SPN Fic - Even Living Legends Need Eggs (Gen, R) 1/2
Title: Even Living Legends Need Eggs
Pairing: Gen
Rating: R, for language
Summary: Sam and Dean stop for the night in a random small town in Iowa, but it turns out Dean's been there before - and the townspeople have an interesting reaction to his return. Pure humor, and not a speck of angst.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never happened.
Notes: I had this idea a while back, then I was watching an episode of Firefly and went, "Hey, there's my plot. Except funnier and better-executed. Damn it." But this thing demanded to be written anyway, so we'll call it an homage. And for the record, I totally had the All My Children joke first, too.
The road flies by under the Impala, the same fields and underbrush streaking by for so long that it’s nearly hypnotic. A small town pops up here and there, but after a few seconds of houses and the lights of a bar or two, it’s back to nothing. Sam can’t remember how long he’s been driving, or guess at where exactly they are. They left South Dakota just before sundown, Dean snoring in the passenger seat before Sam even had the car in gear, but the fatigue and lack of scenery combine to drag at his eyelids like weights, and every blink seems to last a century.
When the Impala’s headlights catch a square sign at the side of the road, Sam doesn’t even bother to read the name of the town, just eases up on the gas and scans the roadside for a vacancy sign.
Dean wakes up just enough to stumble into the room and collapse onto one of the beds, and after tossing his bag on the floor and locking the door, Sam does the same. His entire body is sore from the tense stakeout of the night before, not to mention the fight that came after hours of waiting, but he barely has time to notice how uncomfortable the mattress is before he’s soundly asleep.
* * *
When he wakes, late-morning sunlight glows around the curtains and he can hear Dean singing tunelessly in the shower. Sam dozes for a few more minutes, but there’s a lump in the mattress that presses exactly wrong against his spine, so he drags himself out of bed.
Dean comes out just after he’s finished dressing. “Good, you’re awake,” he says, grinning at Sam with the ebullience of the well-slept. “I’m starving.”
“Me’oo,” Sam replies around a yawn.
“Look alive, there, Sammy,” Dean says, pulling on his boots. “Don’t want you falling asleep in your eggs.” He pauses to grin. “Though it was pretty damn funny when you were three.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Pancakes.”
“No, I clearly remember it being eggs - they were all smushed in your hair, too, it was hilarious.”
Dean ducks the pillow Sam chucks at his head. “I meant, we’re having pancakes for breakfast. There’s a café across the street that apparently makes the best pancakes in the country. Desk clerk told me last night.”
“Best in the country, huh?” Dean asks, flinging open the curtains. “I’ve had some mighty fine pancakes in my life - hard to top.”
Sam winces at the bright light and the double entendre of that sentence. “Well, you can take it up with the cooks at Maple’s Café if they don’t meet your exacting standards,” he says, hauling himself to his feet.
Dean turns away from the window, tilting his head. “Maple’s? Why does that sound so fam - shit!”
Sam pauses with a hand on the doorknob as Dean ducks away from the window, slamming his back against the wall and hissing, “Sam, where are we?”
“Dean, what the hell - “
“Where are we?”
“Um, some small town in northern Iowa, a few dozen miles from the Minnesota border. Maplewood, Mapleton…Maple-something. Dean, what’s going on?”
Dean slides further down the wall. “Sam, please tell me that of all the small towns in the upper Midwest, you did not stop in Mapleville, Iowa.”
Sam picks up a pad of stationery from the table near the door, and it’s right there under the motel name - The Maple Valley Inn, located in Mapleville, Iowa. He holds it out to Dean, who stares at it for a minute before shaking his head in disbelief.
“I don’t believe this.”
“What?” Sam asks. “What’s wrong with Mapleville?”
“What’s wrong with Mapleville is that it’s full of people who’d just love to get their hands on me,” Dean says, hunching down further from the window. “And that it’s number one on my ‘Places in the country I’d rather take a vow of celibacy than see again’ list. There aren’t a lot of places on that list,” he adds, as if Sam couldn’t figure that out for himself.
“Sorry,” Sam says sarcastically. “I must have missed that on our list of rest stop criteria. As far as I knew, it was only ‘motel with vacancy’ and ‘bed without suspicious stains’. I’ll be sure to add ‘entire population not out for Dean’s blood’ for next time.”
“Yeah, well, there might not be a next time if we don’t get the hell out of here,” Dean mutters. “Hurry and pack up your stuff.”
“It’s broad daylight out,” Sam points out. “And the room is under Lester Wackerfuss. Shouldn’t we just chill until dark, then take off?”
“Sam, you really don’t understand how this town feels about me,” Dean says, then snorts. “Wackerfuss. That was a stroke of genius.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. Dean, what the hell did you do?”
To his shock, Dean blushes. “Uh…long story,” he mumbles, averting his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck.
There’s very few things that could get Dean flustered, and Sam can figure this one out without twenty questions. “This has something to do with a woman.”
“Dude, I resent that implication,” Dean says, managing to sound impressively righteous for someone crouching so awkwardly on the floor. “I can’t believe you think so little of me.”
Sam doesn’t think his theory can be that insulting, given that it’s been proven right so many other times, but he rolls his eyes and mutters, “All right, sorry.”
Dean’s injured look morphs into a smirk. “It involved several women.”
“Oh my god,” Sam groans. “They’re going to come after us with pitchforks, aren’t they? Did you impregnate the cheerleading squad or something?”
“How did you - “
“Dean!”
“Calm down, I didn’t knock them up,” Dean says hastily. “But seriously dude, how did you know about the cheerleaders? That’s kind of - “
A knock on the door interrupts Dean’s sentence, and they both freeze. It comes again a minute later, three firm raps, and Dean hisses, “Shit!” before scrambling up.
“It’s probably just the desk clerk, or the maids,” Sam reasons, but Dean is already diving beneath one of the beds, and his only reply is a muffled, “I’m not here!”
Sam sighs, then pulls open the door. When he sees the well-dressed man standing outside, wearing a pair of dark glasses, he realizes he might have made a big mistake. He and Dean played it safe for weeks after the incident in Milwaukee, keeping their heads low and profiles lower, but except for a close call with the local police in Tennessee, nothing happened. But the man in front of him has the slick smile and expensive suit of a government employee, and when he says, “Good morning. Do you happen to know Dean Winchester?” Sam is forcibly reminded that the freaking FBI is after them, and nearly slams the door in the guy’s smarmy face.
Some part of his mind picks up on the man’s choice of words, however, and Sam realizes no matter how bad this is, he hasn’t been ID’d. He forces a smile. “Sorry. Never heard of him.”
The man’s face falls. “Really? You’re sure?”
“I’m really, really sure. Positive,” Sam replies, possibly a tad too emphatic, but the guy doesn’t seem to notice.
“Oh.” He takes off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of warm brown eyes wreathed in crow’s feet that are more suited to an elementary school principal than a Fed. For all Sam knows, however, the elementary school principal might be the leader of the Mapleville pitchfork gang, so he doesn’t let his guard down, just maintains a look of polite confusion. “Well, all right. Kenny called when he saw the car, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. That yours, then?” He jerks his head at the Impala, parked behind him.
Sam isn’t sure whether it’s safer to admit it or deny it, but he goes with a “yeah,” mostly just because it will piss Dean off. Sure enough, an indignant snort comes from beneath the bed, along with something that sounds suspiciously like “you fucking wish.”
“Nice,” the guy says. “Not many of them left. Well, if you ever run into another black ’67, owned by a guy named Dean, will you tell him I said hello? And that all of us in Mapleville would be sure love to see him again, if he ever gets up this way?”
To say Sam isn’t expecting this turn in the conversation is like saying fire is just a little bit hot, or that demons can be kind of annoying sometimes.
It must show on his face, because the guy says, “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, didn’t I? Dave Trotsky. I’m the mayor.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sam says, shaking the guy’s hand. “So, this guy Dean…he came through here before?”
“Few years ago.” Dave says, nodding. “We had a bit of a…well, we had some trouble.” He shudders at what Sam assumes is traumatic memory. “Dean took care of it, but he had to get moving on before we could show him properly how grateful we were.”
“Huh,” Sam says.
“Well, sorry to trouble you,” Dave says, “And welcome to Mapleville, Mr…?”
“Uh…Wackerfuss,” Sam says grudgingly, and he’s never, ever going to let Dean fill out the credit card applications while drunk again. “Lester.”
Dave’s eyebrows go up a bit, but all he says is, “Right,” then takes his leave.
