Fic: Memorium, PG-13
Memorium
Summary: For the 50states-spn 50 States of Supernatural challenge. Sam and Dean are stranded for two weeks of 1993 in Dayton, Ohio, just in time to contend with a bout of local union troubles and a possible haunting.
Warnings: Language
Note: Posting because I've run out of time to work on it. :( (Contains pics! By me!)
Big thanks to the ever-classy claudiapriscus for awesome beta work.
Part I | Part II | Part III
Memorium
-
Well, they won't give you time to get ready in this land.
-
-0-
Down in the deep they wait, nameless and voiceless. Below the swarm of voices, squeak of sneakers, bang of lockers. Beneath the country of skin, blood, tissue, muscle, bone. Density of meat, flesh. Beneath. They coil around each other, within and without, in the cold and silent place. Death ground, silent ground, miserable and dark.
They wait.
-1-
The building is tiny and square, dwarfed by its neighbor and swallowed by its shadow. Stivers Middle School For the Arts is four stories of red brick and white stone, delicate ornamentation, modern metal doors and bottle glass windows. The little shop squats beside it, white-painted cinderblock walls and tiny fenced-in yard barely enough to draw a passing glance. Yet it sits, quiet and unassuming, beside the beautiful monster of an educational facility, and the long white sign over the door proclaims ‘Black & Lee Memorials’ to anyone who happens to glance in its direction.
Dean’s feet stutter and slow and finally stop altogether, and the crowd parts around him and moves in the direction of the school as he stands staring, alone, at the two wide, polished headstones set neatly on the lawn, leached of color in the poor Ohio sunlight.
He’s within yards of the school. No one else seems to even register the presence of the shop, much less care that it’s there.
Two weeks, John had said on Thursday as he helped get them set up in the little upstairs apartment, shoving registration papers at them and pressing a wad of bills into Dean’s hands. I’ll be back before you know it. Just…try to keep out of trouble. And then he was halfway out the door, heading up to Yellow Springs, and when Dean asked why they couldn’t go-Just a ghost or something, right? C’mon Dad- John had sneered and made some comment about ‘hippie communes’ and ‘recipe for disaster’ that Dean didn’t really understand, and then he was gone.
Now it’s Friday and they’re stranded in Dayton, Ohio while their Dad finishes a hunt he estimates should take no longer than two weeks, maybe less. Fourteen days of flat grey skies and damp breezes and the threat of rain without any actual rain. And the both of them sniffling and sneezing half the time because no one comes to Sinus Valley without picking up the local allergies, no matter what time of year it is.
Sam had gone off to Belmont Elementary that morning with way too much spring in his step to be healthy, and now Dean has to walk past two four foot blocks of stone the color of the granite sky, IN LOVING MEMORY glaring out at the world above flat blank spaces, just to get to the line for the metal detectors.
Metal detectors, John had informed him grimly, So you’d better leave your weapons at home, Dean. Sam had been insufferably smug (he’d still be armed, the little shit) and Dean squawked a token protest, but what could he really do? Getting suspended on the first day for showing up with a Balisong in his pocket was not keeping out of trouble.
He drags himself away from the horrible little tableau and breaks into a half-run, past the front of the school and around the corner, where he nearly crashes headlong into the line snaking around the side of the building and into the single, open side door and the dark vestibule beyond. He stumbles, clutches his bag, manages to arrest his momentum. No one seems to really notice. He strains on his tiptoes and catches a glimpse of the metal detector, and the noise of the wands is piercing even over the babble of voices. A few curious glances cut his way but he ignores them easily, and their interest slides off him like water.
It takes fifteen minutes to get inside, crowding through the door with a handful of others and surrendering his bag at the table by the door. He shuffles through the cheap-as-shit detector and turns to collect his mostly empty bag the moment the teacher’s finished roughly pawing through it, and slides quickly around the rest of the students to the nearest stairwell. His homeroom, and his ‘cluster,’ are both in the basement. He joins another stream of bodies heading downstairs.
The basement ceilings are low, and the light is poor. Most of his classes are here. Cluster A. The floors aren’t tiled but gleaming solid concrete. Smooth and grey, polished by the passage of thousands of feet over its surface, split by ancient cracks. There’s a brown elevator in the corner. He can’t tell if it works or not.
The halls are dark, artificial light dim and colors leaching to shadows. Dean passes a window on the way to his classroom, throwing a square of watery light on the floor. He catches a glimpse of dead grass, a fraction of the sky, the base of the bus stop, passing feet.
