Fic: Lullaby of the Road
Title: Lullaby of the Road
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam
Word Count: 468
Disclaimer: I don't own Sam or any Supernatural storyline. I don't have any part in SPN and am merely a fan. :) Please do not sue; I'm unemployed.
Note: Coda: Pilot; I'm trying to do the 100 Prompt challenge (although I haven't signed up for it). This is number 1 :)
Summary: Sam is getting used to being in the car with Dean, and being o the road.
The Impala doesn’t hit potholes, she just kind of thunks over them. Sam never feels them but he subconsciously counts the thunks. They’re at fifteen so far since they left California. They hit thirty-one between Jericho and the Nevada/California border. He doesn’t remember when he began starting the count over at the state border, but he just does.
When he was ten he played a game in his mind that every twenty-fifth thunk he’d snap his fingers. It drove Dean crazy. He wonders briefly if Dean heard the snap as they left Citrus Heights.
When they leave the hum of the cities, the road throws dirt and pebbles against the impala’s rims and her undercarriage in tiny pings. He doesn’t count those but he follows each ping with an unconscious tap of his finger against his thigh. He’s done this since he was a kid. It helped him learn how to count when they moved around every three months. And then he kept doing it.
When he’s driving, those rare moments between hunts and big cities, he taps the steering wheel instead. Or at least he used to. Dean hasn’t let him drive since Jess.
When it rains he listens to the tappidy-tap of the water against the roof and the kerplat-bump of the drops against the windows. And it soothes him, almost lulls him to sleep. It’s almost too easy to slip back into the counting and the tapping, into the bumps and the beats.
Now though he’s staring out the window and into the blackness of the Utah night. There is no rain and there hasn’t been since the night after Jess. He doesn’t look at Dean, and doesn’t need to. He can see the movement of Dean’s hands hitting the top of the steering wheel in the glass, thump-taptaptaptap-thunk-thunk-bam, and he can hear his brother’s off-key singing. He missed that he realizes with a pang; he missed these quiet moments with Dean.
He sighs and his breath fogs the window; Dean quiets almost immediately and it’s silent in the car except for the thunks, the pings, and the thump-taptaptap-bums. Sam sighs again as he stretches his legs as far as he can.
Dad was in Jericho. They went to Jericho.
Dad is in Black Water Creek. They’ll be there this time tomorrow; Dean’ll make sure of it.
He closes eyes and shifts his sweater between his head and the glass. And he listens. He falls asleep with images of Jess on the ceiling and the woman in white with her hand on his chest, of Dean yanking him from the blaze and the alternating lights from the fire engines and ambulance. The images fall away though as the cool from the window seeps through the sweater, and the lullaby from the road plays on repeat.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam
Word Count: 468
Disclaimer: I don't own Sam or any Supernatural storyline. I don't have any part in SPN and am merely a fan. :) Please do not sue; I'm unemployed.
Note: Coda: Pilot; I'm trying to do the 100 Prompt challenge (although I haven't signed up for it). This is number 1 :)
Summary: Sam is getting used to being in the car with Dean, and being o the road.
The Impala doesn’t hit potholes, she just kind of thunks over them. Sam never feels them but he subconsciously counts the thunks. They’re at fifteen so far since they left California. They hit thirty-one between Jericho and the Nevada/California border. He doesn’t remember when he began starting the count over at the state border, but he just does.
When he was ten he played a game in his mind that every twenty-fifth thunk he’d snap his fingers. It drove Dean crazy. He wonders briefly if Dean heard the snap as they left Citrus Heights.
When they leave the hum of the cities, the road throws dirt and pebbles against the impala’s rims and her undercarriage in tiny pings. He doesn’t count those but he follows each ping with an unconscious tap of his finger against his thigh. He’s done this since he was a kid. It helped him learn how to count when they moved around every three months. And then he kept doing it.
When he’s driving, those rare moments between hunts and big cities, he taps the steering wheel instead. Or at least he used to. Dean hasn’t let him drive since Jess.
When it rains he listens to the tappidy-tap of the water against the roof and the kerplat-bump of the drops against the windows. And it soothes him, almost lulls him to sleep. It’s almost too easy to slip back into the counting and the tapping, into the bumps and the beats.
Now though he’s staring out the window and into the blackness of the Utah night. There is no rain and there hasn’t been since the night after Jess. He doesn’t look at Dean, and doesn’t need to. He can see the movement of Dean’s hands hitting the top of the steering wheel in the glass, thump-taptaptaptap-thunk-thunk-bam, and he can hear his brother’s off-key singing. He missed that he realizes with a pang; he missed these quiet moments with Dean.
He sighs and his breath fogs the window; Dean quiets almost immediately and it’s silent in the car except for the thunks, the pings, and the thump-taptaptap-bums. Sam sighs again as he stretches his legs as far as he can.
Dad was in Jericho. They went to Jericho.
Dad is in Black Water Creek. They’ll be there this time tomorrow; Dean’ll make sure of it.
He closes eyes and shifts his sweater between his head and the glass. And he listens. He falls asleep with images of Jess on the ceiling and the woman in white with her hand on his chest, of Dean yanking him from the blaze and the alternating lights from the fire engines and ambulance. The images fall away though as the cool from the window seeps through the sweater, and the lullaby from the road plays on repeat.