He says the hig...

He says the highway dust is over allWC: 1620Dean/Sam, PGFor spn_50states: Tennessee. Sorry for fucking up your urban legends.Thanks to hansbekhart for saying, "I've read better." The title comes from the Robert Frost poem, The Oven Bird.1. A storm’s brewing outside the car windows and Sam quells the urge to push them down and stick his head out like a dog. They've been through these parts before, some kind of familiarity that's closer to deja vu than home, but the sky wasn’t this shade of gray and everything looks different now under the faded light.“We gonna stop soon?” Sam hates when his voice goes whiny-high and bitchy likes this, but he can't stop it. There's no manly way to say you need a pee break.“Yeah, soon,” Dean says without looking over.2.Dean grudgingly pushes the plate across the table towards Sam the third time he glances longingly at the half-finished pancakes. “What’s up with you, man? You haven’t eaten this much since you were fourteen. God, I hope you don’t get another growth spurt.”Sam grins around a mouthful of syrupy pancake. “What’s wrong, can’t handle me being any bigger than you?”“It’s hard enough to get you in the car as it is. God, you try traveling across the country with the jolly green giant.”“You say the sweetest things."Dean mutters something like "kiss my ass" but Sam ignores him in favor of turning the laptop around to show Dean the article he found yesterday. "I think we should stop in Tennessee next. There’ve been three murders in the last two months.”“Yeah, and?” Dean prompts, tearing his napkin into little strips and stacking them into a box shape and looking bored already with this city. His boot hammers a staccato beat against the table leg.“All the victims were men and they were all killed the same way.”“So some crazy’s chopping guys up. Doesn’t mean it’s our kind of problem.”Sam puts down his fork and slaps a hand so quickly over the napkin strips that half of them escape, fluttering haphazardly to the ground. Dean's foot stops and he can hear the plates and silverware rattle together in the kitchen. “The police never found their heads.”“You think crazy people don’t do crazy things?”“I think this is something,” Sam says and hold Dean’s gaze. “Dean, please.”“Tennessee it is,” Dean says evenly.3.It’s always hot here in July, Sam remembers. It’s like the moment they roll into the state, their clothes stick to their bodies, matted with sweat and all the shit they never could say out loud.When they were here last, Sam fell and scraped his hand, ass to the ground, and angrily fisted handfuls of dry dirt between his fingers. "I'm sick of this bullshit, Dean," he said. Blunt fingernails scrabbled against his shirtfront, pushed him back down again. Desperately, he threw a leg out and heard it connect with a solid grunt. "If you want to go, then get the hell out." Breathless, angry words hissed in his ear.His lungs hurt, scorched from the heat inside out. "Fuck you, I never said I wanted to leave, ever.""Dad's gone, the demon's gone. Why the hell would you stay?""You think I'm only here for the demon? God." A fist to his stomach cut off the last curse and he doubled over and hit the ground.Dad always taught him that some fights just weren't worth it, that sometimes it was better to live to fight another day, but that lesson didn’t take with him or Dean.Sometimes Dad gave shitty advice.4.“So I looked up the area where the victims all died and there’s a local legend about it.”“I’m shocked.”“At the Big Sandy Railroad Junction, a conductor supposedly fell off the train and his head was torn off by the wheels. During foggy nights, people claim to see him searching for it.”“That’s gross, dude,” Dean says, shading his eyes with his hand against the harsh sun. His sunglasses got eaten by a hellhound somewhere back in Kentucky.“We’ve seen worse.”“So what makes this guy suddenly go crazy and decide rather than look for his own, he’s gonna go looking to try on others?"Sam shrugs. “They’re doing some construction on the railroads and making a train museum. Maybe that’s what set him off.”“Why do we always get the nasty ones?” Dean complains. “Never something like a succubus. They’re cute.”“They’re evil,” Sam reminds him. “And they have sex with you until you die.”Dean looks misty at the thought. “But what a way to go.”5.“Goddamn,” Dean says, rubbing his neck. “I knew this was a bad idea.”