His classroom is the last door at the end of a dead-end hall crowded with tables, chairs, and a chalkboard on wheels. The walls behind are obscured by deeper shadows. He hesitates at the door until someone cusses and shoves him from behind, and he clamps his jaw and schools his features blank. Steps across the threshold. The room is windowless and better lit than the hall. The teacher, young and petite, straightens up from leaning over the desk and favors him with a smile. Tucks a strand of brown hair behind her ear.
“Winchester?” she asks, and Dean nods. Casts a quick glance around the room. Thirty or so boys and girls give him various degrees of appraising or dismissing looks. He doesn’t smile and neither do they.
“This is Dean,” She says, and gestures toward the far corner, “Why don’t you take that empty desk?”
He nods and when he crosses the room, his feet echo. He looks down and sees a trap door, edged in bright steel.
___________
He starts hearing the rumors at lunch. He’s not listening for anything in particular as he scarfs his cheese sandwiches at the long table, surrounded by noise and dodging elbows on both sides. It’s difficult, though, to ignore the thread of tension running through every audible conversation, and though he tries his best to tune them all out, one word forces its way into his awareness.
The word is ‘strike.’
He flicks his eyes up. Once, then again. There’s a girl across from him, talking animatedly, hands flickering through the air. She flashes her teeth when she catches him looking, and he sees the moment she realizes his face is new. The flicker of surprise, brief flutter of lashes.
He rips a chunk off his sandwich-American cheese and Wonder Bread-and studies it. Until the pressure of being stared at fades.
He sees her again later in the basement, schlepping a clarinet case down the hall. Or maybe a flute case-it’s not as if he’s an expert. She’s walking with some giant skinny kid, and when she catches sight of Dean she veers in his direction, falling into step as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Her hair is glossy and she’s wearing one of those United Colors shirts with Bugs Bunny on it. It hangs almost to her knees.
“Hi,” she says, with a grin more predatory than friendly. “You the new kid.”
“Uh,” he says, as the big guy catches up, looming silently behind them both. “Yeah. Hi?”
“I’m Keisha,” the girl says, “That’s Julian.”
“Julian,” the guy echoes with a brief nod, and nothing else.
Dean opens his mouth. Hesitates. “I’m…Dean,” he offers, finally. Keisha snickers.
“I know. I heard all about you already.”
He snorts. “Everybody knows about the new kid.”
“Yeah they do,” she agrees, and adds, “You from Ohio? You got a accent.” There’s nothing but honest curiosity in her voice.
“Uh-uh.” he shakes his head. “I mean, yeah, I guess…I guess I got one. But we move around, all over. ‘Cuz my Dad.”
“He air force?” she supplies, and belatedly he remembers the local base. There must be people coming and going all the time.
“Yeah.”
“I heard if there’s a war someday the base means we all get bombed,” she says, offhand. “The whole city.” Completely unfazed. “Where’d you use to stay at?”
“Uh,” he doesn’t know where any Air Force bases are, but doesn’t think it’ll matter. “Kentucky. Uh, North Carolina. Maryland for a little bit. ‘Fore I came here.”
“So you just started,” she presses, coming to a stop outside of the room he thinks is his social studies class. Which just figures. The big guy makes some noise, folds his arms and leans on the wall.
“Keisha,” he rumbles.
“Listen,” Dean rubs at the back of his neck, “I heard some things….”
“I bet you did,” Big Guy mutters, and Keisha bumps her instrument case into his leg.
“You been hearin’ ‘em talkin’ about the strike,” she offers.
He spreads his hands. “What the hell is it? I mean, I know what a strike is…”
Keisha opens her mouth, but it’s Julian who answers. “It’s the teachers,” he says. “They goin’ on strike, from next week.”
“And what?” Dean shrugs in confusion. “They gonna close the school?”
“No, hell no,” He sneers, faintly. “Williams gotta have his own way.”
“I hear they bringin’ in new teachers,” Keisha ads.
“So, but the teachers are actually leaving? Walking off?”
Keisha's eyes roll. “I just said, they bringin’ in new teachers. To teach all the classes.”
He stares. “The hell are they gonna come from?”
She shrugs.
Julian says, “Subs, probably. Not union. They won’t close the schools though. None of ‘em.”
“Well,” Dean says, “Shit. That’s…kinda fucked up."
