June in Savannah, and Sam is so wired he's forgotten what it's like to sleep at night. His father is never home and his brother never leaves. Dean's taken to sitting up all night in the wicker chair by the window, something about fresh air, whatever, Sam knows it's just 'cause this way Dean will hear it if anyone tries to get in, or, more likely, if anyone tries to get out.

It was two weeks ago Dean found him in Flagstaff and carted him back across the country, road trip of silence and doom. No music, no talking, just terse calls to John every two hundred miles and Dean's stony glances in the rearview mirror. He still isn't saying any more than he has to. It's as if Sam is no longer worthy of his brother's attention, and Sam would almost believe that Dean felt that way were it not for the way his eyes are always on Sam, don't you dare go anywhere I can't see you.

Sam had loved being on his own, really, for once in his life completely free, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love his brother, and it's endlessly frustrating that he can't seem to make Dean understand. it's like a nightmare, no waking up, no exit. Sam knows a lot about nightmares. He has weird dreams sometimes, and he's always running, pushing fast as he can, fire licking at his heels, so when he wakes up it's with a stitch in his side. All bright, vivid coloring and splitting pain in the skull in the two seconds immediately upon waking.

This time it's 2 am by the green-screen light of his wristwatch. Sam sits up on his elbows, shirt stuck wet and suffocating to his chest, sheets all akimbo around his legs. He finds himself shivering. Flu, probably, maybe an as-yet-undiscovered allergy; Sam discovers something new about himself every springtime, a fresh intolerance with every ravaged state, every abandoned house they leave behind them.

He stumbles over to the window and stands above Dean's slouching frame and just looks at his brother for awhile, sunk down in the porch chair like cloth in a basket, rumpled and so warm Sam can feel the relentless energy of it trying to crawl up his forearm. Wind its way around his throat, snake its way inside his brain and ignite the impending fever at its root. Sam would let it happen, would let Dean do most anything he wanted, which is a terrifying thing to contemplate so he doesn't.

He hates Dean so much sometimes, because it's easier than hating himself. Sam still remembers being fourteen and discovering this awful secret he carries and Dean being beautiful and impossible and oblivious and making everything worse. Turns out, Dean hasn't changed much since then, and neither has Sam.

He closes the window, has to lean right over Dean to do it. He's struck by the familiar bone-deep longing, to push Dean's knees apart, get under his skin, understand how and why he exists. The sound of the street is deafening, still, and though Dean's face is smooth and slack as the whiskey he had earlier Sam can't help but wonder if Dean can hear it, if the mundanely worrying shriek of brakes at the traffic light has in any small way permeated Dean's mind. He wonders if it's possible that Dean's dreams are anything but chaotic.

Sam turns away from the chair by sheer force of will. Dean is tired. Sam can see it, and if Dean never says it in so many words Sam knows there'll come a day when he will. One day, his brother will stop being invincible and what will Sam do then? If he goes through with it and leaves for Palo Alto in two months like he's planning he's going to have to live with that every day, put all his energy into not caring whether his brother is dead or alive. It goes against everything Sam's got in him, every lesson he's inadvertently learned. Every night he spent up late behind salted doors, waiting for his family to come home.

Sam crawls back into bed and curls sideways, resting his head on his forearm, doesn't think about how he wants to shove Dean flat on the floor and trace every inch of his skin. Dean is snoring and the traffic lights are so bright it might as well be morning. He knows his father will call in a few hours and Dean won't look him in the eye and all Sam can think is, he would've been able to handle anything but this.

They call Savannah the most haunted city in the South not for nothing, although, as with every evil presence big enough to gain some notoriety, there's a substantial pack of gold-diggers who'll do anything to make a buck. Sam's looking at a pile of ghost-tour pamphlets over a typically early breakfast, Midnight Mansion Ghost Walk and Bloody Revenge: The Confederacy's Most Notorious, all the same, so predictable it's getting boring, the list of shit-eating liars in these parts is as endless as the day is long.

He rifles through one particularly glossily lurid example and chews through his toast, waves a bleary-eyed Dean over as he enters the side of the room they call the kitchen. "Hey Dean, man, can you believe this shit. All the fake ghosts in this town you could start a business debunking them. Stupidest thing I ever saw, look, Dean, it says this guy chewed his own toes off-"

Okay, so maybe he's more than a little desperate for Dean to talk to him, maybe he'd give his right arm (only a partial exaggeration) to see his brother's lip curling up in a smirk. So what. Dean already thinks he's a freak, and after this last incident it's not like he can exactly think any less of Sam. So he can just add "pathetic" to the list, Sam's not backing down from this one.

Dean guzzles his OJ straight from the carton, same as always. Sam watches the muscles in his throat working, gets a little angry because he does the same, has from the time he was five and decided Dean was the coolest and the absolute best individual on the face of this earth. Sad thing is his opinion hasn't really changed, only now he lets himself get pissed about it.

