Your Lucky Stars (1/1)
for paxlux, who posed a challenge i could not resist, and i love her for it. she whacked me with this picture on tumblr last week, and i obsessed over it. she is right: the setting screams winchesters-done-been-here.
Your Lucky Stars
gen; sam, dean, bobby || au?/post s5 || pg13 (language) || 1300 words
bobby's got a secret ritual for a hunt so sam and dean sit this one out;
pass time in a west texas desert by wrestling and lamenting over dean's 30th birthday.
MOOD MUSIC: "cold desert," kings of leon [here] || "your hand in mine (with strings)," explosions in the sky [here]
credit noel kerns, "Chata Ortega's Bar & Grill" set [ source ]
They’re slow. They’re slower than usual; seem to hang in the sky on a thought, before shrugging and disappearing over the curve of the earth. Sam tries not to watch Dean’s fingers trace them across the sky. It’s not something he would ever picture Dean to do; Dean noticing stars is its own new language, and Sam hasn’t learned it yet.
A cool breeze sifts the dust under Sam’s feet and he forcibly trains his eyes to it. Turns his nose into his shoulder to avoid caking his lungs. It’s a white desert, surging upward on the slightest shift of day: loose, free, none of it weighted to any one particular crack or crevice. The ground seems to move on without them, Dean still with his head tipped up to an early evening sky streaked with white meteors.
The blue is dark, vivid, reminds Sam of the Chesapeake Bay; it meets the horizon on points of broken tree branches. They’re afghan pines, and they smell like any other pine, and Sam could climb one to its dust-bowl battered reaches, get swept up in the clear musky limbs, and pretend he’s anywhere.
Sick of the distraction, he catches Dean’s hand out of the air; Dean jumps but doesn’t resist. Sam can feel the tension tightening Dean’s elbow as he lays down his arm. Dean’s fingers spread immediately into the dust between their hips, tracing white pebbles, eyes on where the sky is darkest.
Sam studies the open windows of this beat-down bar they’re at. Chata Ortega’s, closed and condemned, sat half on the mouth of a sinkhole in the middle of a West Texas desert. Entire back corner’s fallen away, collapsed under the erosion of boredom and ungodly August heat.
Incredibly, he’s been here before. Remembers sitting in this exact same tangle of dead and dying brush, Dean watching the sky and him watching the road, waiting for their father to eradicate whatever activity that’s been leaching Pecos, Texas of its life force. Didn’t get it then, and Sam’s not so sure they’re gonna get it now.
They’re waiting for Bobby to finish his ritual, sitting outside in the dirt like a couple of school kids. It’s been a long time since there’s been something Bobby wouldn’t share with them, but when the chilled silence of the desert is broken on a buzz of energy that starts a long, slow crescendo, Sam winces and concedes he might feel fine enough to wait this one out.
“Think we should go in there?” Dean asks. His voice is calm and close to Sam’s ear, lying flat under the rising din.
Dean’s profile is outlined in an eerie red glow, then, that draws their attention back up to the windows, with their exposed and weather-worn pine frames. The cold air on Sam’s cheeks is turning red against a cerulean color palette.
“Bobby’s got it,” Sam says. “Doesn’t want us in there. He’d holler if he needed us.”
“Don’t know what he’s hiding,” Dean says. “I’m pushing thirty, for fuck’s sake. I think I can handle it.”
Sam laughs. “Thirty, oh my god. I forgot. Two months. Shit. Shit, you are old.”
“Dude. You’re a dick. And you’re not that far behind me, so shut up.”
“Whatever, man. Let him have it. Dad wouldn’t tell us either, some hunter thing, secrets of the trade, blah-blah-blah. And seriously,” Sam says, gesturing vaguely. “I’m all set with whatever that is. My ears are about to be bleeding, damn.”
“Angel?” Dean wonders.
“Dude, give it a rest. Count your fuckin’ stars.”
“Are they lucky?”
Sam rolls his eyes, shoulder-checks his brother. Dean chuffs and reaches up to rustle at Sam’s hair. Sam catches his wrist and sends a warning glance - not the hair - which Dean returns with a challenge - I’m your big brother and I’ll do whatever I want - and then Sam’s caught in an arm bar, flat on his back in the dirt with a mouthful of Dean’s jeans draped over his face, holding him down.
He bites viciously a moment, for fun, can’t get a good mouthful, and Dean’s twisting his arm to signal an honest-to-god fight, so Sam levers his lower body, kicks up over his head and rolls onto his shoulders and out of the hold; grabs Dean’s thigh on the way, hauls it up tight, pushes Dean’s knee to his own chest and lays on it. Smothers Dean’s face with his armpit for good measure and laughs.
“Cut the shit, you clowns.”
Sam rolls off Dean quickly, getting a kick in the back as a parting shot and missing a return swat aimed at Dean’s shoulder. They climb to their feet obediently, dusty and a little out of breath as they throw on their game faces and look seriously at Bobby.
