Hands, Eyes, Hearts - A Collection of Supernatural Drabbles

5 // Sam

I'm not doing this cycle-rut of DeanSamCasDeanSamCasDeanETC on purpose, that's just the way they're coming for the time being. MAGICOLEBOOKS ARE YOU HAPPY NOW lolol I actually do love that you love these so much. Here's hoping I continue to please.

Sam stands on the side of a mountain, covered in grime and blood that isn't his. He looks out over the grayed-out countryside, the orange smudges of normal and safe, into the bright polluting lights of the city. It's so far away, he can pinch it between thumb and forefinger. He wonders if Godzilla ever wondered what those little ants were up to, scurrying through the geometric spires of Tokyo. He wonders if the monster they just put down ever had any lucid thoughts, if it ever stood on the side of this mountain and felt as small as Sam does, just a microscopic cog in the pocket watch of this universe. He stands there, breezes buffeting the stuck-together strands of his hair, and wonders at all the dark pockets down below that humanity hasn't touched. If there are monsters in them all.

Soon enough, Dean comes stamping up behind him, flinging goo and muttering swears until he sees what Sam is seeing. They stand there together, shoulder to shoulder, gazing out at the juxtaposition. It's beautiful, Sam thinks, but what he says aloud is, "Can we go into the city tonight?"

He turns to see Dean eyeing him inscrutably, a face full of shadow. Sam fights not to squirm.

"Just, uh. Thought we could have some fun for once. Since we killed the thing and all."

Dean is sticking and unsticking his fingers. "Naw," he says finally. "You don't want anything to do with the city. 's dirty, and closed in, and, just... full of the types of monsters we can't kill."

Sam gives him a look.

"All right, so we can," his brother amends with a grin, "but it'd be difficult as hell to get away with."

"Not for you," Sam says, kind of faintly, looking away back toward the lights.

Dean just laughs a little at that, neither confirms nor denies. They both know it's true.

They do end up driving into the city that night, but it's too late, everything is closed. Sam swears to himself that he's gonna sit still and take everything in like an adult, but he winds up plastered to the window anyway, all agape and starry-eyed. There is graffiti everywhere in this part of town, and not the simple tag stuff he gets on the sides of train cars or behind gas stations. This is art, plain and simple. Complex shading on portraits done in the spray can style, swirls and logos and icons of alternative culture that pop right off the walls--and it'll all be gone in a week or so, whitewashed by the man. Sam wishes he had a camera.

Dean turns to laugh at him a few times. "Nerd," he says. There's affection there, tempered of course by a ruffle to Sam's hair or pinch to his earlobe, which he hates.

They find a bar with a star on the door. Sam still has no hope of passing even with his fake, Dean gets hassled everywhere--but when they head inside in their bulky jackets, hair still wet from their showers, they find everyone inside in the middle of shooting what someone says is a music video, content to ignore the newcomers. Dean gets a Jack and Coke, "keep 'em comin'," and Sam gets a Shiners Bock.

"You sure you don't want em to notice you?" Dean hisses when the 'music' starts up again.

"Maybe you shoulda ordered for the both of us," Sam says into his beer. It is pretty terrible, but he'll never admit it aloud.

With his back to the chaos in the rest of the bar, all of it reduced to swirls of black and muted color in the hanging logo mirrors behind Dean, Sam actually doesn't mind it here in their own little corner world. Dean is loose-limbed and happy, having killed the thing they came to kill, and had his shower. It's nice to see him this way. Too often he's subdued, propped up under Dad's elbow. He's not really able to be himself.

Someone jostles Sam from behind. He turns, sees somebody holding a boom mike, and returns to his beer. Dean is frowning over at the source of the noise. He drains his glass, and there's another one ready. He drains that, too. Slaps a twenty on the bar.

"You good to get out of here? Fuckin' loud," he says, leaning in to Sam.

Sam nods. They can pick up a six-pack on the way out. He doesn't know what he was expecting, honestly. Cities always glimmer from far away, tiny shining beacons of pleasure and hope. Get into the heart of one, though, and they're dirty, rotten, disappointing every time. Even the art is tinged with despair, though it's usually the most awe-inspiring example of such that Sam has ever seen.

They step out on the sidewalk, blessedly quiet, the noise behind them muffled by a well-insulated door. Dean hauls in a deep, pleased breath, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

It's cool outside, but not too crisp. All the area's homeless dot the alcoves and alleyways, some of them even crammed up under benches, instead of on top. They're all so still, they could be corpses. It starts to creep Sam out the longer he gazes across the square. Everything is painted in the stark colors cast by unchanging traffic lights. It feels like the end of the world.

Dean jostles him suddenly, startles him out of his thoughts. "Lost in that huge brain again?" his brother jokes softly, out of deference for the silence around them.

They're at the car. Sam moves to his side, hand on the handle, and looks around one more time. He doesn't know how to describe what he's feeling. The two of them slide into their seats, Dean looking at him expectantly, and Sam always feels pressured to say something when Dean does that so he blurts, "It's like someone already killed them all," hearkening back to earlier somewhat. Not just the monsters, he means, but the ones they might have saved--that is, if human vice were something to be stabbed or shot.

He sees Dean nod, grimly. "And what's left over, no one can kill," he replies with the wisdom and gravitas of the slightly tipsy. He probably means it to reassure, somehow. Sometimes, Dean only makes sense to himself.

Sam watches the still world of the square fade away in a blur of reds and greens and white street lights in his side-view mirror, and wishes they'd stayed up on the mountain. He'd rather the silence of rocks and trees than slow, unavoidable decay, even if it was kind of worth it to see all the creativity that's flourished in the cracks.