“Are you okay?” Sam calls out, lowering his shotgun and running towards Dean, who for once, doesn't object to the question. It probably has something to do with the fact that some crazy-ass ghost just tried to pop his head like a coke tab.Ignoring Sam’s question, Dean looks around at the shallow grave. “Did you burn the bones?” Sam rolls his eyes, even though Dean can't see it in the dark.“Of course-” he trails off as a figure appears over the hill, through the unnaturally dense fog. Dean looks up in time to see the goddamn ghost lumbering towards them, body twisted and broken from the fall it took before it died, its neck ending in a bloody stump.“I thought you said you burned it,” Dean accuses, eyes wide and reflective in the dim light. “I did,” Sam insists, “I- shit.”“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Dean asks, getting unsteadily to his feet.Sam lets every curse word he knows fly and even makes up a couple on the spot. "The head is still missing."“I caught that, Sam! That’s kind of why this ghost is out looking for fun, new ones to try on.”“We can figure this out later. But right now,” Sam says, “we need to run.” He grabs Dean’s sweat-soaked gray tee shirt and hauls him to his feet.6.The air conditioning works overtime, rattling and wheezing in the window, making it cold enough to raise goosebumps on their arms when they stumble into the room. Dean rifles through his duffle bag until he pulls out the battered first aid kit Dad gave him with a stern warning to take care of it because it could mean the difference between life and death. He pops the latches, searching for some kind of pain killer, any kind. There’s Tylenol and he swallows four dry before toeing off his boots and flopping face first on the bed.“You nearly died,” Sam says quietly from the window. Outside it’s hot and muggy and Sam’s hair curls slightly around his neck and ears. Dean wishes it would rain to relieve some of this heat pressing down on them. At least make it bearable for a week, long enough for them to find this bastard and get the hell out of dodge.“I nearly a lot of things, Sam. And none of ‘em count for shit.”“You’re a real poet in the evenings.”“Nearly getting my head ripped off does that to me,” Dean mumbles into his pillow without looking up, not the least interested in seeing Sam emo out. There isn’t enough glue left in him to keep himself together and Sam too.Sam leans against the windows as it fogs up until he can’t see anything outside. “We passed a museum on the way here. There’s a gallery of old train memorabilia.”“And you think they kept his head there for kicks?”“No, but I bet they kept something of his that he's attached to, something he can't leave behind.”“Worth a try.”Dean still doesn’t look at him, but he doesn’t sleep either, instead lying there with his face in the pillow, tense, waiting.“I’m not going to leave this time,” Sam says suddenly. He rounds the bed, stops next to Dean. “Move over.”“It’s too goddamn hot.”“Please, Dean,” Sam says, scooting in close as he can until Dean rolls over and makes room for him.7.He wakes up in the middle of the night and instantly knows Dean isn’t asleep, even though the whole room is silent. On the nightstand, a local brochure welcomes them to the beautiful state of Tennessee, but he doesn't need to be reminded where they are.Tennessee is where they fought, where Sam cursed and swore he’d never be back. It's where he got ten paces away, turned around to get a last angry word in and saw Dean sitting in the dirt where he'd left him and realized Dean had no intention of getting up.It's where he had the option to leave again. The kind of opportunity that was only supposed to come around once in a lifetime but had come twice for him, like death for Dean, like everything that was supposed to be dice against a table. Tennessee is where he sees the door, the tense set of Dean’s shoulders, even as he pretends to sleep and thinks that for Dean, Tennessee has become another place he’ll never find peace. We’ll keep running, Sam thinks. And this time I’ll stay with you.He settles in close to Dean, thinking about all the shit they have to do in the morning and how exactly to break into a train museum, and smiles as he smoothes a hand over the pale skin of Dean’s back and Dean doesn't pull away. The room’s cooled off some and the pitter-patter against the roof lulls him some place between sleeping and waking, comfortably hazy and half-asleep.“Dean,” Sam leans over and whispers, even as he knows Dean’s listening silently, waiting. “Go to sleep. It’s raining now.”The end.