Julian snorts. “This been comin’ on for weeks, you just hearin’ about it now. You don’t even know.”
“It’s just bullshit,” Keisha says. “Always is.”
Dean opens his mouth to respond and the ringing bell cuts him off. They duck through the doorway, Keisha barking, “Dammit Julian, get out the way!” and Dean finds himself herded into the room.
The teacher, a middle-aged man in a yellow sweater, waves Dean to an empty desk and unceremoniously dumps a massive, ancient social studies textbook in front of him. Dean’s lip curls at the piss-and-mildew smell, and magnanimously ignores the snickering at his expression.
“Everyone,” the teacher intones solemnly, folding his hands and turning to address the class. “We have a new student.”
The class shifts and mutters. Dean doesn’t smile, but he does try waggling his eyebrows. Keisha kicks the side of his foot.
___________
There’s a tornado drill forty minutes later. Dean troops out of social studies with the rest of the class and sits in the hall with everyone else, on the cold stone floor, forehead resting his knees as teachers pace up and down. He spends an interminable fifteen minutes sitting, until he’s deeply annoyed with the fact that he has hipbones at all, and by the time he makes it up off the floor it’s the last period, fifty minutes of English with a teacher with iron-grey hair and earlobes stretched to twice their normal length by heavy earrings. The room has windows, at least, up around the ceiling, and the light that dribbles over the desks is grey and cold.
Ohio, he remembers, is always grey, always overcast. Or at least, it is whenever they’re in town.
Fourteen days, he reminds himself. Just fourteen days.
The English teacher, Mrs. Winters, waves them all to silence, and after quickly introducing Dean and sending him to his seat, clears her throat perfunctorily.
“Okay guys, it’s Friday, and you all know what that means.”
“Is it really true?” pipes up a tiny white girl in the corner. Mrs. Winters gives her a small smile.
“Can I assume everyone’s heard about the strike by now? Is there anyone who doesn’t know what’s going on?”
Dean glances around. His crash-course from Keisha and Julian has at least given him a pretty good idea of what she’s talking about, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to single himself out as the dumbass new kid. Mrs. Winters flicks her eyes across the classroom and then nods to herself.
“Well,” she says, “I know that not all of the teachers are talking about it, so if anyone has any questions you can come to me. Starting Monday all the teachers in the city will stop working. Every teacher from this school will be out front, picketing. That means we won’t be inside, and we won’t be teaching you.”
“Why do you gotta stand outside?” a boy asks.
“Well, when you go on strike-when a union goes on strike, which is what’s happening with us-”
“Just because-I heard it was something about the superintendent?” wonders the same girl from before.
“Well, the superintendent and the school board. We’ve been negotiating for some things we want from the school district. Benefits. Things like insurance and some other concessions. It’s taken a long time and so far Superintendent Williams is still trying to take away a lot of benefits and wages. So now we’re going on strike. And when that happens, then the people on strike have to stop working. And we want to let everyone know what’s going on, so we stand outside. It’s kind of like a protest.”
“And they’re gonna bring in new teachers?”
“Yes.”
Dean clears his throat. “But how can they bring in different teachers if you’re all on strike?”
“Well, that’s a good question. Class, can anyone tell me what a ‘scab’ is?”
Dean glances around. A tall skinny kid with red hair raises his hand.
“Sean.”
“That’s someone who goes to work during a strike?”
“Close.” She nods. “A scab is someone who crosses a picket line, who makes it harder for the people on strike to negotiate. So you’ll have new teachers next week, people who aren’t part of the union. The strike will probably last a long time.”
“Do you get paid?”
“No, we don’t. So the longer it lasts, the harder it is to keep it going.”
“How do you eat?” Dean blurts, “Where-where does the money come from?”
“Well, usually a Union has some funds that they can use, but it won’t be a lot. So your teachers need your help. When these new teachers come in, we need you to not listen to them, and not do anything they say. It’s very important. You can help us a lot, and make the strike shorter.”
Dean sits back hard in his chair.
Sam, he thinks dazedly. Holy shit.
___________
The bus ride up Wayne Avenue takes too damn long, zigging and zagging though back roads, past old ugly houses and convenience stores and a library. Dean notes that last one, for Sammy’s sake.
He stares in something like awe when they pass a grey two-story with black trash bags piled floor to ceiling on the front porch. The kid sitting next to him-some punk called Jeff with bad teeth and a cold sore at the corner of his mouth-snickers about some crazy lady living there with her cats and piles of garbage.
