‘ honey, i love you. ’ (from john bc i am emo)
The Lumineers Song Lyrics || NOT ACCEPTING
Sam knows blood. He knows how it clots and congeals like tiny rock formations over concaved chests, dipping spines, and right-angled knees. He knows Dean’s blood always ran two shades darker than his own and collected into black pools, as if even his brother’s ichor knew it was richer in taste and desire than his little brother’s. He knew what mottled bruises looked like under ribcages and how it spread like tendril’s, or fingers, toward pumping organs as if to grasp it and claim; mine, mine, mine. Sam has watched blood thicken and become tacky as it dries in clumps during rigor mortis - like tar trapping tires and grating on suspension while wheels turn, turn, turn - until they don’t. He has seen supple pink flesh stain itself orange, like a mark, or a badge, or a remembrance. He knows the different tracks blood moves in; rivulets, bubbles, puddles, linear and splayed. Blood is familiar, consistent, primal.
Sam knows how blood tastes. Knows the sulfur lined juice which fueled his sins, how it would coat his tongue and feel like betrayal going down; hot and syrupy. How it all started forceful, a necessity to meet a goal, but ultimately became sweet, succulent and honey-wealth, and danced down his gullet with a languid ease that mimicked wine.
He knows that blood is thicker than water because Family Comes First has been ingrained into his psyche with the same intensity as, “yes, sir.” What about, no, sir, please, sir, I’m sorry, sir. And in the same breath, echoes of family don’t end it blood, sluggishly creep into his ears - it dribbles down his eyes and collects in his hair, matting it, paints his face in sinew and gore. Blood runs along his jaw, tracing bone, while tears always go elsewhere and he’s never bothered to learn the way in which those travel. “We’re just gonna play a little game. We’re gonna count, okay? We’re gonna count.”
It’s pulsating behind his temple, pounding his heart into staccato, and binding him in sin and mistake and love and loyalty to a family grounded in loss. Family don’t end it blood. Then tell him why his mother was eviscerated on his ceiling to pacify his hungry tongue; drip, drip, drip. Why was he taught how to stitch a wound before he knew his multiplication tables. Why his father dropped like a stone to the linoleum floor of a hospital because he was driven by a combination of guilt, sacrifice, and love. Or, Dean, Dean, why his big brother has been mutilated and gnawed and stabbed and every time Sam cradles his corpse there’s always blood to mark his end. Every time Sam has known a family - Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Eileen, Charlie, Madison, Jess, Ash, Sarah, Maggie - it always ends in blood.
Blood is familiar. Consistent. Primal. Final.
And it all drains from his face when his father, his father, says, ‘I love you.’ Every injury culminates into this one. Fervent pain tracking from his sternum to his chest. He feels his eyes watering before he can get his body to respond with the desperate need to touch. Years of repressed need; of approval, of pride, of satisfaction, of understanding. He’s all of 4 years old again, reaching out a chubby, fat lined wrist toward his Dad’s lapel and clinging to it. Hold me.
He is a damaged, broken, son. Raised by an equally broken father. There are no words, so Sam uses none. He nods, once, twice, in quick succession biting his cheeks to keep some level of composure. Then he’s aggressively pulling his dad in for a hug, towering over him he still manages to make himself small. He burrows his head into the curve of John’s neck; as he’s always done for Dean, because it’s his big brother who usually shelters him.
Blood is rushing behind his ears and his father’s voice is drowned out. He’s exhausted from this brief display of emotion, the shock of it, catching him unawares and red-handed.