SPN FIC - Dean and the Company Picnic (Carol's Top 10)
Ten days, ten stories. Here it is, guys -- my favorite of all the SPN fic I've written.
Remember Awesome!PA!Dean? I had it in mind that Dean enjoys being part of a team, particularly when the job in question is "normal." That he can blend into the crowd, chameleon-like, do a bit of people-pleasing, and when it's over, leave his co-workers thinking he's a swell guy.
So there's this: Dean, who worked at an electronics store for 17 hours. The annual company picnic. And a very bewildered Sam.
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, OCs
GENRE: Gen overall, with mentions of Dean being Dean
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 4168 words
DEAN AND THE COMPANY PICNIC
By Carol Davis
They roared into town on the raw edge of attracting law enforcement attention. If Dean had ever displayed a knack for knowing when he shouldn't Cross The Line, he did it in spades now: eased his boot off the gas whenever they were within sniffing distance of a trooper, made turns that were level and easy, didn't rush the lights.
Still, they covered a hundred and twenty miles in less than an hour and a half.
Ninety minutes ago, Dean had slammed the Impala to a stop and squealed, "Shit!" then demanded of Sam, who was trying to work his stomach back down to where nature had originally placed it, "What day is this?"
"August eleventh," Sam said, bewildered - and not a little annoyed.
"Is this the second Saturday in August?"
"Uh - yes."
"Shit," Dean said again.
"Why? Did you forget something?"
Dean arced the wheel and made a sweeping U-turn.
"Dude," Sam said. "Where are we going?"
"Second Saturday in August, man. It's the company picnic."
Things made sense in DeanWorld, Sam had decided a long time ago - but they only made sense to Dean. Trying to wrestle more information out of his brother when Dean's face was scrunched up with distress and determination like it was now was asking for migraine-level frustration, so Sam settled for sitting quietly in the passenger seat until they had crossed the state line for the second time this morning.
"Dude," he said then. "Company picnic?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. I'm stupid. Give me the trophy. What company?"
"Hoffman."
Yes, sir: definitely migraine time. "Which is -?" Sam gritted out.
"Hoffman Media and Electronics. Nineteen locations in the tri-state area. Rated A-plus in customer satisfaction. Founded by W. Horace Hoffman in 1952. Current CEO is W.H. Hoffman the Third."
I should know better, Sam thought with a wince. "And today is their company picnic."
"It is."
"And we're going there."
"Damn straight."
Dean said nothing more - not that Sam could bring himself to ask for anything more, because inflicting a migraine on yourself to get answers about a company picnic was a higher level of masochism than Sam could manage. Instead, Dean spent the rest of the hundred and twenty miles drumming happily on the steering wheel in time with AC/DC. About two minutes before Sam would have thrown himself out of the car (road rash? an acceptable price to pay), Dean made a couple of turns, then pulled the Impala into the enormous parking lot of a place called the Wilkins Lake Family Fun Park.
A white banner shouting Welcome Hoffman Family & Friends hung over the arched entryway to the park proper. "All right," Dean crowed.
"So we're here," Sam said.
Dean squinted at him. "Yeah, Sammy, we're here."
"And we're crashing this thing."
The squint turned into a wounded look. "Crash it, hell. I worked there. See that sign? Welcome, Hoffman family and friends. I'm family. Used to be, anyway."
"You worked for Hoffman Media and Electronics."
"Yeah."
"Doing what?"
"I sold stuff," Dean said proudly. "I was a Sales Associate. Had the red shirt and everything." Chuckling softly to himself, he hopped out of the car, popped the trunk and began rooting around in the box of odds and ends he kept in the driver's-side wheel well. A moment after Sam joined him at the back of the car, Dean came up with what he was looking for: a plastic-laminated ID badge bearing the Hoffman logo and the name Pete Townsend.
And a picture of Dean, hair bleached blond from the sun, wearing a bright red polo shirt and grinning like an ape at the camera.
A little reluctantly, Sam took the badge from his brother and frowned at it. "What did you sell?"
Dean gnawed thoughtfully at his lower lip. "Couple sets of headphones and a cell phone charger." Then, before Sam could deliver the snark he had lined up at the plate, he added casually, "And a deluxe home theater system."
"What?"
"You heard me."
"What?" Sam said again. "What do you know about home theater systems?"
"More than the guy I sold it to." Grinning, Dean took his badge back and clipped it to his shirt, then set off for the park entrance. Sam stood there by the car gaping at him until Dean called back, "You comin'?"
"So," Sam said when he caught up to his brother, "this was while I was at Stanford?"
"Would kind of have to be, wouldn't it? Unless you were in a coma. And I don't remember you ever being in a coma. But maybe I was in a coma while you were in a coma. Except I couldn't have worked at Hoffman if I was in a coma."
Sam stopped walking and stared at his brother. The level of good cheer Dean had reached usually required impressive quantities of alcohol. Or weed. Or the kind of sex Sam had jammed pillows over his head to avoid hearing details about. "How long did you work there?"
That prompted more lip gnawing. "Sixteen…no, seventeen hours."
"Seventeen hours? And what, then they sacked you?"
"Hell no. They freakin' loved me."
"They loved you."
"That's what I said."
"Then -"
"Started on Thursday. Saturday was the picnic. Monday Dad showed up and said we had a job in Sheboygan. So that was that. Told 'em I had a family crisis. People cried."
"You are so full of crap."
"Seriously. People full-on cried."
"How many people?"
Dean didn't need to answer the question; the answer presented itself for Sam's consideration less than a minute later.
