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"...and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."
-- Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Just like that, it's over.
There is a tremendous explosion. He feels it more than hears it, a shock wave that punches the air, knocks the breath from his lungs, rattles his teeth and bones. He lurches backward, gasping and shuddering, but he doesn't fall.
The air is filled with acrid black smoke that stings his eyes and burns his throat. So much smoke for so little to burn -- one angry show-off sonofabitch, that's the last thing Dean said before they climbed out of the car -- but even though he can't see anything he knows that it's gone.
Through the smoke and heat he feels something cold dripping on his face, and he looks up. Rain. It's raining. Fucking raining. Sam wonders if he should be surprised by the irony of that.
"Dean?" His voice is rough, barely a rasp. When there's no answer he clears his throat and tries again, louder. "Dean, where the hell are you?"
"Over here." Calm, casual, like they've just misplaced each other in the grocery store.
Sam takes a few blind steps, stumbling on the loose stones and low shrubs that dot the hilltop, and stops short when he realizes he's about to step on his brother.
Dean is kneeling on the ground in the center of a ring of charred earth, and he doesn't look up when Sam stands over him.
A fresh wave of panic and fear surges through Sam. He falls to his knees in front of Dean. "Hey, man, are you okay? Did we--"
"Yeah." For second Dean's gaze is vague, unfocused. Then he blinks and looks directly at Sam, and he grins. His nose is bleeding and his face is smeared with ash -- Sam knows he doesn't look much better himself -- but he's smiling, and he says, "Yeah, we did. We got the fucker."
Then he starts laughing. It's a wild, crazy sound, like the burnt earth and black smoke and cold rain are the funniest damn things he's ever seen. It's uncontrolled and unsettling, and Dean sways a bit unsteadily, shaking his head and still laughing. Sam reaches out to catch him, pulls Dean into a hug and doesn't let go. They both smell like blood and sweat and smoke and sulphur, and the rain's coming down so fast they'll be soaked to the skin in a matter of minutes.
"You're a lunatic," he says, his chin on Dean's shoulder, his arms around Dean's back. "A goddamned fucking--" laughing, breathing, living "--lunatic."
Dean's laughter fades and he wraps his arms around Sam. "It worked, didn't it?"
"Yeah. Guess it did."
And just like that, it's over.
Dad told them about it a few weeks before he died.
"When it's over," he said, his voice low and rough and tired, "there's this place I want you to go."
You, not we, and Sam hated him for saying that, hated him for again being this Dad that he never again wanted to see, drunk and despondent, sitting by the window of their shitty motel room and pouring whiskey into a disposable plastic cup.
"Dad--" Dean was sitting on one of the beds, sharpening his knife with long, slow, quiet motions.
"Listen to me, son," Dad said. "Listen."
And he rattled off a set of directions. Highways and back roads, towns and turns, names and places that meant little to Sam. Somewhere in Kansas, that was all he got out of it, but he saw that Dean was listening attentively. No doubt Dean would be able to recite the directions back word for word if Dad demanded it of him.
But Dad only said, "There an old oak on the top of the hill. It's the only tree for miles, no idea why it's there. Just sunflowers in every direction, as far as you can see, except for this one tree. You can't miss it."
Dean's hand stilled, and the gentle ringing of the knife faded.
"That's where I proposed to your mother," Dad said. He had a small, sad smile on his face, and his eyes were closed.
He didn't say anything more. After a few minutes, Dean stood up and took the empty cup from Dad's hand, capped the bottle of whiskey and set them both on the counter by the sink. Then he sat down, picked up the knife and stone again.
Sam rolled over to face the wall, listening to the familiar, comforting whisper of steel on stone.
Dean remembers the directions.
He doesn't say anything, and Sam knows better than to ask, but after they pull into a motel to clean up and catch a few hours sleep, they head out again when the sun is high in a cloudless blue sky.
It takes them the better part of the afternoon to get there. The shadows are long by the time Dean turns the car off one dirt road onto another, the one that Sam knows must be the last because there's no place else to go from here. The track is narrow and overgrown with weeds and grass, cutting like an afterthought through sunflowers taller than the car.
