(no subject)
Everything I've done so far has been kind of light hearted, silly, but sometimes you have to face the universal truth that maybe it wouldn't be easy.
I wanted something more evocative, so: what happens when two people who don't know how to talk fall in love, or, somewhere on US Highway, Route 14, Wyoming.
Also known as, "Kept." PG, a little over a thousand words, but... definitely Sam/Dean. Not necessarily happy, but definitely hopeful.
Kept
Sometimes he thinks they shouldn’t have.
Sometimes, at night, with Dean asleep beside him, he thinks there might be a price to pay, more than the guilt he carries around in the pit of his stomach, more than the weight Dean carries on his shoulders. It’s a betrayal, not a big one, but the kind that drags you down in the night, twists you up inside, and Sam has always known the value of faith, and of breaking it. Keeping it. Guarding it.
Sometimes he thinks it’s going to catch up.
He’s known, for a long time now, that there isn’t anyone else, but neither of them is an easy man to love, and falling into it, he thought it was going to be easy, just a little more complete, but it’s not the same at all. Dean’s always been tied up in him, caught up in things, and maybe it runs a little too deep, but Sam’s in love and running with it, heart open wide against the Arizona sky.
Dean’s got the world kept in his pocket, knows every mile of interstate, and Sam’s leaning the contour lines, shaping it out, finding the in betweens of the kind of relationship he never thought he’d have. He loved Jess, still does, but Dean’s different. Getting Dean’s like getting something you’ve wanted all your life but never knew existed, like looking at the sunrise upside down, and it’s beautiful, pressing in against his blood, but Sam knows - getting your heart’s desire doesn’t always mean you get to keep it.
When they fight it’s vicious, now, but Sam knows there’s fear at the bottom of it, skipping up Dean’s spine in between the vertebrae, the tiny, ingrained fractures of broken promises and shattered trust. He doesn’t know how to talk about it, they’ve never known how to talk about it, but Sam has a hundred secrets he wants to press into Dean’s skin with his fingertips, a hundred more for his mouth, his teeth, his tongue, and maybe at the end they would know how to talk to one another, know how to trust.
Dean’s always known how to want, but he’s never quite gotten the hang of how to need, and it’s the in between that’s killing them, caught someplace Sam’s not sure they’re ever going to get out of. He remembers the first time they kissed, running high on adrenaline, all dilated pupils and unsteady hands, and Sam thinks, sometimes, that they ought to have been more careful, ought to have found a better place to put down roots and latch on.
They’re driving through Wyoming in July, dusk just setting in, and Sam’s got a hand out the window, catching the last pieces of the day between his fingers, holding tight, when Dean pulls over, sudden, kind of sharp, gravel gritting out from under the tires.
“Hey?” Sam says, because there’s nothing here, in the mountains, except the dull purple of the fading light, the jagged cut of the night behind them, coming in across the plains.
“I need a minute - just a minute,” Dean says, folding his arms down across the steering wheel, his head down too.
His shoulders are shaking, just a little beneath his jacket, but Sam doesn’t think he’s crying, just breathing, so he lets him be, lets the slow quiet of the mountain dusk and the swing of headlights around the curve of the road ease whatever heartache this is.
“I’m here,” Sam says, soft, when Dean’s breathing goes even more uneven, hitching a little, and Dean looks up, more tired than Sam’s ever seen him, maybe not crying, but it’s closing in, and he’s a little too close to broken to fight it off.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he says, open, laid bare, here of every place in the world, in their lives, and Sam rolls down the window, listens to the scent of rain.
“I love you,” Sam says, “I’ve never said I love you,” and turns his collar up against the cold, and it’s true, soft in the corners of his mouth, that he hasn’t known how, since, that maybe he didn’t know how, before.
“I need you,” Dean whispers, half of it caught on the wind, lost in the prairie beneath them, but there’s enough left, enough to make a beginning out of.
“I’m staying,” Sam says, and reaches out, covers Dean’s hand on the steering wheel with his own, and there are a hundred thousand words in that sentence, caught between the vowels and consonants, promises lingering around the edges, regret binding up the rest.
“I know,” Dean says, the first time he’s ever sounded like he meant it, and he leans in, careful with touch where they’ve been so careful with words, his shoulder pressed against Sam’s, taking comfort.
Sam doesn’t say anything else, but he wraps an arm around Dean, lets him in, wide open and honest, and Dean - Sam thinks maybe he’ll let himself have this, this time, take what he’s worth, and when they kiss, it’s everything he’s said a thousand times, everything he means.
Dean’s mouth is uncertain under his, cold from the open window, and Sam pulls him in, lets their breath mix until Dean’s warm again, noses barely touching, just feeling. Then he kisses him again, first the corner of his mouth, then the barest brush of lips, then deeper, like he means it, and Dean kisses back, steady, slides a hand up against Sam’s face to draw him in, and Sam feels love click into place between one blink and the next, the smallest brush of time against his skin.
He remembers wishing on eyelashes, remembers the rush of the ocean the first time he heard it, and Dean’s just breathing against his mouth, quiet, close enough for Sam to stow away a little trust in the spaces between his bones.
“It’s getting late,” Dean says, finally, and they trade places, driver to passenger, enough to make this ordinary, but Dean leans up against him as Sam pulls out onto the road again, and Sam can feel his heartbeat, keeping time.