They were approaching the park entrance, where three people sat at a long folding table, armed with clipboards and pens and heaps of plastic bracelets. The Winchesters were still a good thirty feet from the table when one of the clipboarders, a large woman with close-cropped, poodle-curly white hair, spotted Dean and let out a shriek of "Peeeeetey!" The decibel level of her cry made Sam jump back a step, but Dean simply stopped where he was, grinning, as the woman pushed up out of her chair, barreled up to meet him and swept him into a bone-crushing embrace.
To Sam's astonishment, the woman stood there for a good five minutes, weeping on Dean's shoulder like she'd thought he had gone down with the Titanic, while Dean patted her consolingly on her very ample back. Finally, with much gulping and scrubbing away of her tears with a balled-up fist, she stepped back and took Dean's upper arms into her hands. "Petey," she said. "My God."
"How ya doin', Rosie?" Dean asked her.
"I'm -" More face-scrubbing, followed by a loud sniffle. "I'm good. I'm - We should get you signed in."
Sam moved closer to his brother as Rosie returned to her seat at the folding table. Something about Dean's smirk made him hiss, "Petey? If you tell her my name is Dick, I will mutilate you in your sleep."
Rosie had pretty much recovered from her sobbing fit by the time they reached the table. Beaming, she picked up one of the plastic bracelets and fastened it around Dean's wrist. "That allows you three beers, remember. They'll punch it every time you get a drink. Shame you can't trust people to behave themselves, but -"
"It was that fistfight in oh-three, wasn't it?"
Rosie nodded.
"People act like kids."
Another nod, then Rosie turned her attention to Sam and smiled. She was definitely ready to ask for his name. "Body parts. Missing. When you wake up," Sam whispered to his brother.
"Rosie," Dean said with an exuberant pat of Sam's arm, "this is my little brother."
Rosie looked up. And up. Grinned at the "little."
Dean leaned down, rested his forearms on the table. "The thing is," he whispered, "he kinda…he has this weird amnesia thing. Can't remember his name. But you can get his attention if you yell 'hey!'"
"Hey?" Rosie echoed softly.
"Works every time."
"Do you want me to put that on the sheet?"
"Sure. Why not."
And she dutifully printed "Hey Townsend" in the Guest column of her clipboard sheet. When she glanced up again Sam unclenched his teeth and forced a smile as she banded him with one of the bracelets. "Food's that way," she told the Winchesters, pointing down past a row of low white buildings. "I think they just started putting the steaks on the fire. I'm stuck here at the table till one, but I'll see you boys later on."
"Looking forward to it," Dean told her.
Sam followed his brother down the asphalt pathway Rosie had indicated until they were out of earshot of everyone at the welcome table. "'Hey'?" he hissed.
"Tell 'em it's Heywood. That's a name, right?"
"Do you really want me to dismember you?"
"Ah, Sammy, lighten up. This place rocks. Tons of food. There'll be music later on. And" - Dean pointed - "they've got the biggest Ferris wheel in -"
"The tri-state area?" Sam guessed.
Dean pondered the question for a moment. "Well, maybe not the whole tri-state area, but it's pretty damn big." He began to rub his palms together as they came around the corner of the last building in the row, then stopped to pull in a deep lungful of the muggy summer air. "Ahhh, now that's what I'm talkin' about."
Ahead of them, spread out like someone's vision of Nirvana - it certainly had to be Dean's - was the preparation area for enough food to nourish…the entire tri-state area, Sam decided. Workers in white t-shirts with white aprons tied around their middles were grilling thick steaks alongside rows of burgers and chicken. Nearby, dozens of ears of corn rolled in pots of boiling water. Three long tables offered neat stacks of rolls for the burgers, plus lettuce, tomatoes and onions for toppings, and various condiments. A few steps away was a long row of metal tubs of ice with a variety of soft drinks nestled among the cubes.
Sam kept looking: giant bowls of salads, vats of chili, a mountain of snack-sized bags of chips, several kinds of melon.
"There's more," Dean told him. "Down on the other side of the rides. So you don't have to walk all the way back here when you get hungry again."
"How many people are they expecting?"
"Dunno. Couple thousand."
Now that made some sense. "So…you can just get lost in the shuffle?"
"Huh?" Dean said.
"They're not gonna put on a spread like this for the benefit of somebody who worked for them for seventeen hours."
"I told you. They -"
"Loved you. Yeah, I know."
"Old man Hoffman is very generous. He believes in promoting employee support and loyalty by saying thank you in tangible ways."
Sam folded his arms across his chest. "Where'd you get that from? A memo?"
"I'm going back there in about two minutes" - Dean pointed in the direction of the welcome table - "and tell them your middle name is Buzzkill." Then he matched Sam's pose, and they stood there glaring at each other while a stream of legitimate Hoffman employees broke around them and headed for the food.
"Dude," Dean said insistently. "Steak."
As nutty as this was, Sam couldn't go on objecting…much. They hadn't had a meal like this in weeks. Hell, it was more than a meal; it was a full-fledged marathon pig-out session. Dean piled his plate six inches high, waited for Sam to do the same, then led the way to a collection of picnic tables under the trees. They found seats at a table occupied by a gray-haired man and a woman Sam assumed to be his wife, to whom Dean offered a chipper, "How ya doin'? Great day for the picnic, huh?"
"A little muggy," the woman replied.
"Ah, yeah, but it's summer. Remember oh-four? Started raining about three-thirty? No chance of that today. This day is perfect."
"No rain forecast till Tuesday," the man put in.
"Chance of showers," Dean told him. "Nothing serious."
I'm in the Twilight Zone, Sam thought.
Dean, as if he'd overheard that, flashed him a jillion-watt grin.
