need as many as we can get. You’re just blind to what your youngest is.”

The coldness that twisted in Sam’s gut earlier now begins to heat up and his palms sweat around the gun.

“You’re stupid and short-sighted, Jimmy. Always have been,” Dad says. “Sam could be a great asset as a hunter—”

“He’s a monster.”

The word is spit out, dirty and unthinkable. Up until that point, no one had ever said it out loud to Sam. He knew he was different, that he was a freak, but Dad and Dean had focused on hiding it or controlling his power. Sam’s heart beats faster and the skin across his face and throat feels feverish. He pulls back from the window and the curtain swings in the headlights.

“There you are, boy,” Jimmy says, smug with satisfaction. “Why don’t you come on out?”

“That’s not going to happen.” Sam hears Dean’s voice and peeks through the window again to see his brother coming up behind one of the men, the biggest of the three, with his gun pointed at the man’s head. The third hunter is unsure which Winchester to point his gun at—the father or the son—and swings it back and forth while Jimmy stays focused on Dad. Dean, who seemed so big to Sam growing up, is small next to the other guy. It doesn’t seem right that the fight is two against three and those odds don’t look good. Sam wipes his now-sweaty palm on his pant leg and counts to three. Before he can talk himself out of it, he opens the front door to stand with his family.

The headlights blind him momentarily as he steps out and Dad’s arm blocks him from going further.

“Sam—” Dad growls, low and concerned. “Get back inside.”

“No. I can help.”

With Dad distracted, the big hunter throws an elbow and knocks Dean’s gun out of his hand and punches him; Dean goes down hard. The guy kicks the Colt out of Dean’s reach and drags him upright, holding a pistol to Dean’s head. His brother is blinking hard and unsteady on his feet. Sam thinks concussion and the fire inside him stokes even high.

Jimmy smiles at Dad, his gold canine tooth catching on his bottom lip. There are human monsters too, Sam thinks as he watches the man and a flash of heat rolls through his body like a thrown match in an empty field of dry grass. He doesn’t try to fight the feeling this time. Dean struggles against the other hunter, tries to kick behind him but the man whispers something to him, screwing the end of the gun against his temple, and Dean goes still.

“C’mon on out here, boy, and we won’t hurt your brother or your daddy,” Jimmy says. “Just come on out and talk to us.”

The heat inside his body makes Sam feel like he’s floating as he pushes past his dad. All that time spent shoving this thing down inside him, throwing a blanket to smother out the power whenever it would rise up, was painful. Letting it go, letting it feed off the open air, is a relief. It consumes him, burns off the old Sam, the awkward and sad boy, the brother to be watched, the monster to hide away. Throwing off the old mask to show who he really is and what he can really do is freedom.

Sam looks down at the Taurus, forgotten protection that is still in his hand, and tosses it down on the wood. Dad stares down at the gun with confusion and concern, and when he looks back up, his brown eyes are ringed by the white of fear. Sam has bigger problems right now than his dad’s fear. As he moves to the edge of the porch unarmed, Dad grabs his shoulder to hold him back but drops it again like the handle of a hot pan.

Jimmy snorts and then raises his arm and levels the gun at Sam. As he moves forward and cocks the gun, he takes dead aim at Sam’s forehead. The leer on his face is triumphant and Sam almost feels bad for him because Jimmy doesn’t know what he is up against.

The hunter moves close enough that Sam can see the shadow down the inside of the barrel before the bullet is fired before his vision is both warped and sharpened by the heat. A bead of sweat rolls down Jimmy’s temple and Sam has a moment of oh as he sees the bullet leave the barrel of the gun. His mind throws up a barrier, a blazing firebreak around him and his father, and the bullet’s metal casing melts enough to ignite the gunpowder. Shrapnel flies back into Jimmy’s face and chest and he yelps but doesn’t go down. Sam’s firewall falls so he can better see the crumpled, angry look on the hunter’s face. Jimmy recocks the pistol but he is close enough to Sam that the trigger is warped and it refuses to click into place. The third hunter has had enough, and he turns and flees in the darkness without a word. Jimmy tosses the gun to the ground and pulls a hunting knife from a sheath on his belt.

Sam cocks his head to the side. The release of his power feels good and he wonders how hot he can make it go.

“Sam, your brother,” Dad hisses behind him, interrupting his thoughts about barbequing Jimmy to focus on the other hunter who is bigger than Jimmy and twice as dirty. The guy holds a wide-eyed Dean by the back of the neck and it’s hard to tell who is more freaked out by Sam’s disintegration of the bullet and the gun.

