A/N: The Muse and I have been on the outs for a few months, which a lot of you know. Yesterday, she wanted to sit down and write this - I was more than happy to oblige, even if I didn't know whether or not anything would come of the urge. I certainly hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did finally! writing it.

Disclaimer: Sadly (for me) I do not own them - they are owned by CW, Kripke and Co. I just (unfortunately for THEM) like to play with them occasionally. I promise I will put them back in the same condition I found them in (which wasn't all that great to begin with *grins*). Not making any money - just having an awesome time!

A flutter of unease, hands never at rest - always moving, clenching, touching, gripping. He sees his reflection and wonders if he ever grew up.

His eyes tell him he has, but his heart sometimes wonders.

The metal of the car, the gun, the knife is cold - he knew how to warm them once, but that thought brings shivers, pain, reluctance to breathe.

Nothing breathed Down There.

He barely breathes Up Here.

But he's breathing now, huffing starts of warm air that fogs and twists and curls around words that mean nothing and yet everything (Sammy); a plea, a laugh, a command - they are the same in his head, the words thick sludge from the past come to choke across his tongue.

He doesn't feel the cold.

He knows he hasn't grown up yet.

He could never be his father, never be his brother - at times it was hard to just be. Other times it is all too easy. A four-year old with honey brown hair and a mouth that has a taste for chocolate-chip cookies and fresh lemonade; a teenager with a taste for beer and a college sophomore's lips; an adult (or is he) with a taste for blood and grave-yard dirt.

Graves are like digging a trench around the castle moat - but graves can never be deep enough.

He looks at his reflection and wonders how he got so old (seventy years behind a thirty year old face) and then he wonders if he dreamed it.

Dreams taste of hellfire and ashes and bile - lies told by the mind in the depths of the dark. Dreams of games, training and ideas of monsters, guns heavy and slippery in his childish fingers, surer in an adult's - but never comfortable unless it is without thought.

He wonders if he had ever been young.

His eyes tell him, tell him, tell him in the lie of a cracked mirror.

But his soul sometimes wonders.

FINIS