They were midway through their food when Dean's gaze locked on something behind Sam. The way his eyes unfocused a little and his mouth quirked told Sam what was back there. Just sated enough to be curious, Sam shifted on the picnic bench and took a look.
A girl, of course. Tall, dark-haired, dressed in white shorts and the company's red polo shirt.
"Keep lookin'," Dean told him.
Sam frowned. What…?
It took him a moment to find, a few steps away from the girl he'd spotted…the same girl. And, a stone's throw in the other direction, that same girl. Again.
"Triplets?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.
"The lovely Hoffman sisters. Bonnie, Emily, and Amanda." Dropping his voice in deference to the older couple, Dean added, "Rich as heaven and twice as sweet."
Dean's tone made Sam groan softly. "And you -"
"Uh-huh."
"All three of them?"
"Not simultaneously."
"I thought you said you only worked there seventeen hours."
"Spread over the course of five days."
"Three women in five days."
"What can I say?" Dean smirked. "I believe in keeping management happy."
"Dean."
Dean's gaze drifted again. One of the matching Hoffman girls had noticed him and was on her way to their table. Her pace was slow enough to give Dean time to wipe the butter from his corn on the cob off his chin and straighten his shirt.
"Pete Townsend," she said when she got there.
"Emily Hoffman," he crooned.
He can tell them apart? Sam wondered. Granted, the other two girls were some distance away, but he could find no distinguishing features; they all had the same hairstyle, and the same outfit. Only their shoes were different. But leave it to Dean to be able to differentiate three otherwise identical women by their choice of footwear.
Emily leaned in and gave Dean a fleeting but very provocative kiss on the mouth. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."
"Here I am," he grinned.
Sam kept an eye on Emily's sisters, neither of whom seemed to have noticed Dean. Whether the Hoffman girls knew that Dean had slept with all of them was a mystery Sam didn't care to have solved in the middle of Wilkins Lake Family Fun Park; from where he sat, the answer didn't promise much in the way of family fun. Unless the Hoffman girls were a lot kinkier than he assumed they were.
"M' brother," Dean said, nodding at Sam.
"Hello, brother of Pete," Emily smiled.
Before he could stop himself, Sam said, "Hey."
Dean hadn't finished his lunch, but Emily was looking at him in a way that promised a very bountiful dessert. "The Ferris wheel's running," she pointed out, and that was all it took to get him to abandon his food. Nodding, and not taking his eyes off her face for an instant, he got up from the table, laced his fingers with hers, and strolled off with her in the direction of the rides.
He came back forty-five minutes later with his shirt untucked and a sleepy-cat expression on his face. Emily was nowhere in sight.
"How was the Ferris wheel?" Sam asked him dryly.
"Awesome," Dean said. "There's pie."
"Really."
"Lots and lots of pie. And other stuff."
The Dean-less interlude had given Sam time to finish his meal. His belly was definitely full, but he followed Dean anyway, down through the trees and past the rides to another collection of serving tables, this set bearing every imaginable kind of non-Emily dessert: a dozen kinds of cake, a soft-serve ice cream machine, toppings for sundaes, and a whole row of pies.
No…five tables full of pies.
Something twanged at Sam's memory. "Dean - this isn't…is it?"
"What?"
"Is there a pie-eating contest?"
"What? No."
"Because I saw Stand By Me."
Dean's face contorted. "Ugh. Dude. Hell, no. That's a total waste of good pie."
Sam was on his second slice and Dean on his third when Emily Hoffman came strolling up to their table.
At least, Sam assumed it was Emily until Dean nodded, "'Lo, Bonnie."
"Pete."
The trip with Bonnie to the ring-toss game took thirty-one minutes. Sam had finished his pie and two small sundaes when Dean came wandering back wearing the same sleepy expression and toting an enormous stuffed purple bear.
"You win that?" Sam inquired.
"Uh," Dean said.
"And…what? We're gonna take it in the car with us? That's sweet."
Dean's half-eaten wedge of blueberry pie was still sitting there waiting for him. With a distracted look he sat down on the bench opposite Sam, laid the bear down beside him, and began idly poking at the pie with a plastic fork. He'd almost finished it when Rosie appeared. Since Dean's side of the bench was full, she sat down beside Sam and gave him a friendly pat on the hand.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" she asked cheerfully.
"Yes, ma'am," Sam nodded.
"That's good. Mr. Hoffman prides himself on putting together a good event for the family. There's not another company that does a picnic like this in the whole -"
Tri-state area, Sam thought.
She didn't bother finishing. "You boys are entering the contest, aren't you?"
Sam raised a brow at Dean.
"Limbo," Dean said.
"What?"
"Hey, here, thought there was a pie-eating contest," Dean told Rosie with a broad Isn't that the stupidest thing you ever heard? look.
"Pie? Oh, no. I've been around a couple of those. That's a nasty situation. No, there's a limbo contest. You won last time you were here, didn't you, Petey?"
"Sure did," Dean grinned, then explained to Sam, "Mr. Hoffman the Deuce loves limbo."
"'The Deuce'?"
Rosie nodded. "The Second. His friends in school called him Deuce. He's a charming man. He's here somewhere." She glanced around, shaking her head when she didn't spot the charming Deuce. "You should find him and say hello, Petey. He was very fond of you."
"I'll do that," Dean beamed.
Sam put his spoon down and sighed. With Rosie sitting there, there wasn't much he could demand from his brother the Sales Associate, so he settled for tossing Dean a look that said, Do I know you?
"Give it a try," Dean said.
"Give what a try?"
"The limbo, man. They'd probably give you some leeway because you're so fre - um, tall."
"Think I'll pass."