Dean wipes his mouth. His reddened eyes glance around the room, countertop, duffel bags, chair, Sam, window, door, car keys, Sam. They only rest there for a moment.

"Dad's got a job in New Hampshire," he says, and locks his arms in a stretch behind him. It's the voice of a stranger. Informative, entirely polite.

And Sam bites out, "No fucking way," pamphlets forgotten, before he can think about what he's doing. No fucking way is he going to fucking New Hampshire at the beck and call of this man he doesn't know or want to. No fucking way is he gonna let Dean treat him like-

Dean turns on his heel. Sam sees the red streaks of color brightening his cheeks and feels a little surge of triumph, look, I got you to feel something, how's that silent treatment working for you. Dean's face is drawn but there's something in it that Sam recognizes as dangerous, years of knowing him and Dean has never looked at him quite in this way. It's never been this bad before. Sam steps forward, watches Dean visibly flinch and it actually pains Sam. Forgiveness might be too much to ask for, he sees that now, but at least a moment of honesty, can he just have that.

"Dean," (it comes out hoarse, slurred, Deeeeeeeaaaaaan, some habits Sam just can't break), "you gotta stop pretending I don't exist, bossing me around-" and Dean's grabbing fistfuls of Sam's shirt, pushing him back against the counter until it's digging into Sam's lungs and it hurts and he can't breathe. Sam's got a good two inches on his brother, but he's skinny still and Dean knows he can still push him around.

"I can do," Dean says soft, sneering, "whatever the fuck I want." Something dark moves through his eyes and his hands flex in Sam's cotton shirt for a second before he shoves him away, hard. His face goes flat for a second, mouth curling down. Sam can't move. He's stuck where he stands.

Dean slams the bathroom door and Sam eventually goes to collect his things. The place is too quiet, and every footfall is so loud he can't help but cringe. Books, ammo, toothbrush in a ziploc bag, toothpaste with a cap that doesn't fit, clothes all rumpled with Sam's weak attempts at folding. He hesitates, and then packs Dean's stuff too. There's less of it. Dean never did believe in leaving things behind.

The single upside to being on Dean's kill list is the part where Dean's refusal to look at Sam leaves Sam with plenty of time for staring at Dean, and Dean with no way to stop him. This is how he spends the nine hundred-plus miles to Bedford. He reads his Steinbeck and looks out the window and looks at his brother and for all Dean acknowledges him he might as well be dead. He thinks about saying something to that effect. He thinks about the way Dean's fist will feel when it hits square at the side of his jaw, and reconsiders. There's music, though, apparently Dean loves his Zeppelin more than he loves torturing Sam with the silence, and it helps Sam relax a little, song after song he knows by heart.

It gets dark so quick when they're driving. Sam must have fallen asleep or something, because when he wakes up it's way past dinnertime and Dean's pulling into this little diner off their exit, some anonymous five minute town, so Sam can go in and get them sandwiches and pie, "cherry or don't come back."

"Empty threats," Sam says, grinning cause he can't help it. Sam doesn't even mind running Dean's errands for him like a fuckin' lackey, he's so happy to see Dean smiling again, mellowed out, the corners of his eyes softer like they always get after a few hours on the road. He can't explain the sudden change but he sure as hell isn't gonna question it. This is what he wants. This is what he's been missing.

They eat sitting out in front of the motel address Dean wrote down on a slip of notebook paper. Their dad is almost certainly inside, and if he is he definitely knows his sons are here, but he doesn't come out and Sam's grateful despite himself.

Dean wipes his hands on the front of his jeans and squints down at his feet and Sam holds his breath, way more scared than he should be. Dean stands up abruptly and tosses the wrappers in the trash can five feet away, perfect aim, beautiful arc of his back and sliver of skin where his t-shirt slips up all under the porchlight glow. He looks down at Sam, mouth half-open and stuttering for a second like he's reaching for something.

"Just-just don't do that ever again, okay man?" It comes out all low and gruff and thick-sounding and Sam can see how he means it.

Sam nods, quickly, "yeah," 'cause what else can he do, there is no Plan B, absolutely no other option. "Sorry," he adds, because god knows he's said it enough but it looks like this time Dean's actually listening, and Sam's so glad, so guilt-stricken he can't stand it. He'd say most anything to keep Dean looking like that. Stitch in his side again, or maybe that's his heart.

Dean nods back, hands in his pockets, scanning the rows of motel room doors now, back to business as usual now his pesky kid brother's been taken care of. Sam watches him, the relaxed line of his shoulders, as close to careless as Dean ever gets. Sam watches him and wishes like hell it didn't have to be his fault when this moment gets taken away.