Sam closes the door, then turns around to lean against it. “Dean. What the hell is going on here?”
Dean wiggles out from under the bed, brushing off from his t-shirt and jeans. “Dude, they really need to dust more often. It’s like a dust bunny Woodstock under there.” He catches Sam’s exasperated look and raises his hands in defense. “Look, I was telling you the truth - this town would love to get their hands on me.”
“You made it sound like they were going to form an angry mob and burn you at the stake!” Sam yells. “From what I can see, the worst threat you’re facing here is some hero-worship from the mayor, and possibly an overdose on homemade baked goods.”
Dean had Sam worried for their lives with his stupid crap about the town, and now he’s tempted to call Dave and mention he just happened to find Dean Winchester under his bed. It would serve Dean right.
“Okay, I may have exaggerated a little,” Dean admits.
Sam sighs and drops into a chair. “I’m shocked.”
“Listen to me, Sam,” Dean says, coming over to stand in front of him. “I might have exaggerated the likelihood of bodily injury, but your idea about a mob isn’t that far off. These people are seriously weird, and I barely got away last time without being smothered in their gratitude. We still have to get out of here before they catch on.”
Sam thinks the bigger problem here might be Dean’s ego, because, wow. They’ve run into embarrassingly grateful people before plenty of times on the job - Sam’s pretty sure one woman even offered him her firstborn child as thanks, but he might have misunderstood her Hungarian - but besides being a little awkward, it was sort of nice. Dean’s acting like these people are going to try to marry him off to their daughters, or name the town after him, and Sam just can’t imagine Dean wasting some spirit could inspire that much devotion. Most of the townspeople probably don’t even remember him.
But he doesn’t feel like arguing, so he just nods and starts packing up his stuff. If nothing else, Mapleville will be excellent blackmail material - a threat to call Dave should get him a few meals free of grease, at the very least, and maybe even a few weeks off laundry duty.
Dean makes Sam check and double-check the parking lot for people before sprinting to the Impala, and once inside he slouches down until only the top of his head is visible over the door. Sam shakes his head, but starts the car and drives over to the motel’s office. He drops the key off with the girl at the desk, but as he’s turning to leave, she calls out, “Hey, is that your car?”
“Yeah,” he says, wondering if there’s some reason the whole town seems to be into classic cars.
She comes around from behind the desk and peers out through the glass door. “Oh my god, Kenny was right! A ’67 Impala, right?”
Sam finally takes a flying leap of logic and assumes that this Kenny must be the same one that called Dave, and he must have been the gangly teenager working as desk clerk last night when they checked in. “Right. You into cars?”
She giggles, and gives Sam a considering look. He’s seen this look before - it’s the look that precedes confessions about how cute that guy over there is, and questions like, does Sam know him? and is he single? and could Sam maybe introduce them? - and it never fails to piss him off. Why women look at him and see someone to share their enthusiasm for Dean with, he’ll never understand.
“Not really,” she says. “But I knew this guy once, who had a car just like this, and I had the biggest crush on him.”
For a single second, Sam considers the possibility that Dean really is right - that this town is full of would-be worshipers at the altar of Dean - but just as quickly, he pushes the thought away. There are plenty of ’67 Impalas out there, and, he supposes, plenty of crush-worthy men driving them. It’s just a coincidence.
Sam slides the key across the desk, tossing the girl a brief thanks before turning to leave. He could get her to talk, he knows - a slight head tilt and casual oh, yeah? and she’d be leaning across the counter to spill the whole soap opera - but something tells him he doesn’t want to hear whatever she’s got to say.
When Sam gets back to the car, Dean’s seat is empty. When he slides into the driver’s side, however, a hissed, “Fucking finally!” just behind his right ear startles him, and the bump of his head against the roof is echoed by a smack from Dean.
“What the hell?” Sam demands, as Dean slithers over the seat and ducks back down into the passenger side.
“You took forever,” Dean complains. “Anyone could have walked by and seen me in here!”
“So you decided scaring the shit out of me was appropriate punishment?”
“I decided to lie down on the floor in back, to be less obvious,” Dean corrects. He leans over, swiping the keys from Sam’s hand and jamming them in the ignition. “Now would you please just drive?”
Sam rolls his eyes, but puts the car in drive, pulling out of the parking lot. “I think you’re overreacting,” he starts to say. “That mayor guy’s probably the only person who - “ but at that moment, a light on the dashboard blinks on. “Shit.”
“What?”
“We, uh. We need gas.”
Dean looks at him for a long moment. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s not supposed to be. The light just came on next to the gas gauge.”
Dean’s head thunks back against the passenger door. “One gallon,” he says finally. “That’s enough to get us out of town, at least.”
“That’s enough to get us out into the middle of nowhere,” Sam corrects. “So that when the car does break down, we have to hitch a ride on a hay wagon right back into town.”
“What about the spare gas can in the trunk?” Dean suggests.
“We used it up burning the bones of that marching band in Nebraska,” Sam says. “Remember? We had to throw in the instruments, too, and we needed a lot of fuel.”
“Yeah, I remember. Those tubas were a bitch to carry,” Dean grumbles. At Sam’s exasperated look, he sighs. “Fine, we’ll get gas. But make it quick, all right? No flirting with the cashiers or exchanging hugs and life stories.”
“Because I do that all the time,” Sam says. “There have been so many times when you’ve had to wait up for me because I’m off being empathetic. Oh, wait.”
Dean doesn’t answer, just pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up and slides on a pair of sunglasses as Sam swings the car around and heads for the nearest fill-er-up. He looks more hungover than anything else, or like a celebrity who didn’t bother putting on any makeup for a trip to the grocery store.
“What kind of a job did you do here, anyway?” he asks idly. “Rescue a bunch of kittens from trees? Help a fleet of old ladies safely cross the street?”
Dean snorts. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“C’mon, try me,” Sam says, because at least if Dean’s talking, he doesn’t have time to eyeball every pedestrian like they might suddenly contract rabies and attack. “Dad wasn’t here, I take it?”
“No. We were working a job in Ohio, and Caleb called with this one, so Dad sent me off. It was one of the first hunts he let me do solo, and I think it was only because it sounded like a load of crap.” He ducks lower down as Sam slows for a stop sign. “Reports of people being attacked by some kind of creature.”
“That doesn’t sound like a load of crap,” Sam says, letting a pickup go before pushing on the gas.
“It does when you consider that the reports were all made by high school kids, and that they described the creature as ‘an abnormally large and vicious rabbit.’”
Sam can’t resist laughing at that, or making the obvious joke. “Let me guess - the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on?”
“Right,” Dean said. “A bunch of bored small-town kids who’ve watched too much Monty Python.”
Sam spots a gas station off to the left and flips on the blinker. “But it was real?”
“Yep,” Dean says. “And I wasted it before anyone got killed. And apparently they just can’t let that go.”
Sam’s pretty sure there’s more to the story than that, but he’s pulling the car up to a pump, and Dean hunches down into the footwell as he shuts off the engine. Sam shakes his head, but gets out and starts filling up the car. When the pump clicks on and the numbers start to roll over, he leans down to the open window. “Want anything inside?”
“Dude, you can’t go in there!” Dean hisses.
Sam rolls his eyes. “I have to, Dean.” Mapleville has apparently decided to fulfill every small-town stereotype, right down to outdated technology, so he can’t pay at the pump like they usually do. He can see Dean’s about to suggest a drive-off, or something equally ridiculous, so he derails him with an offer he knows Dean can’t refuse. “Want a cup of coffee?”
* * *
Three minutes later, in the middle of dumping cream and sugar into his own cup of caffeine, Sam’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He sighs and answers, “What, Dean?”
“Sam, there are people out here looking at me funny,” comes the response, a note of panic clear in Dean’s voice despite the lack of quality in the reception.
Sam rolls his eyes, snapping a lid down on his cup. “I thought you were hiding.”
“I am! But they’re standing across the street and looking at the car, and they might have seen me peeking out at them.” There’s a rustling noise on the other end. “Shit! Now there’s more of them!”
“Dude, did that poltergeist in South Dakota rattle something loose in your head? This is verging on paranoia, here.”
“Shut up, I’m serious.”
“So am I. A sudden case of xenophobia isn’t a laughing matter.”
“Look, you can diagnose me later, Dr. Freud. Just get those coffees and get out here!”
Sam thinks Freud would have a field day with Dean - the guns alone would keep him busy for hours - but he just hangs up and picks up the coffees.