Dean shrugged eloquently. "Suit yourself."
Rosie patted Sam on the arm. "Come and watch, at least. It's fun." Before he could reply, she pushed herself up from the bench. "I'm one of the judges, so I'd better get on over there and see if they've got the lists ready. See you boys in a little bit." Once she was on her feet, she circled around to Dean's side of the table, kissed the top of his head, and nodded appreciation for the purple bear. Dean beamed up at her in a way that would have gotten him thrashed in the playground of any elementary school in the country for being the teacher's pet.
As she walked away, Sam noticed a glint in her eyes. He waited until she was gone, then asked Dean, "Dude, why does she keep crying?"
"Dunno," Dean shrugged. "I kind of figure it's that thing."
"What thing?"
"You know. That woman thing."
"PMS?"
"Yeah. Or the other thing. 'Cause she's, you know, older."
"You mean menopause?"
"Dude," Dean hissed. "Keep your voice down."
Sam made it to the limbo competition by himself, with Dean's purple bear slung under one arm. A good-sized crowd had gathered, but he was able to find a seat in the bleachers to watch a collection of Hoffman employees and their relatives test how low they could go - while he waited for Dean, who had gone wandering off in the company of Amanda Hoffman. The heat of the day had peaked by then, leaving Sam with sweat rings on his t-shirt, a mild but persistent headache, and the unshakeable feeling that the Hoffman Media and Electronics company picnic was far more surreal than any time he'd ever spent pursuing ghosts or werewolves or anything else not naturally of this earth.
By the time the limbo trophy was handed out - to a very tall but very scrawny and impressively limber kid named Wes - Sam had begun to feel that his brother was not naturally of this earth.
When Dean finally sat down beside him, Sam could do nothing but sigh.
And Dean matched it.
"Are you done?" Sam asked. "Or are there more Hoffman sisters?"
"Just the three," Dean murmured.
"And how many kinds of crazy are they? Do they -" Sam cut himself off. "Never mind. I don't want to know."
"Time 's it?"
Dean had a watch on his wrist but seemed not to remember that. Or maybe he simply didn't have enough strength left to turn his arm. "Almost four," Sam told him. "Why? You figure on going for the elimination round?"
With another, longer, sigh Dean looked at his brother, then at the purple bear. "Nah. Think I'm done."
This was the point in the game, Sam thought, when the Hoffman sisters would show up to fight over Dean. Or at the very least, indulge in some hair-pulling - though whether the hair would belong to them or to Dean, he couldn't decide. Either way, hitting the road with the purple bear riding shotgun made more sense than heading out with Dean.
A shadow fell across Sam's face. Rosie. "Sweetie," she said.
She meant Dean. "Can't," he said. "I'm bushed."
"You have to."
For a moment Sam was stricken with overwhelming horror. Mouth lolling, he looked from Rosie to Dean, thinking bits of incoherence that refused to settle into words.
Then he realized she meant limbo.
She seriously meant limbo.
Shaking his head adamantly did Dean no good. When the crowd around him followed Rosie's lead and began to softly chant Petey - Petey - Petey he offered them a charismatic (if somewhat low-wattage) grin, but that also failed to steer popular sentiment away from him. Finally, with a weary and resigned look at Sam, he got up from his seat and followed Rosie over to the limbo pole.
He set a new company record.
Then, magnanimously, told Wes he could keep the massive trophy he'd won, and tossed in the purple bear as a bonus. As a sort of consolation prize, one of the Hoffman sisters appeared out of the crowd and delivered a kiss that raised a chorus of "woo-hoos" from Dean's admirers.
And Dean took a bow.
"Seriously?" Sam whispered when Dean returned to the bleachers. "Are you done now?"
"Guess so."
"Did you find 'Deuce'?"
Dean sighed again and shook his head. "Somebody said he had to leave. Bummer. He's the one who gave me the job."
"Because…?"
"He said I had natural empathy."
"Jesus," Sam groaned.
"What? I don't have natural empathy?"
"Can we go now?"
"What's your rush?"
Sam considered their surroundings. He had had a nice conversation with the gray-haired man and his wife while Dean was off with Emily. The food was certainly bountiful, and good - and free, of course, which was always worth points. He'd taken a couple of spins on the Ferris wheel (after making sure Dean was somewhere else) and enjoyed the view of the countryside it provided, and had even tried out the merry-go-round, something he hadn't done in a good twenty years.
He'd spent the whole day not thinking about their lives. About the demon, or the hunt in general; about their father, or Jess, or what might lie ahead.
He'd been normal for a day, in spite of the fact that people thought his name was Hey.
And normal was…worth its weight in gold.
But it wouldn't do to admit that to Dean.
"That?" Sam said as they walked down the path that would take them out of the park. "Was the most ridiculous spectacle I've ever seen."
"The limbo thing?"
"The whole day. God, man. And I thought I'd seen weird before.."
"Yeah," Dean said after a moment of mulling over the question. "Normal's pretty weird."
"Normal? I don't mean 'normal.' I mean you."
Dean heaved a shrug. "Gotta take advantage of the occasion, Sammy."
"They just do this once a year, right?"
"The picnic? Yeah."
"That's a blessing."
With a small smile tweaking the corner of his mouth, Dean replied, "Wait'll you see the Christmas party."
"What?" Sam squeaked.
"Dude. Kidding."
Dean's expression seemed genuine. Still, this was Dean, which made Sam shudder. It took him a moment to recover enough to keep walking.
When they reached the Impala, Dean fished the keys out of his pocket, then turned, rested a hip against the car, and turned to consider the entrance of the Family Fun Park. "Man, I rule this thing," he quipped.