Sam watches the pattern of sunlight and shadow dancing on the dash. He knows it's stupid, but he feels strangely nervous, and he tries not to think about how it seems like they're driving into a tunnel of green and yellow with no way out except the way they're going in.
The ground slopes up and the sunflowers stop abruptly, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief. He feels Dean glance at him, quick and silent, but he only leans forward and peers through the windshield.
Dad was right. It's the only tree for miles.
It pissed him off, sometimes, the things that Dean didn't understand.
They were sitting in a twenty-four-hour laundromat in Tulsa, dazed and exhausted, both of them beat to hell and in a godawful mood. Every plan had gone wrong, every idea just made a shitty situation worse, and the only thing they'd agreed on in the last two weeks was that Tulsa really sucked and if all of its inhabitants were eaten by werewolves neither of them would give a damn.
They should've know better than to start in on that conversation again.
"I don't get it," Dean said, and Sam felt a stab of annoyance shoot through him. "They'll let you back in, just like that? They don't care that you've been gone for so long?"
"Of course they won't just let me back in," Sam snapped. His feet hurt like hell and his was too tired to even move, but he was pacing anyway, back and forth on the checkered linoleum floor. Dean was sprawled in one of the plastic chairs, his legs stretched out right into Sam's path, and it was all he could do not to kick Dean's shins with every pass. "It doesn't work that way. If it had been one term, maybe, but it's been almost two fucking years."
"So what?"
"So my fucking scholarship is gone," Sam replied, using that slow, careful, you're-a-moron voice that he knew Dean hated. "I have to find someplace else to finish, find another scholarship, apply again, transfer my credits." Seeing the carefully blank expression on Dean's face, he added nastily, "It's not rocket science, Dean. Any idiot knows that's how college works."
Dean met his eyes for a second, then looked down and shrugged. "Sounds like a lot of pointless hassle to me."
"Yeah, you would think that," Sam mumbled.
"Excuse me?"
"I said, you would think that."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Sam snorted. "It means that I'm not even surprised anymore that you can be so fucking clueless about anything that doesn't involve killing things and fucking random girls in every bar you walk into and scamming credit card companies because you can't--"
Dean was on his feet so fast Sam barely saw him move, and there was only a split-second before Dean's fist slammed into his jaw. He reeled backward, stumbling into a washing machine, and brought his hands up instinctively, poised to fight back.
But Dean was already storming away. The door swung shut with a harsh jangle of bells.
Sam winced and rubbed his jaw and collapsed into one of the plastic chairs, ignoring the sudden nausea that clenched his stomach.
They leave the car at the edge of the sunflowers and walk the rest of the way up the hill.
The afternoon sun is hot and bright, and Sam shades his eyes as he surveys their surroundings. There's nothing out here, nothing except this old oak and hundreds of acres of sunflowers. To the north he sees a speck that might be a farmhouse, and the road slices through the fields in a soft, straight line.
Beside him, Dean clears his throat. "Just for a while," he says. His voice his low, still hoarse from the smoke, strangely uncertain. When Sam says nothing, he goes, "Then we'll head out. To California." There's a pause, and Dean takes a few steps away, into the shade of the tree. He kicks at a twisted root and rests his hand on the rough black trunk. "That's where you want to go, right?"
Sam doesn't answer immediately. He looks to the west, across the green fields. All of the flowers are turned away from him, their faces aimed toward the sun. There are no clouds in the sky, only the white, fading trail of a plane high overhead.
"Just for a while," he says.
He didn't know them very well, but it was free food and booze and Jess promised to reward him, so he went along to the barbecue and pretended to have a good time.
"So, Kansas, you're going with pre-law?" That was Scott from New York, English and philosophy, hundred dollar shades and half an hour in front of the mirror to make it look like he just rolled out of bed. As far as Sam knew, Scott from New York didn't actually believe that anything existed between the Mississippi and the California border, and he talked about Kansas like it was a one of those war-torn third world nations nobody could find on a map.
Sam smiled. "Yeah, looks that way."
"Sell-out," Scott from New York replied easily. "Why the hell do you want to do that?"
"Because I told him he looks fantastic in a suit," Jessica answered. She draped her arm around Sam's shoulders and kissed him on the cheek.
