Ficlet: Rabbit Starvation; PG
Rabbit Starvation
Warnings: Language
Summary: Short ficlet written after this post. About 1,000 words of nothing really getting resolved.
Rabbit Starvation
--
Sleep is cold, bitter, and precious. Dean captures it in snatches when he captures it at all, and every instant of unconsciousness squeezes his heart incrementally tighter. He wakes up after ten minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, his whole being dense as a compressed star punching holes in oblivion. His breath comes simple, easy, not like running or falling but like an animal crouched in readiness. He always wakes with the tang of adrenaline in his mouth. His hands make fists before he’s even upright.
He’s ready. Usually there’s nothing there.
Usually.
He sits up, eyes flicking toward the clock. It’s been fifteen minutes since he last checked. He managed a few minutes. That’s something. He sweeps the inside of his mouth with his tongue, hard. He can’t clear out the taste, but it doesn’t matter. The mattress gives under his weight, and it’s horrible and soft and too far off the ground. He feels vertigo just sitting on the edge, never mind wrestling with the pillows and blankets piled on top of the thing. He edges toward the foot of the bed, slow and quiet, so the springs don’t creak.
In the other bed, Sam’s asleep.
Fucking good for him.
He slips off the bed, onto the floor. It’s hard to move confidently in the dark. He slips toward the door, pausing every few steps to test his weight on the floor, and extend his senses into the world. There’s both more and less to take in at night. There’s not much to see or even hear, but without the constant bombardment of daylight noise, activity, and human interaction, the rest of the information in the environment floods his senses, especially his nose. This place, this room, is small and stuffy and it reeks of mildew, detergents and cleansers, human body odor, and a host of other scents that tell the same endlessly repetitious story.
He pushes the door open carefully and slips out. It’s not that the room is wrong in and of itself. It’s just turned in on itself, endlessly. A prison made up of smaller prisons.
Outside the air is clear. He stands at the edge of the parking lot and breathes through his nose, opening and closing his hands. He’s ready. For what, he doesn’t know. But he’s always going to wake up ready.
--
Beds are impossible, but sleeping anywhere else comes with less difficulty. Sam leaves him eating a burger in the park and heads off to do a little research at a local library branch, and Dean sacks out on the bench. The sun is warm and it’s the middle of the day so there are no kids playing. No sounds of screams to wake him. Nothing for almost half an hour until a jogger passes with a dog and it’s the jingle of the tags, the thud of footsteps, the clatter of nails, that has him sitting and then standing before he’s registered that his eyes are open.
The blue sky floods his vision and the sunlight reels through the trees. The jogger passes in a blur of color and noise and Dean sits heavily back down on the bench and rests his fists on the tops of his thighs. His chest expands and contracts and his breathing is steady.
The sides of his head are cold. Sleep is cold. His mouth tastes like aluminum.
He swallows, and again.
--
Inside is a challenge sometimes. Sometimes he tastes the air and there’s no tang of blood. No rich scent of earth, no putrid reek of decay, of flesh rotting off of bone, collapsing and diseased. The roar of noise, the chaos and light, pours through open windows, bounces off walls and echoes and magnifies. Life. Civilization.
They camp out in a bus station, waiting for a target, and Sam passes out on a bench and Dean sits and watches his brother, watches the crowds, watches watches watches. He can feel his skin thinning out in the glare of the lights. His eyes drying. He tastes running in his mouth. Run and hunt and kill. But Sam’s chest rises and falls slowly, so slowly, and one big hand resting on his chest is open and loose. His fingers twitch lightly, dreaming or remembering.
Dreaming, or remembering.
--
There’s a fountain. Sam’s gone off to find food. To get dinner. The fountain isn’t large and there aren’t many people around. It’s cold and everyone’s hurrying through the falling dusk, breath puffing around their faces in white clouds.
The noise of the fountain drowns out every other sound and he doesn’t mean to fall asleep propped up against the edge, but then Sam’s shaking him awake and there’s a strong smell of grease and salt and he shoots upright and has one hand wrapped in the lapel of Sam’s coat and the other pressed up under his brother’s jaw, squeezing the windpipe.
Sam doesn’t react at all. Just stands, arms loose at his sides, and waits. The bag crumples a little in one hand, and Dean looks down at it.
He eases back, carefully.
“…sorry,” he says. Works the bitterness around in his mouth, and swallows. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
Sam looks down, first at the bag, then away to the side. His face is nothing but hard planes.
“Sorry,” Dean says again. He’s not really sure what he means, but the hardness in Sam’s face eases a little.
“Let’s go,” Sam says, and Dean doesn’t have anywhere else to be, so he follows his brother and the overpowering scent of food.
--
He waits for Sam to fall asleep in the bed and then goes outside and sits on the cold concrete, his back resting against the doorjamb. It’s cold and quiet and clear, and when he wakes up it’s almost two hours later and the moon is nearly down. The white light frosts the tops of the distant trees, and he watches until it disappears completely.
-end-
Note: I like the theme an wouldn't mind revisiting it, though I can't make any promises, so I wanted to at least get something down for this.