When Sam slapped him on the side of the head, all he did was grin.
* * * * *
Remember Awesome!PA!Dean? I had it in mind that Dean enjoys being part of a team, particularly when the job in question is "normal." That he can blend into the crowd, chameleon-like, do a bit of people-pleasing, and when it's over, leave his co-workers thinking he's a swell guy.
So there's this: Dean, who worked at an electronics store for 17 hours. The annual company picnic. And a very bewildered Sam.
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, OCs
GENRE: Gen overall, with mentions of Dean being Dean
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 4168 words
DEAN AND THE COMPANY PICNIC
By Carol Davis
They roared into town on the raw edge of attracting law enforcement attention. If Dean had ever displayed a knack for knowing when he shouldn't Cross The Line, he did it in spades now: eased his boot off the gas whenever they were within sniffing distance of a trooper, made turns that were level and easy, didn't rush the lights.
Still, they covered a hundred and twenty miles in less than an hour and a half.
Ninety minutes ago, Dean had slammed the Impala to a stop and squealed, "Shit!" then demanded of Sam, who was trying to work his stomach back down to where nature had originally placed it, "What day is this?"
"August eleventh," Sam said, bewildered - and not a little annoyed.
"Is this the second Saturday in August?"
"Uh - yes."
"Shit," Dean said again.
"Why? Did you forget something?"
Dean arced the wheel and made a sweeping U-turn.
"Dude," Sam said. "Where are we going?"
"Second Saturday in August, man. It's the company picnic."
Things made sense in DeanWorld, Sam had decided a long time ago - but they only made sense to Dean. Trying to wrestle more information out of his brother when Dean's face was scrunched up with distress and determination like it was now was asking for migraine-level frustration, so Sam settled for sitting quietly in the passenger seat until they had crossed the state line for the second time this morning.
"Dude," he said then. "Company picnic?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. I'm stupid. Give me the trophy. What company?"
"Hoffman."
Yes, sir: definitely migraine time. "Which is -?" Sam gritted out.
"Hoffman Media and Electronics. Nineteen locations in the tri-state area. Rated A-plus in customer satisfaction. Founded by W. Horace Hoffman in 1952. Current CEO is W.H. Hoffman the Third."
I should know better, Sam thought with a wince. "And today is their company picnic."
"It is."
"And we're going there."
"Damn straight."
Dean said nothing more - not that Sam could bring himself to ask for anything more, because inflicting a migraine on yourself to get answers about a company picnic was a higher level of masochism than Sam could manage. Instead, Dean spent the rest of the hundred and twenty miles drumming happily on the steering wheel in time with AC/DC. About two minutes before Sam would have thrown himself out of the car (road rash? an acceptable price to pay), Dean made a couple of turns, then pulled the Impala into the enormous parking lot of a place called the Wilkins Lake Family Fun Park.
A white banner shouting Welcome Hoffman Family & Friends hung over the arched entryway to the park proper. "All right," Dean crowed.
"So we're here," Sam said.
Dean squinted at him. "Yeah, Sammy, we're here."
"And we're crashing this thing."
The squint turned into a wounded look. "Crash it, hell. I worked there. See that sign? Welcome, Hoffman family and friends. I'm family. Used to be, anyway."
"You worked for Hoffman Media and Electronics."
"Yeah."
"Doing what?"
"I sold stuff," Dean said proudly. "I was a Sales Associate. Had the red shirt and everything." Chuckling softly to himself, he hopped out of the car, popped the trunk and began rooting around in the box of odds and ends he kept in the driver's-side wheel well. A moment after Sam joined him at the back of the car, Dean came up with what he was looking for: a plastic-laminated ID badge bearing the Hoffman logo and the name Pete Townsend.
And a picture of Dean, hair bleached blond from the sun, wearing a bright red polo shirt and grinning like an ape at the camera.
A little reluctantly, Sam took the badge from his brother and frowned at it. "What did you sell?"
Dean gnawed thoughtfully at his lower lip. "Couple sets of headphones and a cell phone charger." Then, before Sam could deliver the snark he had lined up at the plate, he added casually, "And a deluxe home theater system."
"What?"
"You heard me."
"What?" Sam said again. "What do you know about home theater systems?"
"More than the guy I sold it to." Grinning, Dean took his badge back and clipped it to his shirt, then set off for the park entrance. Sam stood there by the car gaping at him until Dean called back, "You comin'?"
"So," Sam said when he caught up to his brother, "this was while I was at Stanford?"
"Would kind of have to be, wouldn't it? Unless you were in a coma. And I don't remember you ever being in a coma. But maybe I was in a coma while you were in a coma. Except I couldn't have worked at Hoffman if I was in a coma."
Sam stopped walking and stared at his brother. The level of good cheer Dean had reached usually required impressive quantities of alcohol. Or weed. Or the kind of sex Sam had jammed pillows over his head to avoid hearing details about. "How long did you work there?"
That prompted more lip gnawing. "Sixteen…no, seventeen hours."
"Seventeen hours? And what, then they sacked you?"
"Hell no. They freakin' loved me."
"They loved you."
"That's what I said."
"Then -"
"Started on Thursday. Saturday was the picnic. Monday Dad showed up and said we had a job in Sheboygan. So that was that. Told 'em I had a family crisis. People cried."
"You are so full of crap."
"Seriously. People full-on cried."
"How many people?"
Dean didn't need to answer the question; the answer presented itself for Sam's consideration less than a minute later.