“Oh, gimmie a break,” Bobby says. Snaps his road journal closed as he looks back and forth between them. “You don’t expect me to believe you actually give a crap about all this, do you? Get in the goddamn car, and don’t drive too slow or I’ll be up your ass for thirty miles.”
“You get it?” Sam asks.
“No, genius, I didn’t get it. Sound ya heard was that thing tellin’ me to go take my Granny for a walk, that’s how worried it was about my ritual. Now, let’s get back to that motel so I can sleep and you can do all the damn research this time, Wonder Boy. Move out.”
“Did you know Dean’s gonna be thirty next month?”
“Well, whoopedy-doo, kid,” Bobby says, teeth gritted as he makes for his truck. “Tell someone who gives a crap.”
Sam gets a slap across the back of his head and whirls around to catch up with Dean; swipes a leg and takes Dean down to eye level with a salamander. They tussle until Sam hears the bellow - Move it, I mean it, or I’m leavin’ ya here! - and Dean shoves a fistful of dirt down the back of his jeans. After that, Sam’s more focused on shaking a pant leg out, and Dean’s more focused on driving off in the Impala before Sam can get the passenger door open.
“Think you’re so fuckin’ funny,” Sam grumbles, diving into the car breathlessly while Dean putts along easily, just this far out of reach from Sam’s fumbling jog. Slams the door closed and continues to shake dirt out of his pants while Dean peels for route 20 on a galloping cloud of dust.
“I’m hilarious,” Dean says, checking his rear view for Bobby.
“All of this is going into your foot well, dude, eat it,” Sam says. He pops his fly to shove a hand down the back of his pants and brush the rest of it from skin that’s still cold from plotting stars out in the evening desert.
“Man, I am gonna be thirty.”
“And still dumb as a brick.”
“Shut up, Sam, damn. This sucks.”
Sam makes to laugh, but for a moment catches Dean’s gaze fixed out the windshield, going so far beyond the painted lines and horizon that Sam snaps his mouth shut. He buttons his pants and lets Dean have his moment of quiet; ducks down under the curve of the windshield to study where the sky goes from blue to blue-black. Looks at Dean again and feels a shave of sympathy.
Monsters, demons, ghouls, angels, the devil, the almighty, and the apocalypse, and it still sucks to be thirty. Sam feels a startling punch of a thought that he will never, ever say: you made it.
“Hey, don’t sweat it,” he says lightly. “You’ll always be twenty-nine to me.”
“Thanks, Sammy.”
Dean laughs to himself; thinks on it for a moment before shooting a smile at Sam, and that’s the one Sam had been looking for. Relaxed, he shoves at Dean’s shoulder before settling down into the vinyl to watch the road slip away beneath their tires.
Your Lucky Stars
gen; sam, dean, bobby || au?/post s5 || pg13 (language) || 1300 words
bobby's got a secret ritual for a hunt so sam and dean sit this one out;
pass time in a west texas desert by wrestling and lamenting over dean's 30th birthday.
MOOD MUSIC: "cold desert," kings of leon [here] || "your hand in mine (with strings)," explosions in the sky [here]
credit noel kerns, "Chata Ortega's Bar & Grill" set [ source ]
They’re slow. They’re slower than usual; seem to hang in the sky on a thought, before shrugging and disappearing over the curve of the earth. Sam tries not to watch Dean’s fingers trace them across the sky. It’s not something he would ever picture Dean to do; Dean noticing stars is its own new language, and Sam hasn’t learned it yet.
A cool breeze sifts the dust under Sam’s feet and he forcibly trains his eyes to it. Turns his nose into his shoulder to avoid caking his lungs. It’s a white desert, surging upward on the slightest shift of day: loose, free, none of it weighted to any one particular crack or crevice. The ground seems to move on without them, Dean still with his head tipped up to an early evening sky streaked with white meteors.
The blue is dark, vivid, reminds Sam of the Chesapeake Bay; it meets the horizon on points of broken tree branches. They’re afghan pines, and they smell like any other pine, and Sam could climb one to its dust-bowl battered reaches, get swept up in the clear musky limbs, and pretend he’s anywhere.
Sick of the distraction, he catches Dean’s hand out of the air; Dean jumps but doesn’t resist. Sam can feel the tension tightening Dean’s elbow as he lays down his arm. Dean’s fingers spread immediately into the dust between their hips, tracing white pebbles, eyes on where the sky is darkest.
Sam studies the open windows of this beat-down bar they’re at. Chata Ortega’s, closed and condemned, sat half on the mouth of a sinkhole in the middle of a West Texas desert. Entire back corner’s fallen away, collapsed under the erosion of boredom and ungodly August heat.
Incredibly, he’s been here before. Remembers sitting in this exact same tangle of dead and dying brush, Dean watching the sky and him watching the road, waiting for their father to eradicate whatever activity that’s been leaching Pecos, Texas of its life force. Didn’t get it then, and Sam’s not so sure they’re gonna get it now.