The man behind the counter eyes him suspiciously as Sam sets down the cups and pulls out his wallet, probably wary about anyone who talks about ghosts and phobias so nonchalantly, so Sam just throws down a couple of bills with a polite smile and forgoes the small talk. The guy counts out his change slowly, arthritic fingers curling around bills and coins, and Sam covers his impatience by feigning an interest in the montage of photos tacked up on the wall. Most are of old buildings, which Sam figures must have been replaced by this one, and a few show black-and-white scenes of a main street from a century ago. His gaze catches on the last photo, however, which is in color. It’s not a very good shot - shadowed and grainy from being blown up - but he’d recognize that face anywhere, blurred or not.
The cashier grunts impatiently, change in hand, but Sam doesn’t look away from the picture, or the scrap of paper tucked into the frame that bears his brother’s distinctive scrawl. The rattle of a handful of change landing on the worn wooden counter finally breaks the spell, but he leaves the money where it is, pointing instead at the picture. “Who…who is that?”
The old man’s worn face splits into a wide grin when he sees what Sam’s indicating. “That’d be Dean Winchester. Big hero round these parts.” He nods proudly at the picture. “Got me his autograph before he left town.”
“Really,” Sam says faintly. Dean in the picture looks a lot like he did when Sam left him in the car, tense and wary, and his half-turned pose suggests the photographer caught him off-guard. Sam sort of knows how he feels, because he’s starting to think Dean might not actually be exaggerating about the depth of feeling this town has for him.
“It’s a hell of a story, ‘f you got the time to hear it,” the old guy goes on.
“Uh, thanks, but I’d better be going,” Sam says, hastily scooping the money off the counter. “I have to, um - “
But he never does formulate an excuse for why he has to leave, because at that moment, Dean comes bursting in the door and ducks behind a magazine rack. “They started coming over!” he yells at Sam. “Did you fly to South America and pick the beans yourself, or what?” He shoves his hood down to look over his shoulder, peering through the slats.
Sam starts to say his name, to defend himself or warn his brother, but he only gets “De-“ out before realizing that’s not such a good idea.
It doesn’t matter, though, because the cashier whistles low and says, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Dean’s shoulders go tense as iron under his sweatshirt, and he very pointedly does not turn around.
“I’ll be damned,” the guy repeats. “Dean Winchester, in the flesh.”
Now Dean does turn his head, very slowly. He stands up, hands in front of him as if to prove he’s not armed, and says, “There must be some mistake, I’m not - “
“Sure y’are,” the man says happily, jerking a thumb at the picture behind him. “Don’t you remember signing that for me?”
Dean smiles, all teeth, but he’s slowly edging himself behind Sam. “Sure do,” he says. “Nice of you to put that up on the wall, there. And good to see you again, buddy, but we’ve got to run.” He turns toward the door, pushing Sam ahead of him like a human shield.
It’s no use, though, because as soon as Sam pushes open the door, they’re mobbed by a group of girls. And now Sam thinks he knows where the picture of Dean came from, because almost every single one is holding up a cell phone, and there are several clicks audible over the shrieking, which is nearing a pitch Sam’s pretty sure only dogs should be able to hear. The girls ignore Sam, swarming around him like a conquering army to get to Dean, and it’s only with a little judicious menacing, like a bouncer at a teenybopper concert, that he manages to fend them off until he and Dean can get back in the store and barricade the door.
Even then, there’s only a pane of glass between them, and after pressing themselves up against the glass for a few minutes like rabid groupies, Sam can clearly see the girls switch to using their phones to call and text all their friends. Not helping matters is the guy behind the counter, who uses the loudspeaker to broadcast Dean’s presence to the gas pumps and any passerby who’ve missed the spectacle. The girls at the door start screaming louder at the announcement, as if justified, and redouble their efforts at the door.
Sam grabs Dean, who’s taken refuge behind a shelf of beef jerky, and makes for what he’s guessing is the back door. They only get a few steps toward it before it bursts open and another group of adoring fans starts piling in. Sam reverses direction, but the girls have succeeded at the front door, and there’s nowhere else to go in the tiny store.
There’s a brief second where both groups pause, as if in awe of Dean’s presence, and Dean takes the opportunity to arch an eyebrow at Sam and ask, “Still think I’m paranoid?” Sam’s reply is lost as the hordes converge.
* * *
The pie isn’t even very good. Sam thought that was a law. Maybe even a commandment -every small town shalt serve excellent pie. It’s right there next to thou shalt always be welcoming and friendly, and thou shalt have a mom-and-pop general store. And hell, Sam has seen these rules broken before - their job often takes care of the former for them, and the economy is taking care of the latter - but in all the time he’s been hunting, the pie’s never been the aberration.
He’s eaten three pieces anyway. The first was with great expectations, and the second was in hopes that the first was just a fluke. The third he eats just because there’s nothing else for him to do. Dean’s at the center of the café, being welcomed like the prodigal son, and Sam’s surprised no one’s slaughtered the fattened calf yet and planned a feast. He never liked that parable anyway.
They’ve been here almost two hours now, and although the faces change, the crowded circle around Dean’s table remains the same size. A steady stream of food keeps coming from the kitchen, all on the house because the owner, Carly, claims she owes her life to Dean. Sam’s not sure you could say Dean saved her life when the only risk to it was a rabbit, for god’s sake, but whatever. To hear the town tell it, from what Sam’s overheard, Dean saved all of them from certain doom, which, unless the rabbit had a nefarious plan involving nuclear annihilation, seems unlikely. He actually heard two people arguing about whether someone had to be dead in order to be canonized. It was terrifying.
And normally Sam would be feeling bad for Dean, because despite his brother’s tendency to steal the spotlight, Sam knows he’s not very comfortable with gratitude or adoration. But Dean, still holding a grudge about the coffee or the gas or who the hell knows what, had thrown an arm around Sam in the gas station and introduced him to his adoring public as “my brother, Lester.” At Sam’s glare, he’d smiled innocently and mouthed “consistency,” like Sam hadn’t been there for Dad’s seven billion lectures on keeping your lies straight.
He stabs his fork into the remains of the third piece of pie (blueberry, much too syrup-sweet) and sighs gustily. Someone laughs above him, and he looks up to find a group of girls ringing his table. To his relief, it’s not the same gaggle of high school girls from before, remnants of the cell phone crowd who’d interrogated him on everything from Dean’s preferences in music to his fashion philosophy (and then refused to believe the latter was nonexistent).
These girls are closer to Sam’s age, maybe a year or two younger, and blessedly free of the heavy makeup and attention-seeking clothes of their younger counterparts, age bringing a maturity and confidence in their looks that makes them naturally pretty, rather than just trying too hard.
“Lester, right?” one girl asks, dropping into the chair next to Sam. “Dean’s brother.”
Sam’s going to kill Dean for that name, he really is. “Yep.”
“I’m Rachel,” the girl says. “And this is Callie, Hannah, and Priya.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sam says politely as the other girls follow Rachel’s lead, seating themselves around the table, but he doesn’t really mean it. These girls are an improvement over the shrill teenagers from before, but they’re still after the same thing. Their questions are more sophisticated - they know how to couch inquiries about Dean in innocent remarks and how to draw Sam out with questions about him as well - but Sam’s practiced the same techniques on a regular basis (and he’s Dean’s brother, so he’s been in this exact position innumerable times before) so he’s onto their game from the start.
So, since he’s not Dean’s publicist and he’s still holding that Lester grudge, Sam decides it’s time to make some stuff up. After all, what Dean doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? So what if a couple of girls think he’s got a tattoo of a mermaid on his ass?
“Oh my god,” Hannah squeals. “A mermaid? That’s so hot.”
“Which side, left or right?” Rachel demands.
“Rach!” Priya hisses, scandalized. “You can’t ask that!”
“Right,” Sam says blithely. “He’s right-handed, so that side was easier to shave.”
He’s also told them that one of Dean’s legs is several inches shorter than the other, that Dean’s really only five feet tall (he wears boots with hidden heels, to make him feel more manly), that Dean really enjoys eating veal, and that he watches All My Children religiously and has a MILF crush on Erica Kane (the last part of which is actually sort of true). But no matter how much he tries to gross them out, they just sigh and swoon. Apparently even a stumpy, hirsute Dean with no respect for animal rights and a crush on a fictional character with some kind of marriage disorder is, in their words, adorable.
Callie’s been furiously scribbling down all Sam’s bullshit, and when he asks what it’s for, realizing belatedly that she could be taking notes for a newspaper article or something, she tells him brightly it’s going on her website, which is dedicated to everything Dean. She writes the address down for Sam - www.deanlicious.com, appropriately - who keeps it in case he ever needs blackmail material, though he doesn’t think he’ll have the courage to ever actually visit the site.
