Two Minutes for Slashing

It wasn’t quite dawn yet.  It was that brief moment in time when the sky was starting to fade from dark blue to various shades of purple then light blues and eventually pinks.  It was the time of day where you’d know if it was to be a day wrapped in a hot Indian summer or a brisk and chilly preview of blustery days to come.  It’s the time of day when everything feels anxious – as if the world is set on tenterhooks waiting to erupt and awaken with the sun rising over the horizon to give way to another busy, sunny day.  The lack of sound throughout the night breaks finally with the chirping of birds in the trees in the distance.  Dean wouldn’t tell anyone, but he loved this part of the day most of all even though it only lasted a few brief minutes.

***

When Sam normally slept, he would be sprawled out in the middle of the twin bed of whichever seedy, roadside motel they were at that night.  His arms and legs would be splayed willy-nilly about and any blankets would have been kicked to the floor or to the end of the bed by his thrashing movements.  There were even those rare nights where Sam would lay face down into his pillow – his arms resting just out to his sides, palms up toward the ceiling, arse up, clad in boxers with yellow smiley faces or various cartoon characters scattered about.

Tonight was not one of those nights.

Sam was curled up underneath the ratty motel blankets quietly snoring away in what seemed to be a rather peaceful manner.  Every once in a while, he would let out a stifled grunt or whine only to readjust his position and appear to resettle into a sounder sleep once again before continuing with the grunts and whines.

On nights like this, Dean wouldn’t be able to sleep.  Sam’s distressing sounds coming from the other twin bed were at times, constant.  The sudden sounds or movements would startle him awake.  Dean would roll over and watch his brother to see if Sam would settle into a sound slumber once again.  Of course there were those nights where Dean would hear Sam moaning in his sleep and knew it wasn’t a vision but rather something that would make his brother blush to admit to.  That was when Dean would smirk to himself and roll back over and go back to sleep.

But on those nights when it seemed Sam couldn’t find peace in sleep, Dean would climb out of his bed, crawl into Sam’s, and wrap a protective arm around his brother hoping it would be soothing.

Dean would stay up all night silently comforting Sam only to rise before his brother awoke.

Dean wouldn’t tell you himself, but he loved those nights of caring and closeness the most.

***

After the sun would find a place for itself just above the horizon, Dean would have showered, checked to see if he needed to trim his stubble (which he found rather necessary to maintain that bad-boy image he so loved, thankyouverymuch!), brushed his teeth and dressed before he even attempted to wake Sam.

Sam would eventually rise from the confines of his bed completely unaware of the fact that Dean spent most of the night wrapped around him – his brother brushing his fringe from his face every so often to calm down his bouts of restlessness.  Sam would shower, shave, brush, and dress twice as fast as Dean did just so they could hit the local greasy spoon and get a coffee and some sort of breakfast before Dean would start to bitch about his impending death from starvation.

At the diner, Sam would check his online sources for any leads on a job and Dean would go on and on about why the murder of some religious clerk’s wife was a totally good reason to drive 748 miles.  Dean would drain his coffee and the cup would clatter on the table as Sam would fish in his wallet to pay the tab.

“Let’s go, Sammy,” Dean would say and clap his brother on the back before heading out the door and to the awaiting Impala.

During their long drives, between discussing facts of the job and arguing about the rightness or wrongness of certain curse breaking and whether or not Dean would let Sam drive for the second half of the trip, they’d sing along together to Dean’s cassette collection of songs which were originally recorded on 8-track.

Dean wouldn’t admit this either, but he loved their road trips and Sam’s version of AC/DCs “Big Balls” the best.