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The sound of the screen door slamming behind Sam cut through the silent Louisiana night like a gunshot. Sam ignores it and races down the porch steps. His duffel bag, which had remained unpacked under his bed in preparation for this night, almost knocks him forward from momentum as it swings on his back in his rush to get as far from his father and the Winchester name as possible. The night is extremely humid despite the recent summer rain showers , and he immediately breaks into a sweat before he hits the end of the walkway. It would be a long, sweaty walk six miles to the bus station, but anything was better than what he left behind in that shitty shack.
He was used to his father’s anger, his eyes going dark and his voice rising, whether barking orders on a job or arguing with his teenage sons, mostly Sam.
But at the end, John had simply spat his last words with a calm grimness.
“You walk out that door, you don’t ever come back.” John had ignored the pained noise that had come from the back of his oldest son’s throat at his words and stood firm.
There had been only a moment of stunned silence, then Sam had turned away and not looked back.
His father’s pronouncement had been the definitive push he needed to make his escape after months of fighting between them, buffered by long periods of silence and thick tension; the bridge had finally been burned for good. It has gone up in flames quicker than any grave as the words hit their target.
At first, every step down the slick pavement under Sam’s feet feels like pulling himself from quicksand. The sound of cicadas and bullfrogs blare from swampy woods around the road and his heart pounding in his ears feels like the universe is jeering at him. Shame, shame on you, abandoning your family.
But after about a mile or two his heartbeat slows down and even the humid night air feels fresh compared the heaviness in that shitty little house choking with the tension that had clung between his father and him as oppressive as smoke.
As he passes the occasional puddle filling a pothole that reflects the moonlight beautifully, he slowly began to enjoy the warm night air and the sounds of nature as it sank in. He is free.
No more going to school exhausted from balancing his days studying and training that was only interrupted by a few restless hours sleeping in musty motel beds in cheap dives by noisy highways, or room temperature showers with the water pressure of a light summer rain and eating sloppy joes for dinner three times a week while while watching Jeopardy, moving every month or so and arriving in a new town and school as the new kid with old tattered clothes, bags under his eyes and healing scars under his clothes from being slashed with across the arm with broken glass or hit in the back of the head by a lamp thrown by a poltergeist.
No more nights of holding his tongue until he couldn’t any more as his father barked orders while he cleaned his brother's wounds after a nearly deadly hunt, willing his hands not to shake even with all the practice he had as he sewed up a gash that looked like it needed medical-grade stitches, not old sewing thread. No more watching his father grind his brother down into an obedient soldier instead of Sam’s brave, outspoken, and charming brother.
Dean had been doing his best to stick up for Sam, or at least mediate the fights between Sam and Dad, but in the end, he had stood there, face pale and sweaty, eyes wide, as Sam had walked away.
The adrenaline from his escape now powers him forward, and with every step, his confidence that there was nothing left behind him grows.
But he’s a few miles down the road when he hears the Impala’s engine approaching.
He doesn’t turn around, though his heart clenches and he finds himself stopping without meaning to, his brother's presence pulling him like a magnet, because it could only be Dean.
His brother coasts the car alongside him and looks him in the eye through the open window as if he’s willing him not to start running.
He's still momentarily stunned by Dean’s presence, though of course Dean has been sent to retrieve him. Dad has always known he could get Dean to do his emotional dirty work for him. Dean has been soothing him and making excuses for why Sam had to go along with his father's orders since he was little.
Dean parks the Impala on the side of the road behind him and gets out slowly.
They had just finished eating dinner together, a rare event that had seemed like a sign that the time was right, when Sam had bitten the bullet and told this family about Stanford. Dean is still in his boxers and the Metallica shirt he wears around the house and to bed most nights, and his sneakers are untied. If Sam had ever left the house looking like that, Dean would call him a dweeb. He notices after a moment that there is a rip at the collar of his brother’s shirt that hasn’t been there before Sam left. Like someone grabbed him on the way out the door, and his brother had twisted out a strong grip in his hurry to chase after Sam.