Then the inevitable question comes up - “Does Dean have a girlfriend?”
Sam’s tempted to invent someone, a flawless woman that Dean’s crazy for that these girls will love to hate, but he catches a glimpse of his brother gesturing wildly at the other table (probably retelling the story of his victory over the rabbit), and gets a better idea. “No, he’s single. It’s so hard to meet people when you’re traveling all the time, you know? He gets so lonely.”
They’re all leaning in with concerned eyes now, and oh yeah, they want to help Dean with his loneliness. “But he really wants to meet the right girl, not just anyone. Someone who gets him, you know? Who can understand why he has to do this job, and supports him.”
He’s got them hook, line, and sinker now, and just as he can see their minds working on possible seductions, Sam drops his bombshell. “That’s why he’s saving himself for marriage.”
Their jaws drop, and Sam nearly strains something suppressing his laughter. He waves a hand at his brother. “See that ring on his right hand? It’s his promise to himself. To save him from temptation.”
There’s a long second of silence at the table, and Sam mentally pats himself on the back for his most successful cockblock since he spread that rumor about Dean having the clap when they were in high school.
The girls make various remarks about how noble and strong Dean is, but then Hannah says innocently, “I never really understood that whole purity thing. I mean, does that mean no sex until marriage, period? Or just no intercourse?”
“Yeah,” Callie echoes. “Is it against the rules if the guy doesn’t do anything? If someone just, you know…eased the tension a little?”
“I’m really good at massages,” Priya puts in.
“Or he could just watch,” Rachel suggests. “That’s not technically sex, if he’s just watching a girl fool around, right?”
Sam chokes on a bite of undercooked pie crust. Unfuckingbelievable.
“We shouldn’t tempt him,” Hannah says solicitously.
“But he saved our lives,” Rachel points out. “And we never got to say a proper thank you.”
“Wait,” Sam jumps in. “Do you mean that in the general sense, or that he really saved your individual lives?”
Rachel gives him a strange look. “I mean that if Dean hadn’t killed the monster when he did, it could have gotten any one of us cheerleaders. We were right out there in the open, after all.”
So these are the cheerleaders Dean mentioned. “Hey, would you mind telling me the story?” Sam asks. “I mean, I’ve heard it before, but I’d like to hear your version.”
They’re more than happy to comply, especially since they consider themselves more reliable sources than the rest of the town, having been present at the monster-killing moment.
Rachel, as the leader of the group, starts the tale. Apparently she and the other girls were holding a cheerleading practice one fall afternoon when something snuck up on them and attacked a girl.
“Toppled the whole pyramid,” Priya says, shaking her head. “And Ella’s leg was all bitten up.”
It kept menacing their practices for a week after that, biting girls with its extremely sharp teeth, then running off too fast for anyone to catch. Hannah shows Sam a scar from where the thing took a chunk out of her shoulder.
Then, however, it started going after the football team, streaking through their ranks as they ran drills on a neighboring field. They were harder to injure, with all the pads, but Sam gets the impression that the injuries were not the real issue here - it’s the fact that there was some kind of supernaturally fast rabbit-like creature threatening their stereotypical high school experience. When he presses for a description of the monster, all he gets is a shudder from the girls and disjointed details -
“ - red eyes - “
“ - huge fangs - “
“ - ugh, bloody fur - “
“ - and those horns - “
- that don’t sound very rabbit-like.
“And then Dean showed up and started investigating,” Rachel goes on. “We were all afraid to even go out on the field, but Dean said he had a plan and he’d take care of the thing. And our homecoming game was coming up, against Spetserville.”
“So we took the field,” Callie says, picking up the thread. “And just as the national anthem was finishing, the thing came running out onto the field. And we were terrified, and started running around like chickens with our heads cut off, but then Dean came running out too, with a huge shotgun, and totally took the thing out, right before it could eat Rachel.”
The girls nod silently.
And now, Sam thinks, he gets it. Mapleville is the kind of town where nothing exciting ever happens, so when something even marginally out of the ordinary occurs, it’s all that they talk about for years to come. It’s the kind of town that raises a B-movie star or Minor Leaguer, and keeps their picture pasted on the “Welcome to Mapleville!” sign long after they’ve completely washed up. Then Dean came along, with his particular brand of badass charm, and wasted something none of them even knew could exist, right in the middle of the biggest football game of the year, with ninety-nine percent of the town looking on. Translated into normal civilization terms, it’s like Arnold Schwarzenegger taking on a herd of dragons during the middle of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. No wonder the townspeople are falling all over themselves to declare Dean a saint - he’s given them something to tell their kids and grandkids for generations to come.
That doesn’t make it any less weird, though. Sam thanks the girls for their help, then excuses himself to get a glass of water. He’s on his way to the kitchen (service seems to be suspended in favor of gawking) when Dean comes out of nowhere and grabs his arm.
“Hey, Lester! Heading to the bathroom?”
“No, I’m - “
“I’ll just join you!” Dean says brightly, propelling Sam forward. “Be right back!”
He shoves Sam in to the men’s room, then slams the door and leans back against it. “Jesus. These people are crazy.”
“You’re telling me,” Sam mutters. He cups his hands and drinks from one of the sinks, trying to rid his mouth of the taste of sugary blueberries.
“I’ve already met three women who’ve named their kids after me,” Dean says, shaking his head in disbelief. “There was even a set of twins named Win and Chester. Can you believe that?”
After what he’s heard from the cheerleaders, Sam really can.
Dean sighs again. “I think, at this point, I get to say very loud and emphatic ‘I told you so.’”
“What you told me,” Sam counters, “was that you killed a rabbit that was bothering some kids. You didn’t tell me that you killed it in front of the whole town during the homecoming football game, or that it apparently had horns. I think it’s safe to say you left out some stuff.”
“We didn’t exactly have time for the full story,” Dean reminds him. “Remember? Trying to escape town?”
“What the hell was this thing?” Sam asks. “And seriously, you couldn’t be a little more subtle?”
“There were extenuating circumstances,” Dean mutters. “And it was a jackalope.”
“A jackalope.”
“Yep.”
“As in, the mythical creature that’s half rabbit and half antelope? That jackalope?”
“Not so mythical, wouldn’t you say?”
“Huh,” Sam says, leaning back against the sink. “Well, at least that explains the horns.”
“Look, I’d love to tell you the whole story, Sammy, but right now we have a bigger problem,” Dean says. “Dude, either we have some seriously bad karma or just really crappy timing, because tonight just happens to be the homecoming football game.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“Because, Sam, if you haven’t noticed, this town has an unhealthy obsession with me. And they want to trot me out at the game like some kind of weird mascot. And they want me to give some speech before it starts, and I? Do not do speeches. Period.”
This is true. For all Dean’s swaggering bravado, he’s terrible at actual public speaking. Not that they run into this problem a lot in their job, but it has come up once or twice, ending in Dean going all red and spluttering and failing to get any point across until Sam caved and rescued him.
“Right, okay,” Sam says. “So, what exactly do you want me to do about this? Smuggle you out of town?”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Dean says, but before he can suggest digging an escape tunnel, a knock comes on the door.
“Dean, honey? You all right in there?”
Dean shoots a hunted look at Sam, mouthing fucking crazy before answering, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Well, come out, then. Do you know who this is?”
“No, but - “
“It’s Carmen,” comes the reply. “Remember me? Head cheerleader?”
Dean’s eyes go wide and he flaps his hands frantically at Sam in a way that could mean “get me out of here” or “I’m trying to turn into a bat.”
When Carmen says, “I never did get to show you how grateful I was after you saved us. You said I was too young,” in a sultry voice, Sam figures it might actually be both.
“Yeah,” Dean says weakly. “I remember that.” At Sam’s raised eyebrow, he whispers, “Dude, she was seventeen. I wasn’t going to get arrested.”
“Well, I’m legal now, Dean.” Her voice drops even lower. “And I’ve learned a lot of new tricks.”
Dean makes a strangled noise that’s halfway between a laugh and a choke. “That’s, um. Well. Thanks? Look, I’ll be out in a minute, why don’t you go wait for me at the table?”
Sam’s torn between laughing at his brother’s discomfort and being kind of jealous, because whoa. Carmen sounded hot.
“I’m going back out there,” Dean says with all the enthusiasm of a patient about to have a root canal. “You - come up with a plan to get us out of here before the game. Got it?”
He doesn’t wait for Sam’s answer before swinging the door open.