“She was on the news an’ everything,” he informs Dean, inflated with borrowed authority. “The cops came an’ she got in all kindsa trouble. But then she went back and everything’s the same.”
“No shit,” Dean says, politely interested.
He makes it home before Sam, to the collection of rooms on the second floor of a blue-grey house. The living space isn’t bad, boasting a small kitchenette and a separate bedroom that means Dean and Sam don’t have to share, at least as long as John is away. The sofa-the couch-is as good as a bed and as long as they rotate they don’t have to fight over who sleeps where. The neighbors downstairs are hicks and the damn dog barks, but there are no babies and few sirens, despite being situated on a major road, just blocks from the Patterson Pony Keg. The houses have real lawns, and bushes.
Dean scrambles up the back wooden staircase, bypassing the frantically yelping dog completely. He’s never seen the neighbors and doesn’t want to. He’s seen their rusted out, sky blue truck parked in the driveway, but that’s it.
Sam comes crashing through the door fifteen minutes later and Dean glances out the window at the RTA zipping by. Cheap-ass school system won’t use yellow buses for some goddamn reason. Elementary kids scatter up and down the street, voices ringing. Dean turns away from the window.
“There’s gonna be a strike,” Sam declares, as the echoes of the slamming door die away and he tosses his bag on the sof-the couch.
“Yeah. I know. The whole school system.” He pauses. “I think you should stay home Monday, Sammy.”
“What?” Sam demands, instantly belligerent. “Why?”
“Well, if they’re not gonna have the real teachers there it’ll just be a big mess, y’know?”
“Dean, it’s school. I wanna go.”
Dean’s constantly amazed at his ten-year-old brother’s ability to whine like a kid half his age. He leans on the wall and folds his arms.
“But if there’s not even gonna be classes then…”
Sam shakes his head violently. “I’m not stayin’ home. There’s nothin’ to do here and we just got here, Dean. You can’t make me stay home anyway.”
“I can call Dad and he can make you.”
Sam levels a flat stare at him. “How are you gonna call Dad? He hasn’t called since he left, you don’t even know where he’s stayin’.” He loads it with as much south-western Ohio drawl as he can. Thirty-six hours to pick it back up again-has to be some kind of record. Dean’s impressed in spite of himself.
“Ugh.” He passes a hand across his face. “Okay, fine.” He should know better than to try empty threats. Sam’s not five anymore, no matter how much he might act like it. “Fine. One day. Monday. And if it’s bad…if it’s really bad, Sam, I want you to stay home after that. You don’t need to…you know.”
“Dean,” Sam says, only half-exasperated, “I’ll be okay. It’s not a bad school, not really.”
Dean blows out a breath and pushes off the wall.
“I need food,” he mutters. Sam perks up immediately.
“Ooh, make popcorn! We can make popcorn, right?” Accent slipping back through Kentucky and into some central Florida of all things. Weirdo.
Dean hauls an aluminum pot from the mismatched set on top of the fridge, and juggles oil, butter, popcorn and salt onto the counter. Sam wanders away and turns on the TV, not helping at all. Little shit.
“Hey,” Dean adds, tearing the bag open with his teeth, “They give you any homework?”
“No,” Sam rolls his eyes. “Why would they? Who’s gonna care?” He folds his arms and hunches his way back to the kitchen. Dean slams the lid on the pot and groans.
“God,” he whines, “Don’t be such a girl, I’m sure you can find lotsa shit to read at the library or whatever. We…we can go tomorrow.”
Sam squeaks, “Ooo,” at the same moment the first kernel pops, and Dean fiddles with the heat and listens to Sam yammer about local history I heard about this one graveyard, Dean, we should totally check it out.
___________
They make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and later stand shoulder to shoulder at the sink, Sam drying what Dean washes. Dirty dishes left overnight are an invitation to roaches. Neither of them wants tiny brown bodies clambering around the tiny kitchenette all night long, and Dean doesn’t want to be worrying about sleeping with his mouth open.
“Dad’s comin’ back soon, right?” Sam asks softly, working the towel around inside a chipped mug. There aren’t that many to wash, just the few random items that came with the place. Easy to leave behind when they go. Or throw away, if they get too damaged.
Dean flicks soapy water at his brother. The air smells of fake lemon.
“Sure, he’s comin’ back soon. He’ll be here like he said. Just like he said.”
Sam smiles and blows a strand of hair out of his face.