"Oh, that's a good reason," Scott laughed.
"Good enough for me." Sam raised his beer bottle and took a sip. The backyard was crowded with people chatting and laughing in the shade of the squat leafy lemon trees and taller palms. He leaned into Jess, enjoying the warm press of her body against his back. "That," he went on after a moment, waving the bottle carelessly toward the evening sky, "and the whole helping people, protecting the innocent, doing the right thing deal."
"Kansas," Scott said, leaning forward, his expression serious, "you do know that you're going to be a lawyer, right?"
The sun goes down and the temperature drops. Sam gets his jacket from the car and settles down at the base of the tree, shifting around until he finds a position where the roots don't jab into his butt and the bark doesn't poke his back.
This isn't quite what he had in mind when he was imagining the what next. A cool crisp wind whispering through a sea of sunflowers, oak leaves rustling overhead like a lullaby, stars coming out one by one in the deep, dusky blue overhead. It's pretty, he thinks. Pretty and peaceful and quiet, but not what he had in mind.
Mom and Dad sat here, a long time ago. Sam wonders if Dad had the ring in his pocket, if his hands were sweaty and shaking, if he'd been planning it for weeks, if he was nervous when he finally got up the courage to say the words. He wonders how Mom answered, whether she laughed or cried, how the sunlight looked on her hair. He wonders what they talked about, what they worried about, what plans they made.
He blinks rapidly, blames the rising cool wind for the sting in his eyes. The fields are dark now, uniform and endless. A light winks in the distance. A car on the road, maybe, or a house. He imagines a yellow light on a front porch, a single speck glowing lonely and small in the empty prairie.
Dean is sitting about thirty feet away, his knees drawn up and his arms hooked around them, facing away from Sam. They haven't spoken since they arrived.
The bus smelled like urine and vomit, and Sam's knees ached from being jammed into the seat in front of him. There was a baby four rows up who wouldn't stop crying, and there were a couple of men a few rows back who were going on and on about goddamned worthless fucking faggots and 'coons and cunts and spics stealing the tax money of hard-working Americans.
It was nighttime, but Sam couldn't sleep and after a while he gave up trying. Instead he stared through the window, past his own ghostly reflection at the headlights of the oncoming interstate traffic. It was an empty stretch of road; the cars and semis were few and far between, momentary flashes of light that appeared from the darkness and rushed by on the other side of the median.
He kept one hand on the strap of his backpack and the other over the pocket where he'd tucked his money and his knife.
Four rows up, the baby's mother started crooning a lullaby to him. She was singing in Spanish, words Sam couldn't understand, but her voice was warm and strong over the incessant rumble of the engine and the humming of tires on asphalt.
When Sam opens his eyes the sunflowers are turned to the east, black and yellow faces lifted to the sun. The morning air is crisp and clear, chilly in the shade of the oak, and somewhere above his head a songbird is singing its little heart out.
Dean is still sitting at the edge of the hill. He looks like he hasn't moved all night, and Sam is just uncertain enough to wonder if that might be true.
Sam rolls his shoulders and works a crick out of his neck, then stands slowly, yawning and stretching and brushing the dirt from his jacket. He walks over and sits beside Dean, lets the sun warm his shoulders and neck for a minute or two before speaking.
"Did you sleep at all?" he asks.
"I'm fine," Dean says gruffly. "You ready to go?"
"In a minute." Sam plucks a blade of grass and begins to tear it apart slowly, flicking the bits away.
"It's a long way to California." Dean puts his hands down, starts to stand up. "No sense hanging around."
Sam puts his hand on Dean's arm. "We're not going to California."
Dean looks at Sam in confusion. "We're not? Then where do you want to go?"
With shrug, Sam replies, "I don't know yet."
"But you -- hey, this is your call. You're the one who wants to be dropped off." Dean settled back on the grass, still looking at Sam. "You were checking out those schools, emailing them about your... credits and loans and shit."
Sam's mildly surprised that Dean has been paying attention, but he only shakes his head.
"What? What's that look mean?"
"I don't--" Sam hesitates, picks another blade of grass and twirls it between his fingers. "I'm not going back to school."
"But you -- what do you mean?"
"I just told you."
