I feel like this could be better, but my brain feels like a fried egg right now and I wanted to post it … so tell me what you think.

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

September 1st

August ended with a nasty, throwing-people-down-the-stairs poltergeist, a family “talk” that unsurprisingly turned into a family “argument”, an explosion of tempers on all sides, things he never even wanted to say rolling off his tongue, and the mistreatment of the motel door. Sam sits on a bus for three days straight, watching the scenery fly past, and realises that the bruises from that last job would be the last medals of honour he’d receive in the ghost-hunting business: he was free.

And John remembers how Mary had squinted and tilted her head to the side, watching their newborn sleep, and said softly, “Oh John, I think he’s going to be just like you.”

Dad’s already gone off on his own job before Dean wakes up, but he left a note about some cattle mutilations out in Texas that needed to be looked at, so Dean slides into the Impala and turns the key in the ignition, loving the sound of his baby roaring beneath him. It makes him feel more at relaxed than he has done in days, but still even she couldn’t fill the void of emptiness that was lingering in his chest – you know, that feeling like there was something missing.

More people are moving into the freshman dorms everyday, bringing stereos and televisions and dvd players and playstations and Mommy and Daddy to move themin and hug them goodbye, and to leave behind the promise of whatever they need whenever they need it beforethey get back in their posh cars with proud smiles on their faces.

Classes have just started up, and Sam’s roommate does pre-law too so at least he has some company around campus, even if Steve is lanky and red-headed and couldn’t charm a girl if she was blind, deaf and drunk.

John was a determined bastard, Mike had always said. It takes him an hour to hack into the database, another ten minutes to find what he was looking for, and with an address and class schedule in hand, John makes his way along the neat streets under the cover of night (stalking your own son? This is a new low, John, even for you) but finds there are carefully-disguised runes and sigilsof protection around Sam’s building already, as well as vestiges of salt – and he has to wonder if his son even needs him at all anymore.

The unfairness of Dad’s words, of his and Dean’s so they do ghost-hunting courses at Stanford then, huh? joke, still rattle around Sam’s head as he goes about highlighting texts and making notes, but then again so does his own this is pathetic, this crusade of yours has already cost us the life we should have had, and I’m not sticking around to see it take our lives permanently as well as the memory of the look in Dean’s eyes just before Sam turned around and slammed the door behind him.

He shouldn’t be doing this, there were more pressing matters to be dealt with, but still after five hours Dean is fairly certain that there had been no strange or unexplained deaths around Stanford since it had been built; no violent murders or atrocities; and even before the university there had been no tribal lands, graveyards, battle grounds, Indian reservations, or anything else of the sort anywhere near where his baby brother had settled to stay.

September 18th

Sam’s never been the type of person to hold a grudge, and even though he was determined to see this through he still found himself looking back to That Night and just wishing he’d handled it differently, wishing he’d said something more diplomatic rather than going for words that he could see cut his father right to the bone.

September 20th

John just happens to be in that part of California anyway, and it was pure coincidence that the only available parking space was in the shadow of that big tree – the one that kept him hidden from his son’s view, but not Sam from his.

September 22nd

Dean couldn’t believe it’d taken him this long to realise that his brother’s .45 was missing, as well as that kick-ass curved dagger he and Dad bought him for his fourteenth birthday, and he likes to think that if Sam truly had meant it when he said he was never coming back to this life, to them, then his weapons would still be in the trunk of Dean’s car – and they’re not, and Dean likes to indulge in a bit of healthy optimism every now and then.

September 25th

Seriously, when it’s Sam who wins all five games of pool and sweeps the floor with his opponents, you know something’s not right.

September 28th

Dean’s Latin isn’t that strong, but it’ll have to do as John has to distract the demon and they don’t have a third man anymore, and John’s wrung out and stressed already and is in no mood for demonic little bastards – nor is he in any mood for wise-ass comments, and glares thoroughly at Dean all day after he mutters now I know why Sammy was always the one doing the reading, maybe we should call him, would he really mind exorcising a demon down the phone?

September 30th

Sam almost feel palpable relief when it gets to the end of the September, because he’d heard somewhere that the first month on your own is always the hardest – but now, the first hurdle was over and if Dean and Dad were still sticking to their if-you’re-out-then-you’re-out-for-good rule then he was too, and he knows that he was going to see this through to the end – one way or another.

October 1st

One month gone and all three of them know that they’re stubborn enough to keep this up for as long as they need to, and if Sammy never comes back and ends up with everything he wanted, everything they never had, then that’s perhaps how it’s supposed to end – but still, it doesn’t make it hurt any less now.

like my father’s come to pass
twenty years has gone so fast
wake me up when september ends