𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐎 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐒. DEAN WINCHESTER

i. lone rider

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙣𝙚. 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳 . . .

❛ whenever you see a lone rider
down at the horizon, run and hide,
their companion, invisible, but certain, is death. ❜
♞————————————————————♞

"𝕮𝖑𝖊𝖒𝖒𝖎𝖊.''

His voice is soft, like the wind that caresses her cheek. Dusty air has settled itself inside our throat. Oxygen is fire, burning the edges of her lungs. She wants to call out to the sound of her name, but from her cracked lips rolls a low gurgle. It took her minutes before she's able to force her dry tongue out of the safety of her warm mouth to wet her lips. It swipes away the blood cracking from underneath its muscle— heavy iron melts on her tongue. Sweet.

Again, she tries to manage to form the syllables of recognition across the barriers formed by her throbbing vocal cords, her wilted tongue and her crips lips. Without success. Her continuous tries make her dangerously venture closer to a dreamless dream, she might never wake up from.

Her body is a lifeless doll. With her last strains to power, she holds herself upright on her horse, who lumps with his feet close to the ground, hopping thick chunks of loose dirt into the air against his hind legs.

Her energy slips out of her body at the sight of the plains before her. Miles afront of miles it's the same. The same dry bushes, the same hills, the same grasshops, the same clunks of dry dirt sticking onto the hooves of her horse. She'd seen them endlessly on the road before her. No where there's a sight of him, and it's not like he could hide somewhere, at a place where everything was plain and only slightly hilly.

                               ''Clementine.''

Her name, said like it was a slur, and woven together as if the syllables were not syllables but merely a soft sea wave, consistent and rolling. Water. She wants water—no, she needs it—a cure to her broken lips and her deserted mouth. She'd passed a little creek two sunsets ago. Most of the water had gone to the care of her brother.

             Her brother!

She'd forgotten about him. She had been endlessly seeking for him across the land, while he'd been with her the entire time. Was he not the one who had been calling her? Then, whose voice did she hear? But she had been certain that was his voice. She grasps her head back from the tidal wave it had been taken with and had been drowning in.

               Water.

When was the last time she'd checked on him? Before the last sunrise, when it was still dark, she was sure she'd felt the flannel of his shirt when she'd reached back for him in the night, at the part where she had to cross the forests which usually roamed with coyotes. She isn't easy afraid, but the thoughts of coyotes with their sharp teeth and incredible fastness in the dark made her shiver uncontrollably. It's better to keep on moving, especially in the dark, get as faraway from them as possible, and get as close as possible to civilization.

               Fresh streamed water from the creek behind their home.

Letting out a groan, her back cracking at its joints, she turns with her shoulders to the back of her horse. Relief washes over her body at the sight of his unconscious body, hanging on his stomach on the back of her saddle. She'd tied him to herself to make sure she'd prevent him creeping to a fall. His long legs and arms hang lifeless, but sometimes his fingers switches at the sound of her breathing. In the strains of the low sun, his face looks pale—sick.  His dark hair stuck on his sweated forehead. His lips are pale like a ghosts. Whenever he wakes, he starts screaming—agonizing and earwig screams. Foam collapses out of his mouth while he tries to spasm of her horse. Every time, she needs to stop her horse in his tracks, climb out of the saddle and subside her brother to the ground to give him a few sips of water, which calms him down immediately. Nevertheless, he wants more—he always wants more. But they still had a few days to travel, especially after she'd been quite certain she'd got lost after she existed the coyote-forest.