They’re waiting for Bobby to finish his ritual, sitting outside in the dirt like a couple of school kids. It’s been a long time since there’s been something Bobby wouldn’t share with them, but when the chilled silence of the desert is broken on a buzz of energy that starts a long, slow crescendo, Sam winces and concedes he might feel fine enough to wait this one out.
“Think we should go in there?” Dean asks. His voice is calm and close to Sam’s ear, lying flat under the rising din.
Dean’s profile is outlined in an eerie red glow, then, that draws their attention back up to the windows, with their exposed and weather-worn pine frames. The cold air on Sam’s cheeks is turning red against a cerulean color palette.
“Bobby’s got it,” Sam says. “Doesn’t want us in there. He’d holler if he needed us.”
“Don’t know what he’s hiding,” Dean says. “I’m pushing thirty, for fuck’s sake. I think I can handle it.”
Sam laughs. “Thirty, oh my god. I forgot. Two months. Shit. Shit, you are old.”
“Dude. You’re a dick. And you’re not that far behind me, so shut up.”
“Whatever, man. Let him have it. Dad wouldn’t tell us either, some hunter thing, secrets of the trade, blah-blah-blah. And seriously,” Sam says, gesturing vaguely. “I’m all set with whatever that is. My ears are about to be bleeding, damn.”
“Angel?” Dean wonders.
“Dude, give it a rest. Count your fuckin’ stars.”
“Are they lucky?”
Sam rolls his eyes, shoulder-checks his brother. Dean chuffs and reaches up to rustle at Sam’s hair. Sam catches his wrist and sends a warning glance - not the hair - which Dean returns with a challenge - I’m your big brother and I’ll do whatever I want - and then Sam’s caught in an arm bar, flat on his back in the dirt with a mouthful of Dean’s jeans draped over his face, holding him down.
He bites viciously a moment, for fun, can’t get a good mouthful, and Dean’s twisting his arm to signal an honest-to-god fight, so Sam levers his lower body, kicks up over his head and rolls onto his shoulders and out of the hold; grabs Dean’s thigh on the way, hauls it up tight, pushes Dean’s knee to his own chest and lays on it. Smothers Dean’s face with his armpit for good measure and laughs.
“Cut the shit, you clowns.”
Sam rolls off Dean quickly, getting a kick in the back as a parting shot and missing a return swat aimed at Dean’s shoulder. They climb to their feet obediently, dusty and a little out of breath as they throw on their game faces and look seriously at Bobby.
“Oh, gimmie a break,” Bobby says. Snaps his road journal closed as he looks back and forth between them. “You don’t expect me to believe you actually give a crap about all this, do you? Get in the goddamn car, and don’t drive too slow or I’ll be up your ass for thirty miles.”
“You get it?” Sam asks.
“No, genius, I didn’t get it. Sound ya heard was that thing tellin’ me to go take my Granny for a walk, that’s how worried it was about my ritual. Now, let’s get back to that motel so I can sleep and you can do all the damn research this time, Wonder Boy. Move out.”
“Did you know Dean’s gonna be thirty next month?”
“Well, whoopedy-doo, kid,” Bobby says, teeth gritted as he makes for his truck. “Tell someone who gives a crap.”
Sam gets a slap across the back of his head and whirls around to catch up with Dean; swipes a leg and takes Dean down to eye level with a salamander. They tussle until Sam hears the bellow - Move it, I mean it, or I’m leavin’ ya here! - and Dean shoves a fistful of dirt down the back of his jeans. After that, Sam’s more focused on shaking a pant leg out, and Dean’s more focused on driving off in the Impala before Sam can get the passenger door open.
“Think you’re so fuckin’ funny,” Sam grumbles, diving into the car breathlessly while Dean putts along easily, just this far out of reach from Sam’s fumbling jog. Slams the door closed and continues to shake dirt out of his pants while Dean peels for route 20 on a galloping cloud of dust.
“I’m hilarious,” Dean says, checking his rear view for Bobby.
“All of this is going into your foot well, dude, eat it,” Sam says. He pops his fly to shove a hand down the back of his pants and brush the rest of it from skin that’s still cold from plotting stars out in the evening desert.
“Man, I am gonna be thirty.”
“And still dumb as a brick.”
“Shut up, Sam, damn. This sucks.”
Sam makes to laugh, but for a moment catches Dean’s gaze fixed out the windshield, going so far beyond the painted lines and horizon that Sam snaps his mouth shut. He buttons his pants and lets Dean have his moment of quiet; ducks down under the curve of the windshield to study where the sky goes from blue to blue-black. Looks at Dean again and feels a shave of sympathy.
Monsters, demons, ghouls, angels, the devil, the almighty, and the apocalypse, and it still sucks to be thirty. Sam feels a startling punch of a thought that he will never, ever say: you made it.
“Hey, don’t sweat it,” he says lightly. “You’ll always be twenty-nine to me.”
“Thanks, Sammy.”
Dean laughs to himself; thinks on it for a moment before shooting a smile at Sam, and that’s the one Sam had been looking for. Relaxed, he shoves at Dean’s shoulder before settling down into the vinyl to watch the road slip away beneath their tires.