“If you just calm down, we’ll let Dean go,” Jimmy says. “You don’t want to lose your other boy to all of this, do ya, John?”

Sam glances up at his dad, and that strange cloud of intense emotion crosses his face: sadness and anger, guilt and love. Finally, his dad shakes it off and laughs. It’s a bitter, jagged sound.

“As if you were letting any of us go,” Dad says. He walks down from the porch, his heavy work boots clunking on each wooden step, emphasizing each word. When he reaches Sam at the bottom, he pats Sam on the chest over his heart with his badly burned hand. The sight of it, the memory of that moment when he was small and upset at his dad and the world, douses Sam’s internal flame with a rush of guilt and uncertainty. Even when he tries to do the right thing, the people he loves get hurt. Instead of defending him, his dad should be handing him over.

“Did you think this would be easy, Jimmy?” Dad says. “That I’d let you kill either of my sons?”

Jimmy shakes his head. “Nah, you never make things easy, Winchester. I was just hoping you’d see the truth of it and let us do the work you were too soft to do.”

Dad shrugs, returning Jimmy’s smile as if they were just two guys having beers in a bar. “Maybe you should do the smart thing like your other friend and leave.”

Jimmy looks over his shoulder at where the first one ran away as if considering it and then he looks over his other shoulder at the one holding Dean and nods. “Beau, shoot ‘em all.”

The first bullet hits John. His dad seemed invincible growing up, but his body crumples to the ground and Sam screams. With the solid shield of his dad’s back in front of him, he looks for his brother and sees Dean a few yards away, fighting over the gun with Beau, and all the heat and energy he felt before rises up like a pot boiling over. With all his might, he tears his eyes away from Dean to focus on the immediate threat - Jimmy. Stepping around Dad’s legs, Jimmy circles with his knife.

Sam wants to free the heat, set off the bomb he feels inside but Dean is there on the edges and he needs to pull it in.

“Freak,” Jimmy hisses out and takes a swipe with the blade. Sam steps back but not before it slices his hoodie sleeve.

It doesn’t take much, a small flick of intent, and the rubber on Jimmy’s work boots catch on fire. Rubber burns at a high temperature, more than twice that of bones or flesh, which is why Dad and Dean usually take the shoes off of corpses. Once it catches on fire though, it’s hard to put out.

Jimmy starts forward again before he notices and then screams as he tries to kick them off. As the flames crawl up his legs, he tries to drop and roll in the dirt. Beau watches his partner in horror and tries to shoot Sam but the bullet explodes. He pushes Dean to the ground and takes off running into the woods along the road. Sam takes a step forward but a deep cloud of fatigue drops over him and he stumbles, so Dean grabs his gun off the ground and takes off running after Beau.

Jimmy’s continued screams pierce Sam’s thoughts. Much as the hunter deserves what he gets, Sam softens as he looks at the desperate man. With another push, he turns the temp up with a whoosh and Jimmy is turned to ash before he can make another sound.

Sam collapses to the ground. Off in the distance, a single shot is fired. Tears or sweat stream down Sam’s face—he isn’t sure which—but all he can do is lie there and wait. Several yards away, his dad lies motionless, his left arm flung out from his body, his burned fingers droop open with the sawed-off shotgun lying in the dirt next to him. He wants to shout and wake him up. There are things to be said before Dad leaves him, and Sam will never be able to say them now. The furnace inside him has gone cold; he starts to shiver uncontrollably. A few minutes later, running footsteps hit the gravel and Dean appears in view.

“Sammy!” he shouts as he skids on his knees besides Sam. He runs his hands over the cut on Sam’s jacket and checks his torso for any bullet wounds.

“Tired,” Sam says above the sound of his teeth chattering.

“Good.” When Dean spots Dad’s body, he goes still. Any anger or grief is shuttered down and pulled inside him. He walks over and squats down next to their dad. Dean is too calm, too slow and Sam waits. He knows the truth but Dean can fix anything. If Dean would put his hands on Dad, find a towel for the wound, do compressions, maybe he could prove Sam wrong and Dad would be fine. Instead, Dean stands up and walks out of Sam’s view without a look back. Sam continues to shiver and pulls his hoodie around him more tightly, too weak to stand or move.

Dean returns with their old wool blanket from the trunk. He wraps Sam up in it and carefully picks him up and lays him across the back seat of the car. The amulet dangles down over Sam’s face as Dean tucks the blanket firmly around him. Dean’s breathing is ragged and Sam doesn’t think he’s ever seen him scared like this.