It’s already dark outside.
Part II
Summary: For the 50states-spn 50 States of Supernatural challenge. Sam and Dean are stranded for two weeks of 1993 in Dayton, Ohio, just in time to contend with a bout of local union troubles and a possible haunting.
Warnings: Language
Note: Posting because I've run out of time to work on it. :( (Contains pics! By me!)
Big thanks to the ever-classy claudiapriscus for awesome beta work.
Part I | Part II | Part III
Memorium
-
Well, they won't give you time to get ready in this land.
-
-0-
Down in the deep they wait, nameless and voiceless. Below the swarm of voices, squeak of sneakers, bang of lockers. Beneath the country of skin, blood, tissue, muscle, bone. Density of meat, flesh. Beneath. They coil around each other, within and without, in the cold and silent place. Death ground, silent ground, miserable and dark.
They wait.
-1-
The building is tiny and square, dwarfed by its neighbor and swallowed by its shadow. Stivers Middle School For the Arts is four stories of red brick and white stone, delicate ornamentation, modern metal doors and bottle glass windows. The little shop squats beside it, white-painted cinderblock walls and tiny fenced-in yard barely enough to draw a passing glance. Yet it sits, quiet and unassuming, beside the beautiful monster of an educational facility, and the long white sign over the door proclaims ‘Black & Lee Memorials’ to anyone who happens to glance in its direction.
Dean’s feet stutter and slow and finally stop altogether, and the crowd parts around him and moves in the direction of the school as he stands staring, alone, at the two wide, polished headstones set neatly on the lawn, leached of color in the poor Ohio sunlight.
He’s within yards of the school. No one else seems to even register the presence of the shop, much less care that it’s there.
Two weeks, John had said on Thursday as he helped get them set up in the little upstairs apartment, shoving registration papers at them and pressing a wad of bills into Dean’s hands. I’ll be back before you know it. Just…try to keep out of trouble. And then he was halfway out the door, heading up to Yellow Springs, and when Dean asked why they couldn’t go-Just a ghost or something, right? C’mon Dad- John had sneered and made some comment about ‘hippie communes’ and ‘recipe for disaster’ that Dean didn’t really understand, and then he was gone.
Now it’s Friday and they’re stranded in Dayton, Ohio while their Dad finishes a hunt he estimates should take no longer than two weeks, maybe less. Fourteen days of flat grey skies and damp breezes and the threat of rain without any actual rain. And the both of them sniffling and sneezing half the time because no one comes to Sinus Valley without picking up the local allergies, no matter what time of year it is.
Sam had gone off to Belmont Elementary that morning with way too much spring in his step to be healthy, and now Dean has to walk past two four foot blocks of stone the color of the granite sky, IN LOVING MEMORY glaring out at the world above flat blank spaces, just to get to the line for the metal detectors.
Metal detectors, John had informed him grimly, So you’d better leave your weapons at home, Dean. Sam had been insufferably smug (he’d still be armed, the little shit) and Dean squawked a token protest, but what could he really do? Getting suspended on the first day for showing up with a Balisong in his pocket was not keeping out of trouble.
He drags himself away from the horrible little tableau and breaks into a half-run, past the front of the school and around the corner, where he nearly crashes headlong into the line snaking around the side of the building and into the single, open side door and the dark vestibule beyond. He stumbles, clutches his bag, manages to arrest his momentum. No one seems to really notice. He strains on his tiptoes and catches a glimpse of the metal detector, and the noise of the wands is piercing even over the babble of voices. A few curious glances cut his way but he ignores them easily, and their interest slides off him like water.
It takes fifteen minutes to get inside, crowding through the door with a handful of others and surrendering his bag at the table by the door. He shuffles through the cheap-as-shit detector and turns to collect his mostly empty bag the moment the teacher’s finished roughly pawing through it, and slides quickly around the rest of the students to the nearest stairwell. His homeroom, and his ‘cluster,’ are both in the basement. He joins another stream of bodies heading downstairs.
The basement ceilings are low, and the light is poor. Most of his classes are here. Cluster A. The floors aren’t tiled but gleaming solid concrete. Smooth and grey, polished by the passage of thousands of feet over its surface, split by ancient cracks. There’s a brown elevator in the corner. He can’t tell if it works or not.
The halls are dark, artificial light dim and colors leaching to shadows. Dean passes a window on the way to his classroom, throwing a square of watery light on the floor. He catches a glimpse of dead grass, a fraction of the sky, the base of the bus stop, passing feet.
