#I was at the radio station yesterday though and we have some pretty good tools for semi-professionally cutting together audio so I got that

[aeolianblues]

Blur - Girls & Boys, Coachella 2024, weekend 2 (20 April 2024)

‘Wow... sorry, but for me, that's like... that's the spirit.’

Damon was in a playful mood during this song, wasn't he? Taking full advantage of a slightly more responsive crowd than weekend 1 of Coachella, he got up into the crowd, headbutted a beach ball, was a bit purposely out of time and key to change things up; "spin it if you want: girls sing 'boys', boys sing 'girls'" during the second chorus, and I think he was pleased to be playing with and playing to a crowd that was receptive. Slightly shambolic performance, but isn't that the Blur we know and love.

I noticed only now that Damon's done something I often do (that maybe bums out people 20 years older than me), which is that since I didn't really live through the 90s, out of habit, I've always sung, 'Love in the 90s was paranoid' (instead of 'is paranoid'), and Damon did the same here. Huh.

Anyway, this performance was a bit mad, I hope this wasn't really the last time we see it!

@damonalbarn

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of Black Lives Matter, @jarpadandjensens donated $15, and requested Sam & Dean after Sam’s wall breaks. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

The car breaks down in Logansport, Indiana. “She needs some TLC,” Dean stresses, “she doesn’t break down,” and Sam rolls his eyes but, fine. The car needs a repair, in Logansport, and it’s a pretty day, rolling into autumn, and there are pretty good hoagies from the place next to the shop, and Dean is... miserable.

“You think he’s more sad about the car or the fact that you’ve got bats in the belfry?” Sam hears. He ignores it.

It’s a belt, or something. Something with a wrench. Sam knows just enough to change the oil and the spark plugs and the tires, and he can tighten things that need tightening but the car has always been Dean’s domain. Sam likes it that way. He also likes just--sitting here. The shop’s one of those co-op places where greasy dads go to spend some time and gossip, and they all whistled appreciatively when Dean babied the car into the bay, and Dean smiled and shook hands and then got a spot to himself, and tools to borrow. Sam hung back--voice in his ear saying, “Just as well, you are pretty useless,” which he ignored--and when they’d all disbanded to listen to the oldies station and Dean was hip-deep in the car, Sam sat on the cooler with their sandwiches and a six-pack and tried to just be there. To be here. It’s better than any other option.

“Hand that over, will you,” Dean says. Sam hands it over. Dean doesn’t acknowledge it but Sam doesn’t need him to, because this is Dean focused, working. Happy as he ever gets, except he’s not happy.

Not like Sam doesn’t get it. Purgatory opening up, and Cas dying. Breaking his leg, losing Bobby’s house, nearly dying--nearly dying again--and he’s worrying about Sam, too, which he shouldn’t. Sam has this under control.

“Do you,” Sam hears.

A breeze sweeps along the street outside. The trees ruffle, starting toward gold. Sam finishes his beer, gets another. Nudges Dean’s hip. “Hey,” he says, and holds out a can when Dean glances at him, and Dean shakes his head, says, “In a minute,” and dives back into the car before Sam can really see his face.

Sam leans against the side panel. Pretty afternoon. Prettier here than it was in Dearborn, when Dean got taken by Osiris--not quite as pretty as it was by the lake, yesterday morning, when Dean was safe and Sam said that he didn’t feel the guilt the same way he used to, and Dean’s face shifted in some essential way. Like he couldn’t believe it. Like it wasn’t something he would’ve ever thought could be true.

“It’s pretty ridiculous, buddy,” Sam hears.

He wishes the cut on his hand hadn’t healed. Luckily, with their job, there’s always some kind of pain. He finds the bruise on his leg that’s deep, the one that won’t heal right, and settles his fingers there and applies steady, pulsing pressure. Feels like it gongs against the bone, his temples breaking out in sweat. He looks out at the clear day, hurts in an agonizing and focusing way, and whatever whispers there might be over the sound of the mechanics and the tinny radio fade, and whatever sense of misery he built in himself fades with them. He breathes, clean, and knocks his knuckles against the car.

“Hey, seriously,” he says. “You want something? Sandwich is getting cold.”

“Sandwich started out cold,” Dean says, popping a glance up over the edge of the hood, and he rolls his eyes when Sam sighs. “I’m good, Sam. Stop asking.”

“You’re not, though,” Sam says, and he’s not trying to start a fight but Dean’s shoulders round out like he’s preparing for one. He watches Dean brace his hands, his head drop, and he shrugs. “I get it. There’s a lot to not be fine about. But you could--I don’t know. Who else are you going to talk to?”

The song on the radio changes, while Dean stares into the engine. Springsteen, the one with the dead dog. Sam’s mouth twists, and he looks down at the beer can he’s bracing between both hands.

“I’m glad,” Dean says. Sam bites the inside of his cheek. That tone’s anything but. “I am, Sammy. It’s great, that you--you feel cleansed, or whatever. No one deserves it more.”

That part, Dean believes, and Sam glances up to find him still there, carved. He looks tired.

“I’m just--not ever gonna feel that way. And I know it, okay? And you know it, too. So I’m just trying to fix the car, because it’s something I can fix. Doesn’t have to be a whole thing.”

A roaring, at the back of Sam’s head, and in an instant the street outside’s washed with black blood, and there’s fire pouring out of the concrete floor of the shop, and there’s an ice crawling up from inside his bones and a voice in his ear saying don’t you get it, this is it--this is why everyone’s better off without you--you can’t help anyone--you can’t--

Sam wraps his hand around his thigh and crushes his fingers so hard into the bruise that something pops, in a knuckle or tendon, and it hurts bad enough that his vision wobbles, his nerves stripped as frayed electrical wire, the pain juddering through him like touching his fingers to a bare socket. When he opens his eyes again the street’s normal, with a minivan cruising slowly past, and Dean’s sighing, and then lifting his head, and Sam manages to meet his eye when Dean looks at him.

He does look tired. Hurt, in some--deep way, a way Sam doesn’t know how to touch. What Sam does know is how not to make it worse. After enough years, he’s figured that much out, at least.

He holds out the beer again, resting the cold edge just inside gape of the engine. Dean takes it, after a few seconds. “Think this is going to take much longer?” Sam says, stretching his legs out on the concrete. “Or are we gonna need to get one of those old guys to show you the ropes?”

“The ropes,” Dean says. There’s still a trainwreck in him, but he grasps what little line Sam managed to throw. “Dude, I invented the ropes. I am the ropes.”

“Oh, so you wove them yourself, huh,” Sam says, and Dean frowns and says, “Do--is that what you do with ropes?” and Sam pauses and realizes he doesn’t know, but Dean rolls ahead with it anyway--”Then, yes, okay, I am the ropeweaver, okay, so just lay off--” and he’s not happy, at all, and if Sam’s honest he’s not either. They’re neither of them happy. What they can be is--okay, and not a drag on each other, and some days that’s all Sam worries about managing. Just making it to the next day, when things might be better. Sam hopes for it. These days, hope’s about the limit of what he’s got.

Dean cracks his beer, and lifts it in a little toast to Sam. Sam returns the toast, and they drink at the same time, and then Dean nods, and returns to the engine. Sam sinks back with his shoulder against the car to hold up his weight, and closes his eyes, and waits for the day to spool away, and keeps his hand locked tight against that bruise. Just in case.