* * *
Part Two
Pairing: Gen
Rating: R, for language
Summary: Sam and Dean stop for the night in a random small town in Iowa, but it turns out Dean's been there before - and the townspeople have an interesting reaction to his return. Pure humor, and not a speck of angst.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never happened.
Notes: I had this idea a while back, then I was watching an episode of Firefly and went, "Hey, there's my plot. Except funnier and better-executed. Damn it." But this thing demanded to be written anyway, so we'll call it an homage. And for the record, I totally had the All My Children joke first, too.
The road flies by under the Impala, the same fields and underbrush streaking by for so long that it’s nearly hypnotic. A small town pops up here and there, but after a few seconds of houses and the lights of a bar or two, it’s back to nothing. Sam can’t remember how long he’s been driving, or guess at where exactly they are. They left South Dakota just before sundown, Dean snoring in the passenger seat before Sam even had the car in gear, but the fatigue and lack of scenery combine to drag at his eyelids like weights, and every blink seems to last a century.
When the Impala’s headlights catch a square sign at the side of the road, Sam doesn’t even bother to read the name of the town, just eases up on the gas and scans the roadside for a vacancy sign.
Dean wakes up just enough to stumble into the room and collapse onto one of the beds, and after tossing his bag on the floor and locking the door, Sam does the same. His entire body is sore from the tense stakeout of the night before, not to mention the fight that came after hours of waiting, but he barely has time to notice how uncomfortable the mattress is before he’s soundly asleep.
* * *
When he wakes, late-morning sunlight glows around the curtains and he can hear Dean singing tunelessly in the shower. Sam dozes for a few more minutes, but there’s a lump in the mattress that presses exactly wrong against his spine, so he drags himself out of bed.
Dean comes out just after he’s finished dressing. “Good, you’re awake,” he says, grinning at Sam with the ebullience of the well-slept. “I’m starving.”
“Me’oo,” Sam replies around a yawn.
“Look alive, there, Sammy,” Dean says, pulling on his boots. “Don’t want you falling asleep in your eggs.” He pauses to grin. “Though it was pretty damn funny when you were three.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Pancakes.”
“No, I clearly remember it being eggs - they were all smushed in your hair, too, it was hilarious.”
Dean ducks the pillow Sam chucks at his head. “I meant, we’re having pancakes for breakfast. There’s a café across the street that apparently makes the best pancakes in the country. Desk clerk told me last night.”
“Best in the country, huh?” Dean asks, flinging open the curtains. “I’ve had some mighty fine pancakes in my life - hard to top.”
Sam winces at the bright light and the double entendre of that sentence. “Well, you can take it up with the cooks at Maple’s Café if they don’t meet your exacting standards,” he says, hauling himself to his feet.
Dean turns away from the window, tilting his head. “Maple’s? Why does that sound so fam - shit!”
Sam pauses with a hand on the doorknob as Dean ducks away from the window, slamming his back against the wall and hissing, “Sam, where are we?”
“Dean, what the hell - “
“Where are we?”
“Um, some small town in northern Iowa, a few dozen miles from the Minnesota border. Maplewood, Mapleton…Maple-something. Dean, what’s going on?”
Dean slides further down the wall. “Sam, please tell me that of all the small towns in the upper Midwest, you did not stop in Mapleville, Iowa.”
Sam picks up a pad of stationery from the table near the door, and it’s right there under the motel name - The Maple Valley Inn, located in Mapleville, Iowa. He holds it out to Dean, who stares at it for a minute before shaking his head in disbelief.
“I don’t believe this.”
“What?” Sam asks. “What’s wrong with Mapleville?”
“What’s wrong with Mapleville is that it’s full of people who’d just love to get their hands on me,” Dean says, hunching down further from the window. “And that it’s number one on my ‘Places in the country I’d rather take a vow of celibacy than see again’ list. There aren’t a lot of places on that list,” he adds, as if Sam couldn’t figure that out for himself.
“Sorry,” Sam says sarcastically. “I must have missed that on our list of rest stop criteria. As far as I knew, it was only ‘motel with vacancy’ and ‘bed without suspicious stains’. I’ll be sure to add ‘entire population not out for Dean’s blood’ for next time.”
“Yeah, well, there might not be a next time if we don’t get the hell out of here,” Dean mutters. “Hurry and pack up your stuff.”
“It’s broad daylight out,” Sam points out. “And the room is under Lester Wackerfuss. Shouldn’t we just chill until dark, then take off?”
“Sam, you really don’t understand how this town feels about me,” Dean says, then snorts. “Wackerfuss. That was a stroke of genius.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. Dean, what the hell did you do?”
To his shock, Dean blushes. “Uh…long story,” he mumbles, averting his eyes and rubbing the back of his neck.
There’s very few things that could get Dean flustered, and Sam can figure this one out without twenty questions. “This has something to do with a woman.”
“Dude, I resent that implication,” Dean says, managing to sound impressively righteous for someone crouching so awkwardly on the floor. “I can’t believe you think so little of me.”
Sam doesn’t think his theory can be that insulting, given that it’s been proven right so many other times, but he rolls his eyes and mutters, “All right, sorry.”
Dean’s injured look morphs into a smirk. “It involved several women.”
“Oh my god,” Sam groans. “They’re going to come after us with pitchforks, aren’t they? Did you impregnate the cheerleading squad or something?”
“How did you - “
“Dean!”
“Calm down, I didn’t knock them up,” Dean says hastily. “But seriously dude, how did you know about the cheerleaders? That’s kind of - “
A knock on the door interrupts Dean’s sentence, and they both freeze. It comes again a minute later, three firm raps, and Dean hisses, “Shit!” before scrambling up.
“It’s probably just the desk clerk, or the maids,” Sam reasons, but Dean is already diving beneath one of the beds, and his only reply is a muffled, “I’m not here!”
Sam sighs, then pulls open the door. When he sees the well-dressed man standing outside, wearing a pair of dark glasses, he realizes he might have made a big mistake. He and Dean played it safe for weeks after the incident in Milwaukee, keeping their heads low and profiles lower, but except for a close call with the local police in Tennessee, nothing happened. But the man in front of him has the slick smile and expensive suit of a government employee, and when he says, “Good morning. Do you happen to know Dean Winchester?” Sam is forcibly reminded that the freaking FBI is after them, and nearly slams the door in the guy’s smarmy face.
Some part of his mind picks up on the man’s choice of words, however, and Sam realizes no matter how bad this is, he hasn’t been ID’d. He forces a smile. “Sorry. Never heard of him.”
The man’s face falls. “Really? You’re sure?”
“I’m really, really sure. Positive,” Sam replies, possibly a tad too emphatic, but the guy doesn’t seem to notice.
“Oh.” He takes off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of warm brown eyes wreathed in crow’s feet that are more suited to an elementary school principal than a Fed. For all Sam knows, however, the elementary school principal might be the leader of the Mapleville pitchfork gang, so he doesn’t let his guard down, just maintains a look of polite confusion. “Well, all right. Kenny called when he saw the car, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. That yours, then?” He jerks his head at the Impala, parked behind him.
Sam isn’t sure whether it’s safer to admit it or deny it, but he goes with a “yeah,” mostly just because it will piss Dean off. Sure enough, an indignant snort comes from beneath the bed, along with something that sounds suspiciously like “you fucking wish.”
“Nice,” the guy says. “Not many of them left. Well, if you ever run into another black ’67, owned by a guy named Dean, will you tell him I said hello? And that all of us in Mapleville would be sure love to see him again, if he ever gets up this way?”
To say Sam isn’t expecting this turn in the conversation is like saying fire is just a little bit hot, or that demons can be kind of annoying sometimes.
It must show on his face, because the guy says, “Oh, I forgot to introduce myself, didn’t I? Dave Trotsky. I’m the mayor.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sam says, shaking the guy’s hand. “So, this guy Dean…he came through here before?”
“Few years ago.” Dave says, nodding. “We had a bit of a…well, we had some trouble.” He shudders at what Sam assumes is traumatic memory. “Dean took care of it, but he had to get moving on before we could show him properly how grateful we were.”
“Huh,” Sam says.
“Well, sorry to trouble you,” Dave says, “And welcome to Mapleville, Mr…?”
“Uh…Wackerfuss,” Sam says grudgingly, and he’s never, ever going to let Dean fill out the credit card applications while drunk again. “Lester.”
Dave’s eyebrows go up a bit, but all he says is, “Right,” then takes his leave.
Sam closes the door, then turns around to lean against it. “Dean. What the hell is going on here?”