His classroom is the last door at the end of a dead-end hall crowded with tables, chairs, and a chalkboard on wheels. The walls behind are obscured by deeper shadows. He hesitates at the door until someone cusses and shoves him from behind, and he clamps his jaw and schools his features blank. Steps across the threshold. The room is windowless and better lit than the hall. The teacher, young and petite, straightens up from leaning over the desk and favors him with a smile. Tucks a strand of brown hair behind her ear.
“Winchester?” she asks, and Dean nods. Casts a quick glance around the room. Thirty or so boys and girls give him various degrees of appraising or dismissing looks. He doesn’t smile and neither do they.
“This is Dean,” She says, and gestures toward the far corner, “Why don’t you take that empty desk?”
He nods and when he crosses the room, his feet echo. He looks down and sees a trap door, edged in bright steel.
___________
He starts hearing the rumors at lunch. He’s not listening for anything in particular as he scarfs his cheese sandwiches at the long table, surrounded by noise and dodging elbows on both sides. It’s difficult, though, to ignore the thread of tension running through every audible conversation, and though he tries his best to tune them all out, one word forces its way into his awareness.
The word is ‘strike.’
He flicks his eyes up. Once, then again. There’s a girl across from him, talking animatedly, hands flickering through the air. She flashes her teeth when she catches him looking, and he sees the moment she realizes his face is new. The flicker of surprise, brief flutter of lashes.
He rips a chunk off his sandwich-American cheese and Wonder Bread-and studies it. Until the pressure of being stared at fades.
He sees her again later in the basement, schlepping a clarinet case down the hall. Or maybe a flute case-it’s not as if he’s an expert. She’s walking with some giant skinny kid, and when she catches sight of Dean she veers in his direction, falling into step as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Her hair is glossy and she’s wearing one of those United Colors shirts with Bugs Bunny on it. It hangs almost to her knees.
“Hi,” she says, with a grin more predatory than friendly. “You the new kid.”
“Uh,” he says, as the big guy catches up, looming silently behind them both. “Yeah. Hi?”
“I’m Keisha,” the girl says, “That’s Julian.”
“Julian,” the guy echoes with a brief nod, and nothing else.
Dean opens his mouth. Hesitates. “I’m…Dean,” he offers, finally. Keisha snickers.
“I know. I heard all about you already.”
He snorts. “Everybody knows about the new kid.”
“Yeah they do,” she agrees, and adds, “You from Ohio? You got a accent.” There’s nothing but honest curiosity in her voice.
“Uh-uh.” he shakes his head. “I mean, yeah, I guess…I guess I got one. But we move around, all over. ‘Cuz my Dad.”
“He air force?” she supplies, and belatedly he remembers the local base. There must be people coming and going all the time.
“Yeah.”
“I heard if there’s a war someday the base means we all get bombed,” she says, offhand. “The whole city.” Completely unfazed. “Where’d you use to stay at?”
“Uh,” he doesn’t know where any Air Force bases are, but doesn’t think it’ll matter. “Kentucky. Uh, North Carolina. Maryland for a little bit. ‘Fore I came here.”
“So you just started,” she presses, coming to a stop outside of the room he thinks is his social studies class. Which just figures. The big guy makes some noise, folds his arms and leans on the wall.
“Keisha,” he rumbles.
“Listen,” Dean rubs at the back of his neck, “I heard some things….”
“I bet you did,” Big Guy mutters, and Keisha bumps her instrument case into his leg.
“You been hearin’ ‘em talkin’ about the strike,” she offers.
He spreads his hands. “What the hell is it? I mean, I know what a strike is…”
Keisha opens her mouth, but it’s Julian who answers. “It’s the teachers,” he says. “They goin’ on strike, from next week.”
“And what?” Dean shrugs in confusion. “They gonna close the school?”
“No, hell no,” He sneers, faintly. “Williams gotta have his own way.”
“I hear they bringin’ in new teachers,” Keisha ads.
“So, but the teachers are actually leaving? Walking off?”
Keisha's eyes roll. “I just said, they bringin’ in new teachers. To teach all the classes.”
He stares. “The hell are they gonna come from?”
She shrugs.
Julian says, “Subs, probably. Not union. They won’t close the schools though. None of ‘em.”
“Well,” Dean says, “Shit. That’s…kinda fucked up."
Julian snorts. “This been comin’ on for weeks, you just hearin’ about it now. You don’t even know.”
