a man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he's still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he's still left with his hands.
disorientation and intrusiveness, integrated into an alluring unification, flashed upon his countenance—but not before the muscles beneath creamy skin began to recline. jaw languid, eyebrows webbed in fortification—the perfect concoction for a genuine analytical contortion, mirroring that of a child having lost sight of their mother in an overly-populated vicinity.
his expression was not meant to be forced in such a manner; regardless, it was excessively portrayed whether or not it was intended to be so strained, and one could not help developing such an impression from his cast. did sᴀᴍ truly have prior information on what they were hunting?
❝ i —- yeah, of course, it’s probably a….
[ he scratches his head, squinting. ]
—- okay, no, but maybe there’s something weird in the archives. ❞
plus, it’d be neat to look through the files. tedious, sure, but come on, how many towns had actual p a p e r archives? besides, they’ve got nothing, so they might as well look through the old news for anything strange.
sam grins at dean, face cracking with the expression
❝ come on, man. didn’t anyone ever tell you your face’ll freeze like that if you hold it for too long? ❞
“—I’ve seen you down quite a few drinks there, dear. Be careful.”
❝ no, no, no —- you don’ haveta w o r r y . ❞
he gestures clumsily with the glass in his hand, grinning widely. there’s something b u z z i n g around in his head and it feels great, a warmth in his stomach that helps melt away the dread that’s been riding there for months.
goddamnit. just what he needs; someone else getting in the way. it’s dark in the building, and sam’s flashlight flickered out about ten minutes ago, but sam can tell that the t h i n g down the hall is definitely not the ghost he’s looking for.
slight fondness curls around dean’s small features, the heavy scent of petrichor clinging to the air as he digs his hands into his pockets and tries to fight back a small shiver. he supposes the rain was a good thing. a metaphor, perhaps, for new beginnings and idle conversation as the darkness around the edges slowly fades away into something more. he glances back into the windshield of the impala, malachite eyes searching for the broad shoulders of a sibling that could brighten his day even more.
a metaphor, he thinks, for the ability to renew a withering connection between shattered hearts and dreams — rain supposedly meant cleanliness and purity, and if there was one thing any son of winchester needed, it was a good metaphor.
❝Rise and shine, Sammy—❞
calls he, loud enough to be heard through the window slightly cracked on the driver’s side. whether sam was actually asleep or not, he doesn’t know. dean just likes to be partially irritating.
nights spent in the impala are both sam’s salvation and the bane of his existence. he clings to the feeling of freedom, the memories, the scent of worn leather. sometimes dean will park near a lake or a forest and sam will crack his window just a bit more and let the scent of calm and peace wind its way around that of gunpowder and sweat, cleansing him of his sins.
but sam is tall and the impala is small, so he wakes with a stiff neck, joints cracking and groaning like his late father’s. today, though, he finds only b l e s s i n g in the numbness of his tailbone, sees only s a l v a t i o n in the ridged imprints the leather has carved into his cheek. they’re signs, sam thinks —- markers of the start to his long journey of penance and redemption. dean has not cast him out like a pariah. dean t r u s t s him; dean believes in him. the hope swells in his chest, so childlike and innocent that he has to keep his eyes screwed shut against the onslaught of relief that builds and builds in his chest until it feels like he will burst open at the seams.
still, he puts on a show, groaning and scrubbing at his eyelids with the heel of his hand. it takes more effort than usual to scrounge up an irritated glare in dean’s direction, because although s a m m y is young and childish and girly, ‘sammy’ is something that has not passed dean’s lips for far too long.
”You’ve got to be kidding me. That really can’t stay secret for long.” She may as well warn someone when their emotions are giving away their lies. It’s only polite.
“You should probably handle it.”
sam is smart and sam is witty, but sam has n o c l u e what she is trying to say. his brow furrows in puzzlement, drawing tight just above the scoop in his nose.
❝ —- wait, wait, wait, slow down. handle w h a t ? ❞
“Seriously, Sammy?” Dean squinted, green eyes tracing over the features on his face. “Whatever?” What was this, highschool? Something was eating at him… or had his panties in a knot —- and honestly Dean wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was. Maybe it was that time again, that time when one of them questioned what it was they were doing. Two brothers out on the road —- killing monsters. Ready to call it quits. It happened. The hunter just wasn’t ready for it right now; hoped that this wasn’t what it was. It was going to be Christmas soon after all —- Sam wouldn’t leave him before Christmas would he? He’d stick around long enough for the 25th, right? Dean could stop… he could stop being annoying, and stop with the songs and the cookies and the tinsel. Give Sam a break, take it easy on the hunts —- could leave him alone for a day or two —- pay for some late night cable for his brother and some alone time. He’d do what he had to in order to keep him there.
“If you don’t want to listen to Frosty the Snowman, that’s cool. Ozzy’s just as cool.”
hunting is in his blood; that doesn’t mean he has to l i k e it. it is in his veins like wildfire, the curse of the winchesters, the winchesters’ blessing. but fire is untamable and unquenchable, and sometimes it burns its way out through sam’s tender skin and blazes and b l a z e s like the ceiling of his little apartment in palo alto.
he fights it down, compressing the heat and the flames back into the space behind his heart, but there is only so much he can do, so hard he can press, before his little jail cell shatters and the flame licks its way free.
it’s worse, now, when the trees turn white with snow, boughs laden down with ice. it’s worse when he can smell eggnog and cinnamon on every furl of the wind, giggling and whirling with lost childhood and broken dreams.
but d e a n likes christmas, dean, who fed and watered him like a little sapling, who was his sun when his sky was full of clouds. and dean is still his sun because dean is dean, and long after all his sparkling stars have been blanketed over with velvet night, dean will be there.
❝ —- anything beats f r o s t y ❞
it’s as close to an apology as he can give, with the heat still burning in his veins, but he forces a smile with tightened lips, gaze sliding over sheepishly to his brother behind the wheel.