Warnings: Language
Summary: Short ficlet written after this post. About 1,000 words of nothing really getting resolved.
Rabbit Starvation
--
Sleep is cold, bitter, and precious. Dean captures it in snatches when he captures it at all, and every instant of unconsciousness squeezes his heart incrementally tighter. He wakes up after ten minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, his whole being dense as a compressed star punching holes in oblivion. His breath comes simple, easy, not like running or falling but like an animal crouched in readiness. He always wakes with the tang of adrenaline in his mouth. His hands make fists before he’s even upright.
He’s ready. Usually there’s nothing there.
Usually.
He sits up, eyes flicking toward the clock. It’s been fifteen minutes since he last checked. He managed a few minutes. That’s something. He sweeps the inside of his mouth with his tongue, hard. He can’t clear out the taste, but it doesn’t matter. The mattress gives under his weight, and it’s horrible and soft and too far off the ground. He feels vertigo just sitting on the edge, never mind wrestling with the pillows and blankets piled on top of the thing. He edges toward the foot of the bed, slow and quiet, so the springs don’t creak.
In the other bed, Sam’s asleep.
Fucking good for him.
He slips off the bed, onto the floor. It’s hard to move confidently in the dark. He slips toward the door, pausing every few steps to test his weight on the floor, and extend his senses into the world. There’s both more and less to take in at night. There’s not much to see or even hear, but without the constant bombardment of daylight noise, activity, and human interaction, the rest of the information in the environment floods his senses, especially his nose. This place, this room, is small and stuffy and it reeks of mildew, detergents and cleansers, human body odor, and a host of other scents that tell the same endlessly repetitious story.
He pushes the door open carefully and slips out. It’s not that the room is wrong in and of itself. It’s just turned in on itself, endlessly. A prison made up of smaller prisons.
Outside the air is clear. He stands at the edge of the parking lot and breathes through his nose, opening and closing his hands. He’s ready. For what, he doesn’t know. But he’s always going to wake up ready.
--
Beds are impossible, but sleeping anywhere else comes with less difficulty. Sam leaves him eating a burger in the park and heads off to do a little research at a local library branch, and Dean sacks out on the bench. The sun is warm and it’s the middle of the day so there are no kids playing. No sounds of screams to wake him. Nothing for almost half an hour until a jogger passes with a dog and it’s the jingle of the tags, the thud of footsteps, the clatter of nails, that has him sitting and then standing before he’s registered that his eyes are open.
The blue sky floods his vision and the sunlight reels through the trees. The jogger passes in a blur of color and noise and Dean sits heavily back down on the bench and rests his fists on the tops of his thighs. His chest expands and contracts and his breathing is steady.
The sides of his head are cold. Sleep is cold. His mouth tastes like aluminum.
He swallows, and again.
--
Inside is a challenge sometimes. Sometimes he tastes the air and there’s no tang of blood. No rich scent of earth, no putrid reek of decay, of flesh rotting off of bone, collapsing and diseased. The roar of noise, the chaos and light, pours through open windows, bounces off walls and echoes and magnifies. Life. Civilization.
They camp out in a bus station, waiting for a target, and Sam passes out on a bench and Dean sits and watches his brother, watches the crowds, watches watches watches. He can feel his skin thinning out in the glare of the lights. His eyes drying. He tastes running in his mouth. Run and hunt and kill. But Sam’s chest rises and falls slowly, so slowly, and one big hand resting on his chest is open and loose. His fingers twitch lightly, dreaming or remembering.
Dreaming, or remembering.
--
There’s a fountain. Sam’s gone off to find food. To get dinner. The fountain isn’t large and there aren’t many people around. It’s cold and everyone’s hurrying through the falling dusk, breath puffing around their faces in white clouds.
The noise of the fountain drowns out every other sound and he doesn’t mean to fall asleep propped up against the edge, but then Sam’s shaking him awake and there’s a strong smell of grease and salt and he shoots upright and has one hand wrapped in the lapel of Sam’s coat and the other pressed up under his brother’s jaw, squeezing the windpipe.
Sam doesn’t react at all. Just stands, arms loose at his sides, and waits. The bag crumples a little in one hand, and Dean looks down at it.
He eases back, carefully.
“…sorry,” he says. Works the bitterness around in his mouth, and swallows. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
Sam looks down, first at the bag, then away to the side. His face is nothing but hard planes.
“Sorry,” Dean says again. He’s not really sure what he means, but the hardness in Sam’s face eases a little.
“Let’s go,” Sam says, and Dean doesn’t have anywhere else to be, so he follows his brother and the overpowering scent of food.
--
He waits for Sam to fall asleep in the bed and then goes outside and sits on the cold concrete, his back resting against the doorjamb. It’s cold and quiet and clear, and when he wakes up it’s almost two hours later and the moon is nearly down. The white light frosts the tops of the distant trees, and he watches until it disappears completely.
-end-
Note: I like the theme an wouldn't mind revisiting it, though I can't make any promises, so I wanted to at least get something down for this.