#67 impala

The Impala’s hood was still warm, even though Dean had killed the engine twenty minutes ago. You were both sitting on it, backs against the windshield, legs stretched out over the curved metal. The Kansas sky was bleeding into twilight, turning the rust on the old warehouse behind you into something that almost looked pretty.

Dean had a half-eaten bag of cheap chips between you, but neither of you had reached for it in a while. He was fiddling with a lighter—flick, flick, flick—not lighting anything, just needing the sound.

You knew that sound. It meant his head was somewhere else.

“You okay?” you asked, not pushing.

He didn’t answer right away. Then he snorted, low and humorless. “Sam’s gonna leave.”

You turned your head to look at him. twenty-two-year-old Dean Winchester, all sharp jaw and too-old eyes, staring at the horizon like it had personally wronged him.

“Leave where?” you asked, even though you suspected.

“College.” He bit the word off like it was something sour. “He got this brochure today. Stanford. You should’ve seen it. Palm trees. Sunshine. Libraries with, like, actual working doors.”

You smiled a little. “That sounds nice.”

“Yeah.” Dean’s voice cracked on the word. He cleared his throat. “Dad lost his mind.”

Your stomach tightened. “What do you mean?”

“Fight. A real one.” He finally lit the lighter, held the flame up for a second, then snuffed it out with his thumb. “Sammy says he wants a ‘normal life.’ Go to class, join a study group, maybe get a girlfriend who doesn’t know how to salt a doorway. And Dad—he just kept saying ‘you’re not going,’ like it was a closed case. Like Sam’s a kid who forgot to take out the trash.”

You waited. Dean never talked about the hunting stuff directly, not with you. But the edges of it bled through sometimes—the late-night phone calls, the way he’d show up with a fresh bruise and say “wrestling practice.”

“The thing is,” Dean continued, quieter now, “I get it. I do. Sam’s smart. Like, annoyingly smart. He deserves to sit in a lecture hall and argue about poetry or whatever. But I also get Dad.” He dropped the lighter into his lap and rubbed his face with both hands. “Without Sam, it’s just me and Dad. And Dad…” He trailed off.

“You’d be alone,” you finished softly.

Dean turned to look at you then. Really look. His eyes were greener in this light, and for a second, the mask slipped. You saw the kid underneath—the one who packed his brother’s lunch, who fixed the Impala with his own hands because no one else would, who had never been to a single football game even though he could’ve been captain.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “And I’m a jerk for feeling that way, right? Because I should be happy for him. But every time I think about Sam packing up his dumb flannel shirts and leaving, I just get so—” He stopped. His jaw tightened.

“Jealous?” you offered gently.

Dean let out a shaky breath. “I don’t even want to go to college. That’s the pathetic part.

I just… I want the option. I want someone to look at me once and say, ‘Hey, Dean, you could do something else too.’ Instead of ‘Watch your brother, change the oil, be ready to move in three days.’”

The silence stretched between you. Somewhere in the distance, a train horn wailed.

You reached over and took the lighter from his hand, just to hold it. “You’re not a jerk, Dean.”

“Yeah?”

“No. You’re a brother. There’s a difference.”

He stared at you for a long moment. Then, slowly, the corner of his mouth twitched up. Not a full smile—Dean didn’t do those often—but something real.

“You’re too good at this,” he said, bumping his shoulder against yours.

“At what?”

“Making me feel like I’m not a total disaster.”

You bumped him back. “That’s what hanging out is for.”

He grabbed a chip from the bag, finally, and crunched it loudly. “Okay. New rule. You’re not allowed to go to college either.”

You laughed. “What if I want to?”

“Then I’ll follow you there and sit in the back of your classes and ask dumb questions.”

“Dean.”

“What? I’d be the campus crush.”

The sky was almost dark now, the first stars poking through. Dean leaned his head back against the windshield, and for a while, neither of you spoke. But his hand stayed next to yours on the warm metal—close enough that your pinkies touched.

He didn’t move it away.