They were approaching the park entrance, where three people sat at a long folding table, armed with clipboards and pens and heaps of plastic bracelets. The Winchesters were still a good thirty feet from the table when one of the clipboarders, a large woman with close-cropped, poodle-curly white hair, spotted Dean and let out a shriek of "Peeeeetey!" The decibel level of her cry made Sam jump back a step, but Dean simply stopped where he was, grinning, as the woman pushed up out of her chair, barreled up to meet him and swept him into a bone-crushing embrace.
To Sam's astonishment, the woman stood there for a good five minutes, weeping on Dean's shoulder like she'd thought he had gone down with the Titanic, while Dean patted her consolingly on her very ample back. Finally, with much gulping and scrubbing away of her tears with a balled-up fist, she stepped back and took Dean's upper arms into her hands. "Petey," she said. "My God."
"How ya doin', Rosie?" Dean asked her.
"I'm -" More face-scrubbing, followed by a loud sniffle. "I'm good. I'm - We should get you signed in."
Sam moved closer to his brother as Rosie returned to her seat at the folding table. Something about Dean's smirk made him hiss, "Petey? If you tell her my name is Dick, I will mutilate you in your sleep."
Rosie had pretty much recovered from her sobbing fit by the time they reached the table. Beaming, she picked up one of the plastic bracelets and fastened it around Dean's wrist. "That allows you three beers, remember. They'll punch it every time you get a drink. Shame you can't trust people to behave themselves, but -"
"It was that fistfight in oh-three, wasn't it?"
Rosie nodded.
"People act like kids."
Another nod, then Rosie turned her attention to Sam and smiled. She was definitely ready to ask for his name. "Body parts. Missing. When you wake up," Sam whispered to his brother.
"Rosie," Dean said with an exuberant pat of Sam's arm, "this is my little brother."
Rosie looked up. And up. Grinned at the "little."
Dean leaned down, rested his forearms on the table. "The thing is," he whispered, "he kinda…he has this weird amnesia thing. Can't remember his name. But you can get his attention if you yell 'hey!'"
"Hey?" Rosie echoed softly.
"Works every time."
"Do you want me to put that on the sheet?"
"Sure. Why not."
And she dutifully printed "Hey Townsend" in the Guest column of her clipboard sheet. When she glanced up again Sam unclenched his teeth and forced a smile as she banded him with one of the bracelets. "Food's that way," she told the Winchesters, pointing down past a row of low white buildings. "I think they just started putting the steaks on the fire. I'm stuck here at the table till one, but I'll see you boys later on."
"Looking forward to it," Dean told her.
Sam followed his brother down the asphalt pathway Rosie had indicated until they were out of earshot of everyone at the welcome table. "'Hey'?" he hissed.
"Tell 'em it's Heywood. That's a name, right?"
"Do you really want me to dismember you?"
"Ah, Sammy, lighten up. This place rocks. Tons of food. There'll be music later on. And" - Dean pointed - "they've got the biggest Ferris wheel in -"
"The tri-state area?" Sam guessed.
Dean pondered the question for a moment. "Well, maybe not the whole tri-state area, but it's pretty damn big." He began to rub his palms together as they came around the corner of the last building in the row, then stopped to pull in a deep lungful of the muggy summer air. "Ahhh, now that's what I'm talkin' about."
Ahead of them, spread out like someone's vision of Nirvana - it certainly had to be Dean's - was the preparation area for enough food to nourish…the entire tri-state area, Sam decided. Workers in white t-shirts with white aprons tied around their middles were grilling thick steaks alongside rows of burgers and chicken. Nearby, dozens of ears of corn rolled in pots of boiling water. Three long tables offered neat stacks of rolls for the burgers, plus lettuce, tomatoes and onions for toppings, and various condiments. A few steps away was a long row of metal tubs of ice with a variety of soft drinks nestled among the cubes.
Sam kept looking: giant bowls of salads, vats of chili, a mountain of snack-sized bags of chips, several kinds of melon.
"There's more," Dean told him. "Down on the other side of the rides. So you don't have to walk all the way back here when you get hungry again."
"How many people are they expecting?"
"Dunno. Couple thousand."
Now that made some sense. "So…you can just get lost in the shuffle?"
"Huh?" Dean said.
"They're not gonna put on a spread like this for the benefit of somebody who worked for them for seventeen hours."
"I told you. They -"
"Loved you. Yeah, I know."
"Old man Hoffman is very generous. He believes in promoting employee support and loyalty by saying thank you in tangible ways."
Sam folded his arms across his chest. "Where'd you get that from? A memo?"
"I'm going back there in about two minutes" - Dean pointed in the direction of the welcome table - "and tell them your middle name is Buzzkill." Then he matched Sam's pose, and they stood there glaring at each other while a stream of legitimate Hoffman employees broke around them and headed for the food.
"Dude," Dean said insistently. "Steak."
As nutty as this was, Sam couldn't go on objecting…much. They hadn't had a meal like this in weeks. Hell, it was more than a meal; it was a full-fledged marathon pig-out session. Dean piled his plate six inches high, waited for Sam to do the same, then led the way to a collection of picnic tables under the trees. They found seats at a table occupied by a gray-haired man and a woman Sam assumed to be his wife, to whom Dean offered a chipper, "How ya doin'? Great day for the picnic, huh?"
"A little muggy," the woman replied.
"Ah, yeah, but it's summer. Remember oh-four? Started raining about three-thirty? No chance of that today. This day is perfect."
"No rain forecast till Tuesday," the man put in.
"Chance of showers," Dean told him. "Nothing serious."
I'm in the Twilight Zone, Sam thought.
Dean, as if he'd overheard that, flashed him a jillion-watt grin.
