Sometimes when I’m running (especially when it’s cold and crisp and the snow’s crunching beneath my feet and my breath’s misting the air and my skin’s itching with frostbite) I think about how many times Dean and Sam probably had to run when they were kids. And they were probably terrified, because they wouldn’t really understand why they were running, in the dead of the night, pitch black descending all around. They’d just know that their dad was behind them, yelling at them to run faster, to not turn around, to just keep going. And Dean would pump his little legs and pull his brother along, fierce and determined, even though he was only eight or nine years old. He’d turn a corner, or come over the other side of a hill, the only sound the crunch of leaves beneath their feet and the raggedness of their breathing. They wouldn’t hear their dad anymore, but Dean would know better than to turn around, to go back and check. So instead he’d keep running, wouldn’t even flinch when he heard the shotgun blast. He just keep running until he got somewhere safe (usually the back of the Impala). And there he would wait, heart racing, Sam trembling in his arms, eyes wet with tears that he swore were from the cold. And every time. Every time. He’d hold his breath until his father came into sight. Every single time.