“It’s just bullshit,” Keisha says. “Always is.”
Dean opens his mouth to respond and the ringing bell cuts him off. They duck through the doorway, Keisha barking, “Dammit Julian, get out the way!” and Dean finds himself herded into the room.
The teacher, a middle-aged man in a yellow sweater, waves Dean to an empty desk and unceremoniously dumps a massive, ancient social studies textbook in front of him. Dean’s lip curls at the piss-and-mildew smell, and magnanimously ignores the snickering at his expression.
“Everyone,” the teacher intones solemnly, folding his hands and turning to address the class. “We have a new student.”
The class shifts and mutters. Dean doesn’t smile, but he does try waggling his eyebrows. Keisha kicks the side of his foot.
___________
There’s a tornado drill forty minutes later. Dean troops out of social studies with the rest of the class and sits in the hall with everyone else, on the cold stone floor, forehead resting his knees as teachers pace up and down. He spends an interminable fifteen minutes sitting, until he’s deeply annoyed with the fact that he has hipbones at all, and by the time he makes it up off the floor it’s the last period, fifty minutes of English with a teacher with iron-grey hair and earlobes stretched to twice their normal length by heavy earrings. The room has windows, at least, up around the ceiling, and the light that dribbles over the desks is grey and cold.
Ohio, he remembers, is always grey, always overcast. Or at least, it is whenever they’re in town.
Fourteen days, he reminds himself. Just fourteen days.
The English teacher, Mrs. Winters, waves them all to silence, and after quickly introducing Dean and sending him to his seat, clears her throat perfunctorily.
“Okay guys, it’s Friday, and you all know what that means.”
“Is it really true?” pipes up a tiny white girl in the corner. Mrs. Winters gives her a small smile.
“Can I assume everyone’s heard about the strike by now? Is there anyone who doesn’t know what’s going on?”
Dean glances around. His crash-course from Keisha and Julian has at least given him a pretty good idea of what she’s talking about, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to single himself out as the dumbass new kid. Mrs. Winters flicks her eyes across the classroom and then nods to herself.
“Well,” she says, “I know that not all of the teachers are talking about it, so if anyone has any questions you can come to me. Starting Monday all the teachers in the city will stop working. Every teacher from this school will be out front, picketing. That means we won’t be inside, and we won’t be teaching you.”
“Why do you gotta stand outside?” a boy asks.
“Well, when you go on strike-when a union goes on strike, which is what’s happening with us-”
“Just because-I heard it was something about the superintendent?” wonders the same girl from before.
“Well, the superintendent and the school board. We’ve been negotiating for some things we want from the school district. Benefits. Things like insurance and some other concessions. It’s taken a long time and so far Superintendent Williams is still trying to take away a lot of benefits and wages. So now we’re going on strike. And when that happens, then the people on strike have to stop working. And we want to let everyone know what’s going on, so we stand outside. It’s kind of like a protest.”
“And they’re gonna bring in new teachers?”
“Yes.”
Dean clears his throat. “But how can they bring in different teachers if you’re all on strike?”
“Well, that’s a good question. Class, can anyone tell me what a ‘scab’ is?”
Dean glances around. A tall skinny kid with red hair raises his hand.
“Sean.”
“That’s someone who goes to work during a strike?”
“Close.” She nods. “A scab is someone who crosses a picket line, who makes it harder for the people on strike to negotiate. So you’ll have new teachers next week, people who aren’t part of the union. The strike will probably last a long time.”
“Do you get paid?”
“No, we don’t. So the longer it lasts, the harder it is to keep it going.”
“How do you eat?” Dean blurts, “Where-where does the money come from?”
“Well, usually a Union has some funds that they can use, but it won’t be a lot. So your teachers need your help. When these new teachers come in, we need you to not listen to them, and not do anything they say. It’s very important. You can help us a lot, and make the strike shorter.”
Dean sits back hard in his chair.
Sam, he thinks dazedly. Holy shit.
___________
The bus ride up Wayne Avenue takes too damn long, zigging and zagging though back roads, past old ugly houses and convenience stores and a library. Dean notes that last one, for Sammy’s sake.
He stares in something like awe when they pass a grey two-story with black trash bags piled floor to ceiling on the front porch. The kid sitting next to him-some punk called Jeff with bad teeth and a cold sore at the corner of his mouth-snickers about some crazy lady living there with her cats and piles of garbage.
