Driving Down the Darkness by nutkin

Slash.

Oh, man. This story was perfect. It had no flaws. It was 40,000 words of pure goodness. I think what I liked best was the slow pacing and the atmosphere of normalcy in which the relationship built up. There was no slap dashed-ness to this. The story covers the first season by the end of which Sam and Dean are together, replete with all the “this is wrong, this is so wrong” angst that makes it so real for me and that I love so well.

At first I wondered how an author could actually pull it off, following through every ep and making coda scenes out of it, but it worked. In a few places the writer actually writes out the actual scene and gives us the interior thoughts, including the all important scene from Provenance, when Sam says “It’s not just Jess.” Always wondered what he meant by that, now I know.

 The writing is solid and good and descriptive in the right places. A pleasure to read all the way through. This woman knows her craft. Here’s a quote:

“The truth is, there had been times at school when he really wished they weren’t out here waiting for him. He wished the stories he told were true – a childhood spent traveling because of work, a drunk father, a brother who didn’t care. He wished he could sweep the truth under the rug and believe the lies. It would have made his life so much easier, and there were ugly times when he wished they’d just disappear, leave him to the life he had created.

In all his vague acceptance that death might come for him, he never stopped to think about what he might leave behind. He’s got another good twenty to thirty years before his midlife crisis comes knocking, so it’s never been much of an issue. Yeah, he lives his own life. Yeah, he fucks around. You have to find your pleasure where you get it when you live by the sword.

But when he saw death coming, when time seemed to splinter and dance blue sparks across the water, what flashed in front of him wasn’t his whole life. It wasn’t the good and the bad, the people he’s saved and the battles he’s won, his sins and lies and wrong-doings.

It was just Sam.

Like looking at photographs, he could remember the two of them chasing each other through roadside fields, playing cowboys and Indians and shooting cans on fences. Wading in muddy rivers and hopping between weeds in sidewalk cracks so their feet didn’t burn. Corner store Slurpees, lips stained blue with syrup. All the punched shoulders, all the noogies, all the late-night whispered conversations alone in the car and motel beds. Eighteen summers, eighteen springs, splashing in puddles and having each other’s backs.

That’s what his mind found to remember; that’s what his life was all about.”