mimblexwimble | we two [spn][flash fiction]

Title: We Two
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, Dean
Word Count: 840
Rating: G
Summary: On late summer afternoons. It's in these moments that Sam realizes how much he wants this.
Notes: For

spn_30snapshots, prompt under the cut. Set sometime late in season one. Blatant abuse of parenthesis.

We two
form a
multitude

- The Metamorphoses
Ovid

It’s late afternoon, sharp morning heat slipping into lazy, sloppy warmth as the sun dips behind the smattering of trees edging the freeway and the inscrutable horizon beyond. For once, there’s nowhere to be and nothing to do. Dean’s pushed open the two windows, rickety, graying blinds hanging lopsidedly above them, and jammed an old whetstone in the gap between the door and the musty carpet to hold it open. He’s usurped the only comfortable chair (leaving Sam to pick between the beds or the floor or the second chair which creaks alarmingly whenever either of them moves to sit on it) and is rocking back and forth on its two back legs, flipping through an issue of Weekly World News with a mixture of exasperation and excitement playing on his face. Every time he leans too far back, Sam feels a dull jolt of panic in his gut.

Sunlight slides into the room, long strips that only manage to spread a feeble warm light. The lamps are all off, and the only noises are of the ceiling fan, clicking quietly as it spins, Dean’s page-turning, and the rumble of slow, rush-hour traffic through the window. Sam watches the shadows lengthen, watches the streams of golden light turning as the sun sets slowly, crawling up Dean’s legs and chest and face, throwing the dust motes in the air around him into glittering relief. It gives him the appearance of something majestic, heavenly.

Dad’s journal is in Sam’s lap, legs stretched out on the bed, but he’s long since stopped reading it.

Dean licks his thumb to turn a page in his magazine, catches Sam’s eye as he glances up briefly, and quirks his eyebrows questioningly. Sam lifts his hand, makes a vague motion. He’s not sure what Dean’s asking or what the answer might be, but Dean understands (only he would) and goes back to his reading, chair still tipping back, but with less flamboyance this time, just relaxed ease.

They’re settling into a rhythm, slipping back into familiar banter, relearning things forgotten (or, perhaps, ignored and pushed away, nature being something very hard to forget), trying to move with each other again, instead of around. It’s slow though; edges of everything tattered by uncertainty and burnt bridges and roads traveled and roads not. There’s more to say now than there ever was before, more to say than can be encompassed by their precise language, severer impositions for Winchesters than the usual structure of words compel. And it’s true that between their fragmentary conversations (because they’ve got the odd habit of completing each others’ thoughts, whether they’re talking about hunting or music or Dean’s bad jokes and why they should never be uttered in public again), contrition and nostalgia and loneliness slip into the air, and more often than not all three reveal themselves as anger. All it takes is one word to set them off, painting tension into the ever-reducing space between them (a well-placed Dad or college or loyalty, accentuated just so) and there are walls; there will always be walls.

It’s not perfect, and it may never be. No one would understand if Sam tried to explain it, (four years and bad blood and the utter frangibility of what they have now) because no one defined family as they did, no one defined brothers as they did. But it’s enough, for now, for a while, maybe forever. It feels like an intermission, a breath of fresh air (perhaps the calm before the storm, Sam doesn’t know and won’t think about that) and it’s good, feels more real (more true and more lasting) than anything has in a long while.

And it’s in these moments, between hunts and visions and that terrifying knowledge that he is too small and the rest of the world is too large and filled with inescapable evil, that Sam realizes how much he wants this. Realizes that even on their own, they two form a multitude, a world of their own making, have their roots in each other, their sense of belonging and that warm welcome at the end of the day when they’re aching and exhausted and alone. Realizes that safety isn’t simply being hemmed in by walls and innocent people but having the knowledge that there is someone like you, someone who will fight to their final breath for you, who you would travel to the ends of the earth for (die for, die for, die for) without hesitation.

It’s moments like these that Sam realizes (but not regrets, never regrets, because there was something healing in his time at Stanford and he doesn’t know what he would have done if he hadn’t gotten away) that he might not be ready to run again.

Dean looks up again, the fading light angling across his eyes, and his lips quirk pleasantly, as if he’s heard Sam’s thoughts. Sam smiles back, everything about Dean contagious and right and pulls Dad’s journal closer.

The evening stretches around them, and it feels like benediction.

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smilla02.livejournal.com

OMG! *flails*
This is gorgeous.

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we two [spn][flash fiction]

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