They were midway through their food when Dean's gaze locked on something behind Sam. The way his eyes unfocused a little and his mouth quirked told Sam what was back there. Just sated enough to be curious, Sam shifted on the picnic bench and took a look.
A girl, of course. Tall, dark-haired, dressed in white shorts and the company's red polo shirt.
"Keep lookin'," Dean told him.
Sam frowned. What…?
It took him a moment to find, a few steps away from the girl he'd spotted…the same girl. And, a stone's throw in the other direction, that same girl. Again.
"Triplets?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.
"The lovely Hoffman sisters. Bonnie, Emily, and Amanda." Dropping his voice in deference to the older couple, Dean added, "Rich as heaven and twice as sweet."
Dean's tone made Sam groan softly. "And you -"
"Uh-huh."
"All three of them?"
"Not simultaneously."
"I thought you said you only worked there seventeen hours."
"Spread over the course of five days."
"Three women in five days."
"What can I say?" Dean smirked. "I believe in keeping management happy."
"Dean."
Dean's gaze drifted again. One of the matching Hoffman girls had noticed him and was on her way to their table. Her pace was slow enough to give Dean time to wipe the butter from his corn on the cob off his chin and straighten his shirt.
"Pete Townsend," she said when she got there.
"Emily Hoffman," he crooned.
He can tell them apart? Sam wondered. Granted, the other two girls were some distance away, but he could find no distinguishing features; they all had the same hairstyle, and the same outfit. Only their shoes were different. But leave it to Dean to be able to differentiate three otherwise identical women by their choice of footwear.
Emily leaned in and gave Dean a fleeting but very provocative kiss on the mouth. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."
"Here I am," he grinned.
Sam kept an eye on Emily's sisters, neither of whom seemed to have noticed Dean. Whether the Hoffman girls knew that Dean had slept with all of them was a mystery Sam didn't care to have solved in the middle of Wilkins Lake Family Fun Park; from where he sat, the answer didn't promise much in the way of family fun. Unless the Hoffman girls were a lot kinkier than he assumed they were.
"M' brother," Dean said, nodding at Sam.
"Hello, brother of Pete," Emily smiled.
Before he could stop himself, Sam said, "Hey."
Dean hadn't finished his lunch, but Emily was looking at him in a way that promised a very bountiful dessert. "The Ferris wheel's running," she pointed out, and that was all it took to get him to abandon his food. Nodding, and not taking his eyes off her face for an instant, he got up from the table, laced his fingers with hers, and strolled off with her in the direction of the rides.
He came back forty-five minutes later with his shirt untucked and a sleepy-cat expression on his face. Emily was nowhere in sight.
"How was the Ferris wheel?" Sam asked him dryly.
"Awesome," Dean said. "There's pie."
"Really."
"Lots and lots of pie. And other stuff."
The Dean-less interlude had given Sam time to finish his meal. His belly was definitely full, but he followed Dean anyway, down through the trees and past the rides to another collection of serving tables, this set bearing every imaginable kind of non-Emily dessert: a dozen kinds of cake, a soft-serve ice cream machine, toppings for sundaes, and a whole row of pies.
No…five tables full of pies.
Something twanged at Sam's memory. "Dean - this isn't…is it?"
"What?"
"Is there a pie-eating contest?"
"What? No."
"Because I saw Stand By Me."
Dean's face contorted. "Ugh. Dude. Hell, no. That's a total waste of good pie."
Sam was on his second slice and Dean on his third when Emily Hoffman came strolling up to their table.
At least, Sam assumed it was Emily until Dean nodded, "'Lo, Bonnie."
"Pete."
The trip with Bonnie to the ring-toss game took thirty-one minutes. Sam had finished his pie and two small sundaes when Dean came wandering back wearing the same sleepy expression and toting an enormous stuffed purple bear.
"You win that?" Sam inquired.
"Uh," Dean said.
"And…what? We're gonna take it in the car with us? That's sweet."
Dean's half-eaten wedge of blueberry pie was still sitting there waiting for him. With a distracted look he sat down on the bench opposite Sam, laid the bear down beside him, and began idly poking at the pie with a plastic fork. He'd almost finished it when Rosie appeared. Since Dean's side of the bench was full, she sat down beside Sam and gave him a friendly pat on the hand.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" she asked cheerfully.
"Yes, ma'am," Sam nodded.
"That's good. Mr. Hoffman prides himself on putting together a good event for the family. There's not another company that does a picnic like this in the whole -"
Tri-state area, Sam thought.
She didn't bother finishing. "You boys are entering the contest, aren't you?"
Sam raised a brow at Dean.
"Limbo," Dean said.
"What?"
"Hey, here, thought there was a pie-eating contest," Dean told Rosie with a broad Isn't that the stupidest thing you ever heard? look.
"Pie? Oh, no. I've been around a couple of those. That's a nasty situation. No, there's a limbo contest. You won last time you were here, didn't you, Petey?"
"Sure did," Dean grinned, then explained to Sam, "Mr. Hoffman the Deuce loves limbo."
"'The Deuce'?"
Rosie nodded. "The Second. His friends in school called him Deuce. He's a charming man. He's here somewhere." She glanced around, shaking her head when she didn't spot the charming Deuce. "You should find him and say hello, Petey. He was very fond of you."
"I'll do that," Dean beamed.
Sam put his spoon down and sighed. With Rosie sitting there, there wasn't much he could demand from his brother the Sales Associate, so he settled for tossing Dean a look that said, Do I know you?
"Give it a try," Dean said.
"Give what a try?"
"The limbo, man. They'd probably give you some leeway because you're so fre - um, tall."
"Think I'll pass."
Dean shrugged eloquently. "Suit yourself."