I wanted something more evocative, so: what happens when two people who don't know how to talk fall in love, or, somewhere on US Highway, Route 14, Wyoming.
Also known as, "Kept." PG, a little over a thousand words, but... definitely Sam/Dean. Not necessarily happy, but definitely hopeful.
Kept
Sometimes he thinks they shouldn’t have.
Sometimes, at night, with Dean asleep beside him, he thinks there might be a price to pay, more than the guilt he carries around in the pit of his stomach, more than the weight Dean carries on his shoulders. It’s a betrayal, not a big one, but the kind that drags you down in the night, twists you up inside, and Sam has always known the value of faith, and of breaking it. Keeping it. Guarding it.
Sometimes he thinks it’s going to catch up.
He’s known, for a long time now, that there isn’t anyone else, but neither of them is an easy man to love, and falling into it, he thought it was going to be easy, just a little more complete, but it’s not the same at all. Dean’s always been tied up in him, caught up in things, and maybe it runs a little too deep, but Sam’s in love and running with it, heart open wide against the Arizona sky.
Dean’s got the world kept in his pocket, knows every mile of interstate, and Sam’s leaning the contour lines, shaping it out, finding the in betweens of the kind of relationship he never thought he’d have. He loved Jess, still does, but Dean’s different. Getting Dean’s like getting something you’ve wanted all your life but never knew existed, like looking at the sunrise upside down, and it’s beautiful, pressing in against his blood, but Sam knows - getting your heart’s desire doesn’t always mean you get to keep it.
When they fight it’s vicious, now, but Sam knows there’s fear at the bottom of it, skipping up Dean’s spine in between the vertebrae, the tiny, ingrained fractures of broken promises and shattered trust. He doesn’t know how to talk about it, they’ve never known how to talk about it, but Sam has a hundred secrets he wants to press into Dean’s skin with his fingertips, a hundred more for his mouth, his teeth, his tongue, and maybe at the end they would know how to talk to one another, know how to trust.
Dean’s always known how to want, but he’s never quite gotten the hang of how to need, and it’s the in between that’s killing them, caught someplace Sam’s not sure they’re ever going to get out of. He remembers the first time they kissed, running high on adrenaline, all dilated pupils and unsteady hands, and Sam thinks, sometimes, that they ought to have been more careful, ought to have found a better place to put down roots and latch on.
They’re driving through Wyoming in July, dusk just setting in, and Sam’s got a hand out the window, catching the last pieces of the day between his fingers, holding tight, when Dean pulls over, sudden, kind of sharp, gravel gritting out from under the tires.
“Hey?” Sam says, because there’s nothing here, in the mountains, except the dull purple of the fading light, the jagged cut of the night behind them, coming in across the plains.
“I need a minute - just a minute,” Dean says, folding his arms down across the steering wheel, his head down too.
His shoulders are shaking, just a little beneath his jacket, but Sam doesn’t think he’s crying, just breathing, so he lets him be, lets the slow quiet of the mountain dusk and the swing of headlights around the curve of the road ease whatever heartache this is.
“I’m here,” Sam says, soft, when Dean’s breathing goes even more uneven, hitching a little, and Dean looks up, more tired than Sam’s ever seen him, maybe not crying, but it’s closing in, and he’s a little too close to broken to fight it off.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he says, open, laid bare, here of every place in the world, in their lives, and Sam rolls down the window, listens to the scent of rain.
“I love you,” Sam says, “I’ve never said I love you,” and turns his collar up against the cold, and it’s true, soft in the corners of his mouth, that he hasn’t known how, since, that maybe he didn’t know how, before.
“I need you,” Dean whispers, half of it caught on the wind, lost in the prairie beneath them, but there’s enough left, enough to make a beginning out of.
“I’m staying,” Sam says, and reaches out, covers Dean’s hand on the steering wheel with his own, and there are a hundred thousand words in that sentence, caught between the vowels and consonants, promises lingering around the edges, regret binding up the rest.
“I know,” Dean says, the first time he’s ever sounded like he meant it, and he leans in, careful with touch where they’ve been so careful with words, his shoulder pressed against Sam’s, taking comfort.
Sam doesn’t say anything else, but he wraps an arm around Dean, lets him in, wide open and honest, and Dean - Sam thinks maybe he’ll let himself have this, this time, take what he’s worth, and when they kiss, it’s everything he’s said a thousand times, everything he means.
Dean’s mouth is uncertain under his, cold from the open window, and Sam pulls him in, lets their breath mix until Dean’s warm again, noses barely touching, just feeling. Then he kisses him again, first the corner of his mouth, then the barest brush of lips, then deeper, like he means it, and Dean kisses back, steady, slides a hand up against Sam’s face to draw him in, and Sam feels love click into place between one blink and the next, the smallest brush of time against his skin.
He remembers wishing on eyelashes, remembers the rush of the ocean the first time he heard it, and Dean’s just breathing against his mouth, quiet, close enough for Sam to stow away a little trust in the spaces between his bones.
“It’s getting late,” Dean says, finally, and they trade places, driver to passenger, enough to make this ordinary, but Dean leans up against him as Sam pulls out onto the road again, and Sam can feel his heartbeat, keeping time.