When you're this rough-cut no road-fever, no haunt, can break you, but this.
Just talk to me, Sammy. Just--
Sam comes through the car like sodiumlight; Sam sits in shotgun like old times that never were; Sam inclines in light towards his brother. The car smells of graveyard and childhood and California: this.
Oh, Sam. If a ghost could --
the sight of him, all these years gone. All light and psi, weather, but still, something unsinkable: Sam.
Dean.
What do you wanna do, little brother. I--
Dean.
His name, veil-filtered, first sound, maybe, in a long time, that's come out of Sam's ghost, and here's the road, and here they are.
What do you want to do.
Sam's ether is still Sam, isn't 'venged out in the greenness of an eye. Sam-hands rest on his on the wheel while the road goes still beneath. (Dean hears music, indie-douchey-unknown, then his old familiars, then some other soundtrack, to a life: a child, lop-haired, wailing, a voice rough from sleep, Jess-ica, some orange-blossom-scent but mostly, mostly brother and brother he never knew; Sammy and a book, Sammy and a child; Sammy painting a fence, poking in a fridge, suburban; salad with nasturtiums, 3 am, Sam again younger, bloodier, lop-haired, a child again himself.)
Dean hits the brakes, smells coast, watches Sam pop to nothing, fill out again.
Dean.
What do you want to do, Sammy.
(Go home, you could say, I never got to come home. All those hunts ago, all we could have, all those; I never got that. Take me home.)
But the Sam whose form this is, who is the road now, who is part, genius, of this coastway, sad-smiles with his whole --
can say rest, and--
Dean.
and nothing else.
There are no bones to burn.
But you can't be happy Sammy, here on the stretch where they died, in the fifty-mile between motels, gas station at the end of the world, Ragged Point on the map, the air full of Pacific and tire-sounds and memory, which is all you are.
*
Sam blinks in and out. There've been accidents here. Deaths.
Sam blinks and Dean hears home.
Sam at thirty: blank
Sam at twenty: blank.
Sam,18: a fire.
Sam, thirteen, oh, the best Sam, the one with the lithium-reds all shining on his face.
* Thing is Dean doesn't know where home is, and Sam, ghostly, won't tell, can't say, Jess and the boy an elsewhere-not-found.
They died. And others. And were left behind.
Sam.
Why didn't you come home.
Sammy why didn't you haunt me.
(Answer: you did.)
Why didn't you ever come home.
Sam says his name, angry-ghost tender, a thing.
Dean reaches under, hooks the flask, takes a drink, takes another.
Dean drives them off the road, inland-safe, sleeps in the car, ghost curled to his chest.
and in the morning,
with sunup over the Pacific
and leaf of blue oak shining
watches his ghost asleep, gold summer fog meant to burn off.
Turns east for Kansas, ghost in the engine; feels, all the way, the hum of the salt-resistant, the ocean slicking back like hair, the Sam he remembers, and heartland calling; the mingling of their breath.
RE: FILLED: Santa Lucias 2/2
When you're this rough-cut no road-fever, no haunt, can break you, but this.
Just talk to me, Sammy. Just--
Sam comes through the car like sodiumlight; Sam sits in shotgun like old times that never were; Sam inclines in light towards his brother. The car smells of graveyard and childhood and California: this.
Oh, Sam. If a ghost could --
the sight of him, all these years gone. All light and psi, weather, but still, something unsinkable: Sam.
Dean.
What do you wanna do, little brother. I--
Dean.
His name, veil-filtered, first sound, maybe, in a long time, that's come out of Sam's ghost, and here's the road, and here they are.
What do you want to do.
Sam's ether is still Sam, isn't 'venged out in the greenness of an eye. Sam-hands rest on his on the wheel while the road goes still beneath. (Dean hears music, indie-douchey-unknown, then his old familiars, then some other soundtrack, to a life: a child, lop-haired, wailing, a voice rough from sleep, Jess-ica, some orange-blossom-scent but mostly, mostly brother and brother he never knew; Sammy and a book, Sammy and a child; Sammy painting a fence, poking in a fridge, suburban; salad with nasturtiums, 3 am, Sam again younger, bloodier, lop-haired, a child again himself.)
Dean hits the brakes, smells coast, watches Sam pop to nothing, fill out again.
Dean.
What do you want to do, Sammy.
(Go home, you could say, I never got to come home. All those hunts ago, all we could have, all those; I never got that. Take me home.)
But the Sam whose form this is, who is the road now, who is part, genius, of this coastway, sad-smiles with his whole --
can say rest, and--
Dean.
and nothing else.
There are no bones to burn.
But you can't be happy Sammy, here on the stretch where they died, in the fifty-mile between motels, gas station at the end of the world, Ragged Point on the map, the air full of Pacific and tire-sounds and memory, which is all you are.
*
Sam blinks in and out. There've been accidents here. Deaths.
Sam blinks and Dean hears home.
Sam at thirty: blank
Sam at twenty: blank.
Sam,18: a fire.
Sam, thirteen, oh, the best Sam, the one with the lithium-reds all shining on his face.
*
Thing is Dean doesn't know where home is, and Sam, ghostly, won't tell, can't say, Jess and the boy an elsewhere-not-found.
They died. And others. And were left behind.
Sam.
Why didn't you come home.
Sammy why didn't you haunt me.
(Answer: you did.)
Why didn't you ever come home.
Sam says his name, angry-ghost tender, a thing.
Dean reaches under, hooks the flask, takes a drink, takes another.
Dean drives them off the road, inland-safe, sleeps in the car, ghost curled to his chest.
and in the morning,
with sunup over the Pacific
and leaf of blue oak shining
watches his ghost asleep, gold summer fog meant to burn off.
Turns east for Kansas, ghost in the engine; feels, all the way, the hum of the salt-resistant, the ocean slicking back like hair, the Sam he remembers, and heartland calling; the mingling of their breath.