“She was on the news an’ everything,” he informs Dean, inflated with borrowed authority. “The cops came an’ she got in all kindsa trouble. But then she went back and everything’s the same.”
“No shit,” Dean says, politely interested.
He makes it home before Sam, to the collection of rooms on the second floor of a blue-grey house. The living space isn’t bad, boasting a small kitchenette and a separate bedroom that means Dean and Sam don’t have to share, at least as long as John is away. The sofa-the couch-is as good as a bed and as long as they rotate they don’t have to fight over who sleeps where. The neighbors downstairs are hicks and the damn dog barks, but there are no babies and few sirens, despite being situated on a major road, just blocks from the Patterson Pony Keg. The houses have real lawns, and bushes.
Dean scrambles up the back wooden staircase, bypassing the frantically yelping dog completely. He’s never seen the neighbors and doesn’t want to. He’s seen their rusted out, sky blue truck parked in the driveway, but that’s it.
Sam comes crashing through the door fifteen minutes later and Dean glances out the window at the RTA zipping by. Cheap-ass school system won’t use yellow buses for some goddamn reason. Elementary kids scatter up and down the street, voices ringing. Dean turns away from the window.
“There’s gonna be a strike,” Sam declares, as the echoes of the slamming door die away and he tosses his bag on the sof-the couch.
“Yeah. I know. The whole school system.” He pauses. “I think you should stay home Monday, Sammy.”
“What?” Sam demands, instantly belligerent. “Why?”
“Well, if they’re not gonna have the real teachers there it’ll just be a big mess, y’know?”
“Dean, it’s school. I wanna go.”
Dean’s constantly amazed at his ten-year-old brother’s ability to whine like a kid half his age. He leans on the wall and folds his arms.
“But if there’s not even gonna be classes then…”
Sam shakes his head violently. “I’m not stayin’ home. There’s nothin’ to do here and we just got here, Dean. You can’t make me stay home anyway.”
“I can call Dad and he can make you.”
Sam levels a flat stare at him. “How are you gonna call Dad? He hasn’t called since he left, you don’t even know where he’s stayin’.” He loads it with as much south-western Ohio drawl as he can. Thirty-six hours to pick it back up again-has to be some kind of record. Dean’s impressed in spite of himself.
“Ugh.” He passes a hand across his face. “Okay, fine.” He should know better than to try empty threats. Sam’s not five anymore, no matter how much he might act like it. “Fine. One day. Monday. And if it’s bad…if it’s really bad, Sam, I want you to stay home after that. You don’t need to…you know.”
“Dean,” Sam says, only half-exasperated, “I’ll be okay. It’s not a bad school, not really.”
Dean blows out a breath and pushes off the wall.
“I need food,” he mutters. Sam perks up immediately.
“Ooh, make popcorn! We can make popcorn, right?” Accent slipping back through Kentucky and into some central Florida of all things. Weirdo.
Dean hauls an aluminum pot from the mismatched set on top of the fridge, and juggles oil, butter, popcorn and salt onto the counter. Sam wanders away and turns on the TV, not helping at all. Little shit.
“Hey,” Dean adds, tearing the bag open with his teeth, “They give you any homework?”
“No,” Sam rolls his eyes. “Why would they? Who’s gonna care?” He folds his arms and hunches his way back to the kitchen. Dean slams the lid on the pot and groans.
“God,” he whines, “Don’t be such a girl, I’m sure you can find lotsa shit to read at the library or whatever. We…we can go tomorrow.”
Sam squeaks, “Ooo,” at the same moment the first kernel pops, and Dean fiddles with the heat and listens to Sam yammer about local history I heard about this one graveyard, Dean, we should totally check it out.
___________
They make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and later stand shoulder to shoulder at the sink, Sam drying what Dean washes. Dirty dishes left overnight are an invitation to roaches. Neither of them wants tiny brown bodies clambering around the tiny kitchenette all night long, and Dean doesn’t want to be worrying about sleeping with his mouth open.
“Dad’s comin’ back soon, right?” Sam asks softly, working the towel around inside a chipped mug. There aren’t that many to wash, just the few random items that came with the place. Easy to leave behind when they go. Or throw away, if they get too damaged.
Dean flicks soapy water at his brother. The air smells of fake lemon.
“Sure, he’s comin’ back soon. He’ll be here like he said. Just like he said.”
Sam smiles and blows a strand of hair out of his face.
It’s already dark outside.
Part II