"Right." Dean stands up and starts down the hill.
Sam scrambles to his feet. "Did you even hear me?"
Dean keeps walking, his back to Sam. "Yeah, whatever. Look, we have to drive about thirty miles just to find a fucking cup of coffee, so let's get a move on, okay?"
"Dean, wait. Listen to me."
He doesn't stop or turn, but he throws his hands out in exasperation. "What, Sam? What? You want to talk? Have a little heart-to-heart? Talk about how you figured out what you want to do with your nice, normal life? I don't fucking care. Just tell me where you want to go and I'll leave you alone."
Sam blinks several times, his mouth open. "That's not -- Dean, that's not what I'm saying."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Sammy, I told you I'd--"
"I'm not going anywhere."
Dean stops. After a moment, he looks over his shoulder, but he doesn't say anything.
"I changed my mind," Sam says.
There is a long silence.
"Ever since we started this," Dean says finally, his voice caught somewhere between laughter and disbelief, "all you've talked about is how you're not going to do this forever. This isn't your life. You hate it. You want something else. You always have." Dean takes a deep breath, looks up toward the sky. "You don't have to -- it's done now. The fucking demon is dead, just like you wanted. You can go your own way. You can be... safe. Normal. Whatever you want. I won't stop you."
He doesn't say anything more, but he doesn't keep walking either.
Sam opens his mouth, considers and discards about a dozen responses. He thinks about nice, normal homes in nice, neat rows, mailboxes and backyard swing sets and freshly mowed lawns, silhouettes in windows as they pass by heading from one place to another. He thinks about closed doors and locked windows that don't keep out the things in the dark. He thinks about the way Jessica used to look when she knew he was lying about his family, about the phone calls he never made and the letters he never wrote. He thinks about never feeling safe unless Dean's at his back, about never knowing which way to go unless there's an open road before him, about smoke and rain and too-loud music and bitter coffee and new wounds and old scars.
And he says, "I changed my mind."
Dean shakes his head. "Don't -- I'm not stopping you, Sam."
Sam laughs, enjoying the way the fear on Dean's face transforms into confusion. "Like you could even stop me if you tried," Sam says. He takes a few long steps down the hill until he's standing beside Dean. "I'm not going anywhere because I don't want to go anywhere."
"You changed your mind," Dean says, in the same tone of voice he might use to say your hair just turned into snakes or you seem to have grown a third arm. "Just like that, you changed your mind."
There was no just like that about it, but Sam shrugs. "I changed my mind."
Dean narrows his eyes, but he looks like he's trying not to smile. "Until when? Until you change it again?"
"No. I -- look, this is what we do. You were right. And I -- I'm okay with that." Sam knows that Dean doesn't believe him, and he figures it'll take a good long time to get over that. But he has a good long time, because he isn't going anywhere. "Let's get the hell out of here, okay? I'm starving."
"Sam--"
"Seriously, man, do we really need to talk about this?"
Dean ducks his head and squints in the sun, laugh lines around his tired eyes and a crooked smile curving his lips. "Nope."
"Good. I'm driving."
"What? No way. You'll drive us into a ditch and we'll be eaten by sunflowers."
"I don't think sunflowers are carnivorous, and you didn't sleep last night."
"I did--"
"Dean, dude, give my powers of observation some credit." Sam holds out his hand. "Keys?"
With a melodramatic sigh, Dean tosses the keys over. "So where are we going?"
"Hell if I know," Sam replies. The driver's side door creaks as he pulls it open. "Coffee first, thinking later. We'll figure it out after breakfast."
"There's a--" Dean stops, looks at Sam uncertainly over the roof of the car.
"What?"
"Haunted lighthouse," he says, slowly, gauging Sam's reaction. "Cape Cod. Heard about it a few weeks ago. Dead sailors singing drinking songs. Might be worth checking out."
Sam nods. "Sounds good."
Dean looks at him steadily for a few seconds like he's going to say something more, but he only opens the passenger door and climbs in.
Sam looks back up the hill. The oak stands tall and dark against the morning sky, green leaves with golden halos of sunshine. There's no sign they were here. He can't even tell where they trampled the grass.
He slides in behind the wheel and starts the engine.