Dean wiggles out from under the bed, brushing off from his t-shirt and jeans. “Dude, they really need to dust more often. It’s like a dust bunny Woodstock under there.” He catches Sam’s exasperated look and raises his hands in defense. “Look, I was telling you the truth - this town would love to get their hands on me.”
“You made it sound like they were going to form an angry mob and burn you at the stake!” Sam yells. “From what I can see, the worst threat you’re facing here is some hero-worship from the mayor, and possibly an overdose on homemade baked goods.”
Dean had Sam worried for their lives with his stupid crap about the town, and now he’s tempted to call Dave and mention he just happened to find Dean Winchester under his bed. It would serve Dean right.
“Okay, I may have exaggerated a little,” Dean admits.
Sam sighs and drops into a chair. “I’m shocked.”
“Listen to me, Sam,” Dean says, coming over to stand in front of him. “I might have exaggerated the likelihood of bodily injury, but your idea about a mob isn’t that far off. These people are seriously weird, and I barely got away last time without being smothered in their gratitude. We still have to get out of here before they catch on.”
Sam thinks the bigger problem here might be Dean’s ego, because, wow. They’ve run into embarrassingly grateful people before plenty of times on the job - Sam’s pretty sure one woman even offered him her firstborn child as thanks, but he might have misunderstood her Hungarian - but besides being a little awkward, it was sort of nice. Dean’s acting like these people are going to try to marry him off to their daughters, or name the town after him, and Sam just can’t imagine Dean wasting some spirit could inspire that much devotion. Most of the townspeople probably don’t even remember him.
But he doesn’t feel like arguing, so he just nods and starts packing up his stuff. If nothing else, Mapleville will be excellent blackmail material - a threat to call Dave should get him a few meals free of grease, at the very least, and maybe even a few weeks off laundry duty.
Dean makes Sam check and double-check the parking lot for people before sprinting to the Impala, and once inside he slouches down until only the top of his head is visible over the door. Sam shakes his head, but starts the car and drives over to the motel’s office. He drops the key off with the girl at the desk, but as he’s turning to leave, she calls out, “Hey, is that your car?”
“Yeah,” he says, wondering if there’s some reason the whole town seems to be into classic cars.
She comes around from behind the desk and peers out through the glass door. “Oh my god, Kenny was right! A ’67 Impala, right?”
Sam finally takes a flying leap of logic and assumes that this Kenny must be the same one that called Dave, and he must have been the gangly teenager working as desk clerk last night when they checked in. “Right. You into cars?”
She giggles, and gives Sam a considering look. He’s seen this look before - it’s the look that precedes confessions about how cute that guy over there is, and questions like, does Sam know him? and is he single? and could Sam maybe introduce them? - and it never fails to piss him off. Why women look at him and see someone to share their enthusiasm for Dean with, he’ll never understand.
“Not really,” she says. “But I knew this guy once, who had a car just like this, and I had the biggest crush on him.”
For a single second, Sam considers the possibility that Dean really is right - that this town is full of would-be worshipers at the altar of Dean - but just as quickly, he pushes the thought away. There are plenty of ’67 Impalas out there, and, he supposes, plenty of crush-worthy men driving them. It’s just a coincidence.
Sam slides the key across the desk, tossing the girl a brief thanks before turning to leave. He could get her to talk, he knows - a slight head tilt and casual oh, yeah? and she’d be leaning across the counter to spill the whole soap opera - but something tells him he doesn’t want to hear whatever she’s got to say.
When Sam gets back to the car, Dean’s seat is empty. When he slides into the driver’s side, however, a hissed, “Fucking finally!” just behind his right ear startles him, and the bump of his head against the roof is echoed by a smack from Dean.
“What the hell?” Sam demands, as Dean slithers over the seat and ducks back down into the passenger side.
“You took forever,” Dean complains. “Anyone could have walked by and seen me in here!”
“So you decided scaring the shit out of me was appropriate punishment?”
“I decided to lie down on the floor in back, to be less obvious,” Dean corrects. He leans over, swiping the keys from Sam’s hand and jamming them in the ignition. “Now would you please just drive?”
Sam rolls his eyes, but puts the car in drive, pulling out of the parking lot. “I think you’re overreacting,” he starts to say. “That mayor guy’s probably the only person who - “ but at that moment, a light on the dashboard blinks on. “Shit.”
“What?”
“We, uh. We need gas.”
Dean looks at him for a long moment. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s not supposed to be. The light just came on next to the gas gauge.”
Dean’s head thunks back against the passenger door. “One gallon,” he says finally. “That’s enough to get us out of town, at least.”
“That’s enough to get us out into the middle of nowhere,” Sam corrects. “So that when the car does break down, we have to hitch a ride on a hay wagon right back into town.”
“What about the spare gas can in the trunk?” Dean suggests.
“We used it up burning the bones of that marching band in Nebraska,” Sam says. “Remember? We had to throw in the instruments, too, and we needed a lot of fuel.”
“Yeah, I remember. Those tubas were a bitch to carry,” Dean grumbles. At Sam’s exasperated look, he sighs. “Fine, we’ll get gas. But make it quick, all right? No flirting with the cashiers or exchanging hugs and life stories.”
“Because I do that all the time,” Sam says. “There have been so many times when you’ve had to wait up for me because I’m off being empathetic. Oh, wait.”
Dean doesn’t answer, just pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up and slides on a pair of sunglasses as Sam swings the car around and heads for the nearest fill-er-up. He looks more hungover than anything else, or like a celebrity who didn’t bother putting on any makeup for a trip to the grocery store.
“What kind of a job did you do here, anyway?” he asks idly. “Rescue a bunch of kittens from trees? Help a fleet of old ladies safely cross the street?”
Dean snorts. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“C’mon, try me,” Sam says, because at least if Dean’s talking, he doesn’t have time to eyeball every pedestrian like they might suddenly contract rabies and attack. “Dad wasn’t here, I take it?”
“No. We were working a job in Ohio, and Caleb called with this one, so Dad sent me off. It was one of the first hunts he let me do solo, and I think it was only because it sounded like a load of crap.” He ducks lower down as Sam slows for a stop sign. “Reports of people being attacked by some kind of creature.”
“That doesn’t sound like a load of crap,” Sam says, letting a pickup go before pushing on the gas.
“It does when you consider that the reports were all made by high school kids, and that they described the creature as ‘an abnormally large and vicious rabbit.’”
Sam can’t resist laughing at that, or making the obvious joke. “Let me guess - the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on?”
“Right,” Dean said. “A bunch of bored small-town kids who’ve watched too much Monty Python.”
Sam spots a gas station off to the left and flips on the blinker. “But it was real?”
“Yep,” Dean says. “And I wasted it before anyone got killed. And apparently they just can’t let that go.”
Sam’s pretty sure there’s more to the story than that, but he’s pulling the car up to a pump, and Dean hunches down into the footwell as he shuts off the engine. Sam shakes his head, but gets out and starts filling up the car. When the pump clicks on and the numbers start to roll over, he leans down to the open window. “Want anything inside?”
“Dude, you can’t go in there!” Dean hisses.
Sam rolls his eyes. “I have to, Dean.” Mapleville has apparently decided to fulfill every small-town stereotype, right down to outdated technology, so he can’t pay at the pump like they usually do. He can see Dean’s about to suggest a drive-off, or something equally ridiculous, so he derails him with an offer he knows Dean can’t refuse. “Want a cup of coffee?”
* * *
Three minutes later, in the middle of dumping cream and sugar into his own cup of caffeine, Sam’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He sighs and answers, “What, Dean?”
“Sam, there are people out here looking at me funny,” comes the response, a note of panic clear in Dean’s voice despite the lack of quality in the reception.
Sam rolls his eyes, snapping a lid down on his cup. “I thought you were hiding.”
“I am! But they’re standing across the street and looking at the car, and they might have seen me peeking out at them.” There’s a rustling noise on the other end. “Shit! Now there’s more of them!”
“Dude, did that poltergeist in South Dakota rattle something loose in your head? This is verging on paranoia, here.”
“Shut up, I’m serious.”
“So am I. A sudden case of xenophobia isn’t a laughing matter.”
“Look, you can diagnose me later, Dr. Freud. Just get those coffees and get out here!”
Sam thinks Freud would have a field day with Dean - the guns alone would keep him busy for hours - but he just hangs up and picks up the coffees.
