Title: Between The Lines
Author: Erin Giles
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Season 2, In My Time of Dying
Status: Complete
Summary: Sometimes in life you have to read between the lines.
He remembers all the nights sat in the dark motel rooms, a naked flame and finger's dancing like shadows on the wall creating mystical creatures and far off dreams of better days in a vain attempt to entertain his little brother.
Not like now, where nights are spent pouring over words, letter's burning the page with their significance and meaning, now that the man who wrote them is gone from his life.
Something catches the corner of his eye, dancing on the wall like a fleeting memory and he tries to stifle a laugh. His brother glances at him questioningly and he shakes his head, because the memory is already gone.
His gaze traverses to the open window, the hue of twilight drawing him in with it's welcome glow, that shade of blue so acutely comforting and familiar to him he can't take his eyes off it. And he realises he can't remember. There's so many things he's forgotten now that he wishes he had taken the time to write somewhere.
He wishes someone had taken the time to write down things for him. He wishes now that instead of pages of sightings, killings and useful facts he had pages of firsts, living and useless facts. All he has to show that he once had a home - and he's not even sure he had that - is a man's journal he's not even sure he knew.
And in that moment he wants to be alone, wants to be alone with the dark and the light and that magical place between day and night where anything is possible and nothing can harm those precious memories that are few and far between. He watches his shadow turn away from the window, lethargic in it's movements, old before it's time, and it looks strange and unfamiliar to him. He still expects to find a boy of four, creating flocks of birds that fly somewhere into the sunset hue beyond the window. Instead he finds a man, no imagination needed to see the grey cloud above him and the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He glances back down at the pages before him, trying to read between the lines and see all the things his father should have said to him, but very rarely did. He lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"Dean?"
Sammy.
"Yeah?"
"You alright?"
"Yeah."
"You sure?"
"Dude, don't get all girly on me."
Sam rolls his eyes, and Dean hopes he can read between the lines.