Work Text:
If it isn’t the grinding of the coffee beans that pulls him out—Dean—
Blond, suave, greasy, bristled, yet dry—
“You paint this, Sammy?”
Sam feels his whole body rumble before responding. It has been a full one-thousand seconds that Dean has reentered his reality, leather jacket, somehow in the doorway of his pathetic one bedroom—
Too short to appreciate the miasma of theoretical social discretion and too long to discredit the means of mechanic normalism—
“Yes,” Sam says. “Class last semester—we had to do a portrait of home, and, uh—”
The Impala gleams in the melee of oil rendered brush strokes as Dean takes a broken fingernail and nearly makes contact.
“‘t’s good,” Dean admits.
“Thanks,” Sam says, finally turning from his chore of caffeine misdirection. “I, uh, don’t have—well, not much a tour to give—”
“How have you been?”
Dean asks the question firmly, and he is still yet seems to vibrate next to the Impala portrait on the mantle piece. Gives Sam confidence, somehow, in a way—
“You—but I’ve—I can barely believe you’re here—”
Dean inhales sharply, nostrils large and firm, body still yet expanded. There is and yet isn’t an omnipresent boulder within the room. If time could grow cancer, Sam thinks, this one might be malignant and reproduce in obtrusive absence.
“You’re—College—”
“I love it, but—”
“Can we just—coffee?”
Sam smiles, all teeth and no bite. “Absolutely.”