The man behind the counter eyes him suspiciously as Sam sets down the cups and pulls out his wallet, probably wary about anyone who talks about ghosts and phobias so nonchalantly, so Sam just throws down a couple of bills with a polite smile and forgoes the small talk. The guy counts out his change slowly, arthritic fingers curling around bills and coins, and Sam covers his impatience by feigning an interest in the montage of photos tacked up on the wall. Most are of old buildings, which Sam figures must have been replaced by this one, and a few show black-and-white scenes of a main street from a century ago. His gaze catches on the last photo, however, which is in color. It’s not a very good shot - shadowed and grainy from being blown up - but he’d recognize that face anywhere, blurred or not.
The cashier grunts impatiently, change in hand, but Sam doesn’t look away from the picture, or the scrap of paper tucked into the frame that bears his brother’s distinctive scrawl. The rattle of a handful of change landing on the worn wooden counter finally breaks the spell, but he leaves the money where it is, pointing instead at the picture. “Who…who is that?”
The old man’s worn face splits into a wide grin when he sees what Sam’s indicating. “That’d be Dean Winchester. Big hero round these parts.” He nods proudly at the picture. “Got me his autograph before he left town.”
“Really,” Sam says faintly. Dean in the picture looks a lot like he did when Sam left him in the car, tense and wary, and his half-turned pose suggests the photographer caught him off-guard. Sam sort of knows how he feels, because he’s starting to think Dean might not actually be exaggerating about the depth of feeling this town has for him.
“It’s a hell of a story, ‘f you got the time to hear it,” the old guy goes on.
“Uh, thanks, but I’d better be going,” Sam says, hastily scooping the money off the counter. “I have to, um - “
But he never does formulate an excuse for why he has to leave, because at that moment, Dean comes bursting in the door and ducks behind a magazine rack. “They started coming over!” he yells at Sam. “Did you fly to South America and pick the beans yourself, or what?” He shoves his hood down to look over his shoulder, peering through the slats.
Sam starts to say his name, to defend himself or warn his brother, but he only gets “De-“ out before realizing that’s not such a good idea.
It doesn’t matter, though, because the cashier whistles low and says, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Dean’s shoulders go tense as iron under his sweatshirt, and he very pointedly does not turn around.
“I’ll be damned,” the guy repeats. “Dean Winchester, in the flesh.”
Now Dean does turn his head, very slowly. He stands up, hands in front of him as if to prove he’s not armed, and says, “There must be some mistake, I’m not - “
“Sure y’are,” the man says happily, jerking a thumb at the picture behind him. “Don’t you remember signing that for me?”
Dean smiles, all teeth, but he’s slowly edging himself behind Sam. “Sure do,” he says. “Nice of you to put that up on the wall, there. And good to see you again, buddy, but we’ve got to run.” He turns toward the door, pushing Sam ahead of him like a human shield.
It’s no use, though, because as soon as Sam pushes open the door, they’re mobbed by a group of girls. And now Sam thinks he knows where the picture of Dean came from, because almost every single one is holding up a cell phone, and there are several clicks audible over the shrieking, which is nearing a pitch Sam’s pretty sure only dogs should be able to hear. The girls ignore Sam, swarming around him like a conquering army to get to Dean, and it’s only with a little judicious menacing, like a bouncer at a teenybopper concert, that he manages to fend them off until he and Dean can get back in the store and barricade the door.
Even then, there’s only a pane of glass between them, and after pressing themselves up against the glass for a few minutes like rabid groupies, Sam can clearly see the girls switch to using their phones to call and text all their friends. Not helping matters is the guy behind the counter, who uses the loudspeaker to broadcast Dean’s presence to the gas pumps and any passerby who’ve missed the spectacle. The girls at the door start screaming louder at the announcement, as if justified, and redouble their efforts at the door.
Sam grabs Dean, who’s taken refuge behind a shelf of beef jerky, and makes for what he’s guessing is the back door. They only get a few steps toward it before it bursts open and another group of adoring fans starts piling in. Sam reverses direction, but the girls have succeeded at the front door, and there’s nowhere else to go in the tiny store.
There’s a brief second where both groups pause, as if in awe of Dean’s presence, and Dean takes the opportunity to arch an eyebrow at Sam and ask, “Still think I’m paranoid?” Sam’s reply is lost as the hordes converge.
* * *
The pie isn’t even very good. Sam thought that was a law. Maybe even a commandment -every small town shalt serve excellent pie. It’s right there next to thou shalt always be welcoming and friendly, and thou shalt have a mom-and-pop general store. And hell, Sam has seen these rules broken before - their job often takes care of the former for them, and the economy is taking care of the latter - but in all the time he’s been hunting, the pie’s never been the aberration.
He’s eaten three pieces anyway. The first was with great expectations, and the second was in hopes that the first was just a fluke. The third he eats just because there’s nothing else for him to do. Dean’s at the center of the café, being welcomed like the prodigal son, and Sam’s surprised no one’s slaughtered the fattened calf yet and planned a feast. He never liked that parable anyway.
They’ve been here almost two hours now, and although the faces change, the crowded circle around Dean’s table remains the same size. A steady stream of food keeps coming from the kitchen, all on the house because the owner, Carly, claims she owes her life to Dean. Sam’s not sure you could say Dean saved her life when the only risk to it was a rabbit, for god’s sake, but whatever. To hear the town tell it, from what Sam’s overheard, Dean saved all of them from certain doom, which, unless the rabbit had a nefarious plan involving nuclear annihilation, seems unlikely. He actually heard two people arguing about whether someone had to be dead in order to be canonized. It was terrifying.
And normally Sam would be feeling bad for Dean, because despite his brother’s tendency to steal the spotlight, Sam knows he’s not very comfortable with gratitude or adoration. But Dean, still holding a grudge about the coffee or the gas or who the hell knows what, had thrown an arm around Sam in the gas station and introduced him to his adoring public as “my brother, Lester.” At Sam’s glare, he’d smiled innocently and mouthed “consistency,” like Sam hadn’t been there for Dad’s seven billion lectures on keeping your lies straight.
He stabs his fork into the remains of the third piece of pie (blueberry, much too syrup-sweet) and sighs gustily. Someone laughs above him, and he looks up to find a group of girls ringing his table. To his relief, it’s not the same gaggle of high school girls from before, remnants of the cell phone crowd who’d interrogated him on everything from Dean’s preferences in music to his fashion philosophy (and then refused to believe the latter was nonexistent).
These girls are closer to Sam’s age, maybe a year or two younger, and blessedly free of the heavy makeup and attention-seeking clothes of their younger counterparts, age bringing a maturity and confidence in their looks that makes them naturally pretty, rather than just trying too hard.
“Lester, right?” one girl asks, dropping into the chair next to Sam. “Dean’s brother.”
Sam’s going to kill Dean for that name, he really is. “Yep.”
“I’m Rachel,” the girl says. “And this is Callie, Hannah, and Priya.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sam says politely as the other girls follow Rachel’s lead, seating themselves around the table, but he doesn’t really mean it. These girls are an improvement over the shrill teenagers from before, but they’re still after the same thing. Their questions are more sophisticated - they know how to couch inquiries about Dean in innocent remarks and how to draw Sam out with questions about him as well - but Sam’s practiced the same techniques on a regular basis (and he’s Dean’s brother, so he’s been in this exact position innumerable times before) so he’s onto their game from the start.
So, since he’s not Dean’s publicist and he’s still holding that Lester grudge, Sam decides it’s time to make some stuff up. After all, what Dean doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? So what if a couple of girls think he’s got a tattoo of a mermaid on his ass?
“Oh my god,” Hannah squeals. “A mermaid? That’s so hot.”
“Which side, left or right?” Rachel demands.
“Rach!” Priya hisses, scandalized. “You can’t ask that!”
“Right,” Sam says blithely. “He’s right-handed, so that side was easier to shave.”
He’s also told them that one of Dean’s legs is several inches shorter than the other, that Dean’s really only five feet tall (he wears boots with hidden heels, to make him feel more manly), that Dean really enjoys eating veal, and that he watches All My Children religiously and has a MILF crush on Erica Kane (the last part of which is actually sort of true). But no matter how much he tries to gross them out, they just sigh and swoon. Apparently even a stumpy, hirsute Dean with no respect for animal rights and a crush on a fictional character with some kind of marriage disorder is, in their words, adorable.
Callie’s been furiously scribbling down all Sam’s bullshit, and when he asks what it’s for, realizing belatedly that she could be taking notes for a newspaper article or something, she tells him brightly it’s going on her website, which is dedicated to everything Dean. She writes the address down for Sam - www.deanlicious.com, appropriately - who keeps it in case he ever needs blackmail material, though he doesn’t think he’ll have the courage to ever actually visit the site.