The rage inside him returns, the image of his father putting his hands on Dean for going after Sam unsticks his feet from the pavement as he turns.
Dean follows him down the street as he starts walking.
“Sammy.”
“Don’t, Dean.”
“Sammy, please…Dad di—”
"He meant it." Sam cuts him off. John Winchester was not a man who made idle threats.
He has no patience for his brother’s excuses for Dad and was surprised he even tried such a blatant lie, given the evidence of his father's rage left on him.
The power their father had over Dean had been one of the many things that had seemed normal for longer than Sam liked to think about. You grow up in a certain way, and it seems normal. Even the dark rot in a family seems like just the way it is.
Even now, Dean couldn't help defending their father. His father's mission had consumed John completely and had settled into Dean’s bones at a young age.
Dean’s loyalty to his family was absolute, and when Sam felt apart from his dad and Dean and their devotion to hunting, he had wondered who his brother would choose if it came down to it.
That Dean had come after him was a pyrrhic victory; it was too late for even his brother's favor to keep him here, and only evidence that he was tearing the family apart by making Dean choose.
“Sammy, please, we can hunt by ourselves, we can take off and do jobs on the other side of the country from Dad, just you and me. I’ve been bugging him to let us work on our own anyway; we’re both ready.”
“It was never just about getting away from Dad, Dean!”
“So, what, you're too good for hunting now, Sammy?” Dean accuses, but he didn't mean it.
“We save people, we destroy every evil son a bitch, so that no one has to suffer like us,” Dean reminded him, as if he could ever forget, appealing to Sam’s heart even when he frequently teased him for it at times.
He wishes doing good was enough for him. It was the purpose that had been drilled into them all their lives, but the ethos didn't sound worn out when Dean said it, not like when Dad used it as an excuse why Dean had nearly lost a limb after a week of no communication in the wilderness after a chupacabra hunt while Sam had been stuck home with a bad flu, or when John had scoffed and refused to even look at the flyer for Sam's graduation ceremony months earlier. Hunting wasn't just revenge and violence to Dean.
While Dad hunted to avenge Mom, Dean truly did it to save others. His brother's pain made him heroic, while Sam’s pain that had begun in the cradle seemed to leave an edge on everything he touched.
He knew the importance of hunting as much as Dean, but next to Dean’s pure belief, his own feelings about hunting were laced with bitterness that he knew made him selfish, like his father had yelled earlier that night.
He had a 7th-grade classmate whose father was a firefighter. About a month after he had joined the class, the kid’s dad had died in a huge fire at the edge of town. If he had been the boy's friend, he could have tried to comfort him with words of commiseration about losing his own mom. But he had barely known him.
When the entire class had been bused to the memorial to support him and he had listened to the boy call his dad a hero and say how proud of him he was, all he could think in the back of his mind—which had become darker as he grew older and saw more of the horrors his family chased—was that some fathers cared more for fighting the good fight then being there for their kids.
At least his father only fought rarer evils like werewolves and ghosts. Did that make it safer?
These thoughts had sent him to vomit after the ceremony in the small church bathroom, as if he could purge himself, but those wicked thoughts grew stronger in him every day. Not only was there something wrong with his family, but also with him.
This last summer had solidified the idea that the only way to stop this sickness was to leave.
The only times he felt at peace were when his father was gone on a hunt, and he and Dean were home alone for weeks, sitting around shoulder-to-shoulder and sweating in only their boxers on a flea-bitten couch, watching TV while eating popsicles and ravioli straight out of a can while Dean chuckled in his ear over a dumb comedy or leered over a newsroom anchor's huge tits. His brother exuded coolness and could be accepted in even the most wary or stuck-up towns, he could be anywhere, partying or making out with a girl or cruising around in the Impala, but he was there with him, and every time it happened, he could feel himself coveting it more. And even though they had lived in each other's pockets all their lives there was something different about it now.