“Don’t worry, Sam,” Dean says and pats him on the chest over his heart. “I’ll take care of everything.”

~~~

Dean climbs in the driver’s seat some time later. The smell of firewood and smoke rolls off him, and the peaty smell comforts Sam, reminding him of camping in the woods or maybe the successful end of a ghost hunt. But Sam can’t ignore what it means: the end of life as it was for them and confirmation that he will never be normal. His stomach rolls and he would get sick if he had the energy to move. Instead, he waits for it to pass, lying quietly. Dean finally turns the engine over but can’t seem to bring himself to throw it in gear and move forward. Bone-deep fatigue threatens to pull Sam under again until the phone next to Dean rings.

“Bobby?” Dean asks. Sam can hear Bobby’s muted voice through the phone held up to Dean’s ear. “No, we’re not,” Dean grits out between his teeth. “We’re far from okay. Who told them where we were?” As Bobby talks on the other end, Dean wipes a hand over his mouth. “Dad is dead, Bobby. So are Jimmy and Beau.”

Bobby’s soft voice is clearer as Dean holds the phone out. “Why don’t you drive here?” Bobby says. “We’ll figure things out together. It’s going to be okay, Dean.”

His brother sighs and doesn’t speak for a moment. He glances back at Sam and their eyes meet over the blanket. Bobby is good to Dean. Maybe Dean could leave Sam, go back to hunting and Bobby could take care of him—

“No,” Dean says firmly. “Thanks for everything, Bobby.” He flips the phone shut and throws it in the glove compartment before putting the Impala in drive. The driveway out from the cabin is uneven gravel but that doesn’t stop Dean from accelerating as he takes the turn onto the state road without braking.

Questions and answers swirl in Sam’s mind but aren’t enough to keep him tethered with the quicksand of sleep tugging him down, and the rocking of the Impala knocks him out before they reach the first mile marker.

~~~

When Sam wakes up next, he is surrounded by dark. The blanket that covers him is hot and sweaty but his brain is clear. He grabs onto the idea that last night was only another of his nightmares. “Dean?”

Dean’s head swivels around from the driver’s seat and he looks back at Sam as he struggles to sit up. “You feel better now?”

Sam nods and struggles to sit up. “Is Dad…” The empty passenger seat says it all but he still looks at Dean as if there was an answer that would make things alright again.

“I took care of everything,” Dean answers. His brother turns back to face the road, both of his hands gripping the wheel just like Dad would. The two-lane stretch is lit by the headlights with no streetlights or oncoming traffic. No cassette tape plays and the radio is quiet. The silence and the blacktop stretch on to infinity.

“How long have you been driving?” Sam asks.

“A few hours,” Dean responds, glancing at the rear-view mirror. “We’re out of Idaho, almost to the Cascades. Heading west seems like a good idea.”

“We don’t know anybody out west,” Sam says, quietly. “Maybe we could go see Pastor Jim in Blue Earth?”

“Can’t risk it,” Dean says. He pulls over on the gravel shoulder, and the edge of the lights sweeps over a patch of grass. It catches the movement of something running, the flash of a white tail as a deer disappears into the dark. Dean throws the car into park and turns around in the seat. “Sam, you know that, right? We can’t trust anyone. Not Bobby. Not Caleb. Not Pastor Jim. It’s just you and me now.”

Tears pool up in Sam’s eyes and he wipes them away before they have a chance to fall. “Okay,” he says in a small, shaky voice that embarrasses him worse than crying.

“If you’re feeling better, why don’t you sit up front with me? I’ll turn the air on and that will help,” Dean says. “We will grab some waffles in a few hours, okay?”

“Sounds good.” He shakes off the blanket and climbs out. The fresh air wakes him up as he stretches his legs, and he scrubs his face of any remaining tears. Up ahead, the deer that ran off stands on a hillside, next to a smaller doe, and four eyes reflect back silver in the Impala’s headlights before they sprint off into the safety of the woods.

Sam climbs in the passenger side and pulls out the box of tapes that Dean keeps up the seat and sorts through them. A little music will help them make it through to morning and block out the bad memories. Sam can’t focus or make a choice between AC/DC or Ozzy or maybe they should listen to some of Dad’s Led Zeppelin tapes. As he flips through the cassettes, Dean sets his hand on top of Sam’s.

“Dad’s gone, Sammy, but I’m still here. Okay? And I promise that nothing bad is gonna happen to you as long as I’m around.”

Sam nods and thinks, our own circle of two. Dean shifts into drive and spins out on the gravel, getting them back on the road west.