Then the inevitable question comes up - “Does Dean have a girlfriend?”
Sam’s tempted to invent someone, a flawless woman that Dean’s crazy for that these girls will love to hate, but he catches a glimpse of his brother gesturing wildly at the other table (probably retelling the story of his victory over the rabbit), and gets a better idea. “No, he’s single. It’s so hard to meet people when you’re traveling all the time, you know? He gets so lonely.”
They’re all leaning in with concerned eyes now, and oh yeah, they want to help Dean with his loneliness. “But he really wants to meet the right girl, not just anyone. Someone who gets him, you know? Who can understand why he has to do this job, and supports him.”
He’s got them hook, line, and sinker now, and just as he can see their minds working on possible seductions, Sam drops his bombshell. “That’s why he’s saving himself for marriage.”
Their jaws drop, and Sam nearly strains something suppressing his laughter. He waves a hand at his brother. “See that ring on his right hand? It’s his promise to himself. To save him from temptation.”
There’s a long second of silence at the table, and Sam mentally pats himself on the back for his most successful cockblock since he spread that rumor about Dean having the clap when they were in high school.
The girls make various remarks about how noble and strong Dean is, but then Hannah says innocently, “I never really understood that whole purity thing. I mean, does that mean no sex until marriage, period? Or just no intercourse?”
“Yeah,” Callie echoes. “Is it against the rules if the guy doesn’t do anything? If someone just, you know…eased the tension a little?”
“I’m really good at massages,” Priya puts in.
“Or he could just watch,” Rachel suggests. “That’s not technically sex, if he’s just watching a girl fool around, right?”
Sam chokes on a bite of undercooked pie crust. Unfuckingbelievable.
“We shouldn’t tempt him,” Hannah says solicitously.
“But he saved our lives,” Rachel points out. “And we never got to say a proper thank you.”
“Wait,” Sam jumps in. “Do you mean that in the general sense, or that he really saved your individual lives?”
Rachel gives him a strange look. “I mean that if Dean hadn’t killed the monster when he did, it could have gotten any one of us cheerleaders. We were right out there in the open, after all.”
So these are the cheerleaders Dean mentioned. “Hey, would you mind telling me the story?” Sam asks. “I mean, I’ve heard it before, but I’d like to hear your version.”
They’re more than happy to comply, especially since they consider themselves more reliable sources than the rest of the town, having been present at the monster-killing moment.
Rachel, as the leader of the group, starts the tale. Apparently she and the other girls were holding a cheerleading practice one fall afternoon when something snuck up on them and attacked a girl.
“Toppled the whole pyramid,” Priya says, shaking her head. “And Ella’s leg was all bitten up.”
It kept menacing their practices for a week after that, biting girls with its extremely sharp teeth, then running off too fast for anyone to catch. Hannah shows Sam a scar from where the thing took a chunk out of her shoulder.
Then, however, it started going after the football team, streaking through their ranks as they ran drills on a neighboring field. They were harder to injure, with all the pads, but Sam gets the impression that the injuries were not the real issue here - it’s the fact that there was some kind of supernaturally fast rabbit-like creature threatening their stereotypical high school experience. When he presses for a description of the monster, all he gets is a shudder from the girls and disjointed details -
“ - red eyes - “
“ - huge fangs - “
“ - ugh, bloody fur - “
“ - and those horns - “
- that don’t sound very rabbit-like.
“And then Dean showed up and started investigating,” Rachel goes on. “We were all afraid to even go out on the field, but Dean said he had a plan and he’d take care of the thing. And our homecoming game was coming up, against Spetserville.”
“So we took the field,” Callie says, picking up the thread. “And just as the national anthem was finishing, the thing came running out onto the field. And we were terrified, and started running around like chickens with our heads cut off, but then Dean came running out too, with a huge shotgun, and totally took the thing out, right before it could eat Rachel.”
The girls nod silently.
And now, Sam thinks, he gets it. Mapleville is the kind of town where nothing exciting ever happens, so when something even marginally out of the ordinary occurs, it’s all that they talk about for years to come. It’s the kind of town that raises a B-movie star or Minor Leaguer, and keeps their picture pasted on the “Welcome to Mapleville!” sign long after they’ve completely washed up. Then Dean came along, with his particular brand of badass charm, and wasted something none of them even knew could exist, right in the middle of the biggest football game of the year, with ninety-nine percent of the town looking on. Translated into normal civilization terms, it’s like Arnold Schwarzenegger taking on a herd of dragons during the middle of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. No wonder the townspeople are falling all over themselves to declare Dean a saint - he’s given them something to tell their kids and grandkids for generations to come.
That doesn’t make it any less weird, though. Sam thanks the girls for their help, then excuses himself to get a glass of water. He’s on his way to the kitchen (service seems to be suspended in favor of gawking) when Dean comes out of nowhere and grabs his arm.
“Hey, Lester! Heading to the bathroom?”
“No, I’m - “
“I’ll just join you!” Dean says brightly, propelling Sam forward. “Be right back!”
He shoves Sam in to the men’s room, then slams the door and leans back against it. “Jesus. These people are crazy.”
“You’re telling me,” Sam mutters. He cups his hands and drinks from one of the sinks, trying to rid his mouth of the taste of sugary blueberries.
“I’ve already met three women who’ve named their kids after me,” Dean says, shaking his head in disbelief. “There was even a set of twins named Win and Chester. Can you believe that?”
After what he’s heard from the cheerleaders, Sam really can.
Dean sighs again. “I think, at this point, I get to say very loud and emphatic ‘I told you so.’”
“What you told me,” Sam counters, “was that you killed a rabbit that was bothering some kids. You didn’t tell me that you killed it in front of the whole town during the homecoming football game, or that it apparently had horns. I think it’s safe to say you left out some stuff.”
“We didn’t exactly have time for the full story,” Dean reminds him. “Remember? Trying to escape town?”
“What the hell was this thing?” Sam asks. “And seriously, you couldn’t be a little more subtle?”
“There were extenuating circumstances,” Dean mutters. “And it was a jackalope.”
“A jackalope.”
“Yep.”
“As in, the mythical creature that’s half rabbit and half antelope? That jackalope?”
“Not so mythical, wouldn’t you say?”
“Huh,” Sam says, leaning back against the sink. “Well, at least that explains the horns.”
“Look, I’d love to tell you the whole story, Sammy, but right now we have a bigger problem,” Dean says. “Dude, either we have some seriously bad karma or just really crappy timing, because tonight just happens to be the homecoming football game.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“Because, Sam, if you haven’t noticed, this town has an unhealthy obsession with me. And they want to trot me out at the game like some kind of weird mascot. And they want me to give some speech before it starts, and I? Do not do speeches. Period.”
This is true. For all Dean’s swaggering bravado, he’s terrible at actual public speaking. Not that they run into this problem a lot in their job, but it has come up once or twice, ending in Dean going all red and spluttering and failing to get any point across until Sam caved and rescued him.
“Right, okay,” Sam says. “So, what exactly do you want me to do about this? Smuggle you out of town?”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Dean says, but before he can suggest digging an escape tunnel, a knock comes on the door.
“Dean, honey? You all right in there?”
Dean shoots a hunted look at Sam, mouthing fucking crazy before answering, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Well, come out, then. Do you know who this is?”
“No, but - “
“It’s Carmen,” comes the reply. “Remember me? Head cheerleader?”
Dean’s eyes go wide and he flaps his hands frantically at Sam in a way that could mean “get me out of here” or “I’m trying to turn into a bat.”
When Carmen says, “I never did get to show you how grateful I was after you saved us. You said I was too young,” in a sultry voice, Sam figures it might actually be both.
“Yeah,” Dean says weakly. “I remember that.” At Sam’s raised eyebrow, he whispers, “Dude, she was seventeen. I wasn’t going to get arrested.”
“Well, I’m legal now, Dean.” Her voice drops even lower. “And I’ve learned a lot of new tricks.”
Dean makes a strangled noise that’s halfway between a laugh and a choke. “That’s, um. Well. Thanks? Look, I’ll be out in a minute, why don’t you go wait for me at the table?”
Sam’s torn between laughing at his brother’s discomfort and being kind of jealous, because whoa. Carmen sounded hot.
“I’m going back out there,” Dean says with all the enthusiasm of a patient about to have a root canal. “You - come up with a plan to get us out of here before the game. Got it?”
He doesn’t wait for Sam’s answer before swinging the door open.
* * *
Part Two