His brother's soft smile as he tried to cheer Sam up from a fight with his dad with a passed off beer and a clap on the back ramped his heart rate up more than being chased by a ghoul, and the feel of his brother's skin while wrapping Dean’s twisted ankle in bandages made his fingers tingle more than passing a pencil to his science lab partner, Cindy. It was proof that there was something broken in him.
Eventually, his family would realize there was something dark in him as well. Leaving now was best for everyone, and they would see that eventually.
But there was no way to explain to Dean here and now that when he had read to a younger Sam stories about the brave knights of the Round Table, there had been something unclean about him that would only grow stronger.
So he uses the simplest and most boring justification he had.
“I want a life, Dean, a real life with friends and school and a job someday. That's not wrong. Haven't I done enough?”
Dean scoffs,not expecting such a small dream from Sam in comparison with what they both knew of the world, and not accepting that could truly be his brother’s ambition.
But it was, even though he couldn't fix what he felt he could at least try at normalcy; lots of people faked it every day. If he couldn't be normal, couldn't he at least be safe?
After a moment, Dean’s expression softened, and he added.
“You deserve it,” Dean said sadly, agreeing, but in a tone like he was talking about something unattainable. Dean was used to giving his little brother everything he could, but it was the one thing he couldn't provide.
It would only make things worse, but he wanted to say, “You deserve it too, Dean," but even if he asked Dean to join him tonight, he would never accept.
Dean stared at him for a long time. His brother could talk himself into and out of trouble on a dime, but he still stumbled when words got deep.
Then he spoke, and Sam’s resolve was battered as his brother's voice cracked.
“Sammy, please stay,” Dean pleaded, and his unshakable brother's eyes were wet as he stepped closer to grab Sam by the shoulder and pull him into his arms.
It wasn’t a persuasive argument, cold logic, or an iron-clad demand. But his brother's touch was enough to feel his resolve crumbling fast.
Dean always joked about his puppy dog eyes, that he used little brother powers to get what he wanted, past the point of it being cute or acceptable, but Dean had the same sway over Sam. He had long ago given up on Dad's approval, but Dean’s approval still felt like a blessing.
The feeling of his brother's arms around him made his heart beat so loudly that the sounds of the muggy night around them were drowned out. He could stay here in his brother's arms all night, but then neither of them would be truly free.
So with his last bit of adrenaline left over from his escape from home, even though the words shredded his throat as they came out, he kept his voice firm and broke his brother's heart.
“I can’t De…I need to get the fuck out. I need you to let me go,” He said, squeezing his brother for emphasis.
With their faces so close, it was like one of his sweat-soaked dreams. He used his little brother's powers one more time, looking into Dean's eyes, begging him to understand.
After a moment, Dean’s wet eyes suddenly hardened, putting on his game face like before a hunt. He let Sam go, his sudden gentleness beaten back by the duty he had been given.
Sam waited for the final word from him and knew he would not survive it as easily as he had shrugged off his father’s
“Bus stop?” He mumbled with a nod to the car.
Sam’s heart clenched with love for his brother. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to say it wasn't Dean’s fault and that he would miss him like a phantom limb. All he could muster was a shaky, “Thank you.”
Dean's eyes were still shining as he turned to get behind the wheel of the Impala.
Sam joined him. As he started the car, Dean turned on the radio low, and Sam knew Dean needed it, so he stayed quiet. The slower-than-usual quiet rock ballad that began to play was a balm on the resigned tension of the otherwise silent ten-minute drive to the bus stop.
Sam had never felt at home anywhere his family had ever moved. He might not even belong at Stanford when he got there. But here in the car with Dean driving, he knew he belonged somewhere at least for a little while longer. He stared at the dark road ahead as they drove, occasionally turning to meet his brother's eyes until it hurt too much, and as the breeze from the open window cooled the sweat on his skin, he committed this last drive with his brother to memory.