He knew Sam was looking at him, could feel it right there on his cheekbone, Sam's worried frown. Okay. The road. Dean breathed through his mouth, kept both hands on the wheel and his eyes on the yellow double line, and drove.
"Hey," he heard Sam say, somewhere distant and off to his side, when they blew past the third sign for lodging, a hundred miles per hour with the radar detector running clear. "Maybe we should stop."
"Yeah," Dean said, and kept going; he didn't look over. Sam went quiet after that, sat back deep in the seat so there wasn't even a flash of him out of the corner of Dean's eye. The four AM highway was almost empty and they were sitting in the left lane, no lights coming up behind them, and Dean didn't have an excuse to check the mirrors. His hand trembled, wanting to go for the rear-view, and he clenched it down harder. Another sign flashed by: Coffeyville, 65; Tulsa, OK: 113. He could've gone for Nebraska or Missouri, but that was too close. He didn't know why, but it was. He wasn't stopping for gas and he wasn't looking at the tank. His baby was going to get him there, he knew it. She was going to get them both there.
He hadn't slept a lot in the last few weeks; he hadn't slept at all in the last forty-three hours. He'd walked through Hell and come out the other side, and by the time he blew past Chanute his hands were shaking on the wheel, and the divider line was blurring, and he wasn't slowing down.
There was a sign for it, Welcome to Oklahoma, Discover the Excellence, and a Super 8 motel sign shining half a mile farther down the road. He coasted down the exit ramp and managed to get them into the lot, and then he just stopped, sat there staring out ahead, timeless, and then his car door opened and Sam was there, standing next to the car with a motel room key, saying, "Dean. I'm here."
= End =
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