fic: A Taste for the Hunt (Sam and Dean, theme 01:Elemental)
Title: A Taste For the Hunt
Author: thatauthor_chic
Character(s): Sam and Dean Winchester
Claim: Sam and Dean Winchester
Theme: 01 - Elemental
Prompt: 08 - Taste
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I don’t own the car, the boys, or anything to do with the Supernatural show. Just taking them for a little joyride through my imagination.
Summary: The taste of the hunt isn’t always what one would expect.
Sometimes it’s bitter coffee, hot and rich on the tongue. Greasy burgers heavily seasoned with barbecue sauce and covered in half melted cheese.
More often it’s chalky ash that never fails to get in your nose and mouth, leaving a pasty residue wherever it had the misfortune of getting stuck. The sour taste of soapy water that’s just as talented at getting into places it should never, ever end up while trying to wash the ash and grime away.
At the end of the night it’s that first sip of cold beer, tart and sweet as it hits the deepest recesses the mouth before being swallowed down. Better still when it’s replaced by the sharp sting and slow burn that can only be whiskey, the drink of choice on a cold night or at the end of a particularly bad day.
When that fails it’s the sweet tang that is woman, honey lips and candy tongue that hold the secrets of the universe. Not the best solution when the whiskey doesn’t quite do the trick, but certainly distracting enough to get the job done.
Ultimately it’s salt that is the most constant. It’s always wet and sour, sometimes congealing in the corners of your lips after having picked up the spoils of the hunt on their way down filthy cheeks. Often tracing intricately detailed paths through day-old beard growth, the only evidence left to prove that a hunter can indeed find it within himself to cry when the occasion calls for it.
Finally it’s the tinny, metallic blood trickling from the corner of a mouth the last thing the one that cannot be saved will ever taste. The only thing left then is bitter revenge burning the back of the throat, not even close to being enough to make a loss okay.