Rosie patted Sam on the arm. "Come and watch, at least. It's fun." Before he could reply, she pushed herself up from the bench. "I'm one of the judges, so I'd better get on over there and see if they've got the lists ready. See you boys in a little bit." Once she was on her feet, she circled around to Dean's side of the table, kissed the top of his head, and nodded appreciation for the purple bear. Dean beamed up at her in a way that would have gotten him thrashed in the playground of any elementary school in the country for being the teacher's pet.
As she walked away, Sam noticed a glint in her eyes. He waited until she was gone, then asked Dean, "Dude, why does she keep crying?"
"Dunno," Dean shrugged. "I kind of figure it's that thing."
"What thing?"
"You know. That woman thing."
"PMS?"
"Yeah. Or the other thing. 'Cause she's, you know, older."
"You mean menopause?"
"Dude," Dean hissed. "Keep your voice down."
Sam made it to the limbo competition by himself, with Dean's purple bear slung under one arm. A good-sized crowd had gathered, but he was able to find a seat in the bleachers to watch a collection of Hoffman employees and their relatives test how low they could go - while he waited for Dean, who had gone wandering off in the company of Amanda Hoffman. The heat of the day had peaked by then, leaving Sam with sweat rings on his t-shirt, a mild but persistent headache, and the unshakeable feeling that the Hoffman Media and Electronics company picnic was far more surreal than any time he'd ever spent pursuing ghosts or werewolves or anything else not naturally of this earth.
By the time the limbo trophy was handed out - to a very tall but very scrawny and impressively limber kid named Wes - Sam had begun to feel that his brother was not naturally of this earth.
When Dean finally sat down beside him, Sam could do nothing but sigh.
And Dean matched it.
"Are you done?" Sam asked. "Or are there more Hoffman sisters?"
"Just the three," Dean murmured.
"And how many kinds of crazy are they? Do they -" Sam cut himself off. "Never mind. I don't want to know."
"Time 's it?"
Dean had a watch on his wrist but seemed not to remember that. Or maybe he simply didn't have enough strength left to turn his arm. "Almost four," Sam told him. "Why? You figure on going for the elimination round?"
With another, longer, sigh Dean looked at his brother, then at the purple bear. "Nah. Think I'm done."
This was the point in the game, Sam thought, when the Hoffman sisters would show up to fight over Dean. Or at the very least, indulge in some hair-pulling - though whether the hair would belong to them or to Dean, he couldn't decide. Either way, hitting the road with the purple bear riding shotgun made more sense than heading out with Dean.
A shadow fell across Sam's face. Rosie. "Sweetie," she said.
She meant Dean. "Can't," he said. "I'm bushed."
"You have to."
For a moment Sam was stricken with overwhelming horror. Mouth lolling, he looked from Rosie to Dean, thinking bits of incoherence that refused to settle into words.
Then he realized she meant limbo.
She seriously meant limbo.
Shaking his head adamantly did Dean no good. When the crowd around him followed Rosie's lead and began to softly chant Petey - Petey - Petey he offered them a charismatic (if somewhat low-wattage) grin, but that also failed to steer popular sentiment away from him. Finally, with a weary and resigned look at Sam, he got up from his seat and followed Rosie over to the limbo pole.
He set a new company record.
Then, magnanimously, told Wes he could keep the massive trophy he'd won, and tossed in the purple bear as a bonus. As a sort of consolation prize, one of the Hoffman sisters appeared out of the crowd and delivered a kiss that raised a chorus of "woo-hoos" from Dean's admirers.
And Dean took a bow.
"Seriously?" Sam whispered when Dean returned to the bleachers. "Are you done now?"
"Guess so."
"Did you find 'Deuce'?"
Dean sighed again and shook his head. "Somebody said he had to leave. Bummer. He's the one who gave me the job."
"Because…?"
"He said I had natural empathy."
"Jesus," Sam groaned.
"What? I don't have natural empathy?"
"Can we go now?"
"What's your rush?"
Sam considered their surroundings. He had had a nice conversation with the gray-haired man and his wife while Dean was off with Emily. The food was certainly bountiful, and good - and free, of course, which was always worth points. He'd taken a couple of spins on the Ferris wheel (after making sure Dean was somewhere else) and enjoyed the view of the countryside it provided, and had even tried out the merry-go-round, something he hadn't done in a good twenty years.
He'd spent the whole day not thinking about their lives. About the demon, or the hunt in general; about their father, or Jess, or what might lie ahead.
He'd been normal for a day, in spite of the fact that people thought his name was Hey.
And normal was…worth its weight in gold.
But it wouldn't do to admit that to Dean.
"That?" Sam said as they walked down the path that would take them out of the park. "Was the most ridiculous spectacle I've ever seen."
"The limbo thing?"
"The whole day. God, man. And I thought I'd seen weird before.."
"Yeah," Dean said after a moment of mulling over the question. "Normal's pretty weird."
"Normal? I don't mean 'normal.' I mean you."
Dean heaved a shrug. "Gotta take advantage of the occasion, Sammy."
"They just do this once a year, right?"
"The picnic? Yeah."
"That's a blessing."
With a small smile tweaking the corner of his mouth, Dean replied, "Wait'll you see the Christmas party."
"What?" Sam squeaked.
"Dude. Kidding."
Dean's expression seemed genuine. Still, this was Dean, which made Sam shudder. It took him a moment to recover enough to keep walking.
When they reached the Impala, Dean fished the keys out of his pocket, then turned, rested a hip against the car, and turned to consider the entrance of the Family Fun Park. "Man, I rule this thing," he quipped.
When Sam slapped him on the side of the head, all he did was grin.
* * * * *