Fic: Over the Hills and Far Away
Title: Over the Hills and Far Away
Author: judith_88_g
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Genre: Gen
Characters: Dean, Sam, OC
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 4,400
Disclaimer: Not mine, Santa's that mean.
Summary: Set in Stanford!era, with flashbacks to the summer of 1991. Dean train-hops.
A/N: Based on the prompt at hoodie-time that can be found here. Slapped around by the very lovely, fastidious sailoreyes67 and always helpful spangielka, massive thank-yous flying your way, ladies. All remaining mistakes are of course all mine.
What’s your road, man?- holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road.
It’s an anywhere road for anybody anyhow.
~Dean Moriarty to Sal Paradise in “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac
Dean scrunched up his eyes at the low hanging sun and looked down the tracks for the hundredth time. It had been over two hours. Two hours of lounging on his ass in the searing Arizona sun and staring at the point where the bleached sky touched the railroads. It would be much less frustrating if there were any timetables to rely on. He was vaguely tempted to put his ear down to the ground and listen for distant vibrations and the characteristic clickity clack of an advancing freight train. It seemed to do the trick just fine in movies, but somehow Dean had a feeling that it had very little to do with the truth. Movies were easy like that. Reality on the other hand, had a callous habit of proving that if something sounded too effortless to work, it usually was.
Dean dragged a hand through his sweat-soaked hair and flashed his eyes towards the other end of the tracks disappearing in the West. His fingers heedlessly ghosted over the key pad in his pocket. One phone call, that was all it would take to finish the job, one phone call. One phone call and a little over twenty miles up the U.S. 101 from Palo Alto to Santa Clara where the bones had been buried. It used to be so obvious, natural as breathing, and if somebody had told him before that the very thought of calling his brother would cut this deep, Dean would laugh and laugh at the absurdity. He still somehow couldn’t believe it, it was so fucking surreal.
How the hell had it come to this?
***
Dean trod ferociously down the dusty street, a steady stream of curses, half of whose meaning he only vaguely suspected, falling from his mouth. The heat seemed to crawl over him, his T-shirt plastered to his sweaty chest and the dry hot air prickling his nostrils abrasively. Wherever he was, Sammy had better be weeping over his sorry ass, because if he wasn’t already, Dean sure as hell was going to make him.
The weight of the gun felt odd in his pocket. Dad always said he was not to touch it unless there was an immediate danger to him or Sammy; Dean figured that the little squirt going missing could easily count as such. Besides, Dad had also said that he wouldn’t be longer than three days and that deadline had skidded to a soundless crash yesterday. He tightened his grip around the handle, imagined what it would feel like to pull it out and shoot something other than an array of bottles and partly squashed cans. Tiny droplets of sweat were trickling down his face, persistent and abrading in a way that a mosquito buzzing could get at night. He didn’t wipe them away; his hands seemed too heavy and gawky and jelled.
When he finally reached his destination, the station was deserted apart from one familiar, slight figure facing the railroad tracks, scrawny legs wrapped in the used-to-be Dean’s cut-off jeans dangling freely from the platform. The sight flooded him with a strange, debilitating warmth. In a flash though, it was gone, washed away by boiling anger.
“What part of stay in the fucking room didn’t you get, you little shit?”
Sam’s head snapped back and his eyes seemed ridiculously huge in his eight-year-old face.
“Dean!” He squawked, his voice a mixture of surprise and fear.
Dean lunged towards his brother and in an instant Sam was standing on his own two feet, expression that of a deer caught in the headlights. The sight had an uncanny effect of stopping Dean in place. It wasn’t exactly surprising, his brother’s reaction. Or unjustified for that matter. And maybe that was the thing that had done it; the fight evaporated and, though he tried, Dean couldn’t get hold of more than just its whisper-thin shadow.
“I told you to stay,” he gritted out and suddenly, there was tightness in his throat. Four days. Four fucking days. He tried to swallow it down.
“Dean?” The word sounded small and uncertain.
Dean kicked the pebbles at his feet, watched them scatter away.
“You can’t do that kinda shit,” he said advancing a few steps and jabbing a finger against Sam’s chest. Not you too. One person’s plenty enough.
Sam stared back at him with those huge eyes and for a moment Dean wasn’t sure whether his brother was about to bolt or cry. In the end he did neither, just nodded. “Okay.”
***
The low rumble of the train cut through the stale air eventually and Dean could swear it was the sweetest sound he’d heard in a while. Climbing to a stand, he threw the straps of his duffel bag securely over one shoulder and strutted closer to the railroad crossing. The street wasn’t terribly busy which meant not so many eyes witnessing the stunt he was about to make. Which was good. As long as he didn’t need anybody to call an ambulance. He just hoped he wouldn’t lose any limbs in the process.
The roaring grew gradually and was shortly followed by the huge machine bursting into view, its size combined with speed making Dean reconsider what had earlier seemed like a very neat strategy of avoiding yard-bulls. He pulled on the leather gloves and tried to think of a possibly least-bloody way of hopping onto the thing.
The train started to slow down. First wagons cruised by, stirring up a small breeze which flounced pleasantly against his face. Then, there it was, an open boxcar. It felt like a nod from the Universe, a treat rare enough in Dean’s world that his first instinct told him to run in the opposite direction. He shook it off, ran up and leaped, putting into the jump all the strength he could muster.
***
“Why’s mine not working?” Sam whined miserably, wiped his mouth with the heel of his palm pulling a disgusted face. “Yours’s all together and joined and mine’s like a sprinkle.”
They were sitting on the platform, casting long irregular shadows over the tracks as the sun grazed their backs assiduously on its way down somewhere below the horizon.
“Man,” Dean gave his brother an assessing look, made a dramatic gesture of shaking his head. “You’re so lame that it takes all the fun outta winning. Stand up.”
“What?”
Dean sprang to his feet himself. “Come on you little monkey pants. Up and at ‘em.”
Sam looked up at Dean with a smidge of confusion but followed suit.
“It’s a matter of the right technique. Knowledge and skill, Sammy-boy. Here,” Dean said in all earnest. “Gather as much of the thing as you can, move it to the front, and then purse your lips and blow. Just remember not to open your mouth too much, ‘s what screws up the range.”
To demonstrate, he hocked, waggled his mouth a little, and then sent a cord of spittle as far as he could.
“Whoa! You see that?” Dean exclaimed in amazement when the glob had landed over the tracks. “It’s gotta be some sort of record!”
Sam grinned, his wide eyes making something warm nestle around Dean’s chest.
“Okay, Sammy, your turn.”
His brother’s brow furrowed, he looked as if he was mentally cataloguing and revising everything step by step. Then his spine bent a little and as it shot forward he spat forcefully ahead. His head immediately turned towards Dean, all broad smile and expectant gaze.
“Not so bad for a pansy little booger eater,” Dean beamed, nodded, “not so bad at all.”
***
He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his balance the moment his feet hit the floor of the boxcar with a hollow thud. Dean rolled on his side and crashed head-first into something solid, the blow painting constellations of annoyingly vibrant stars behind his closed lids.
“Sheeit! Hey fella, you okay?”
Dean’s head shot upwards, only a fraction before his fingers wove around the ivory handle resting comfortingly against his lower back. The wave of nausea hit him hard and he fought to swallow down the coppery taste crawling down his tongue. Straightening up his upper body Dean flicked his eyes to the owner of the voice; judging by his shabby clothes and general defiance of hygiene he was no newbie here. Dean didn’t draw the gun, but didn’t lose the touch of the cold metal either.
“For a minute there I thought your brain gonna spill out,” the guy whistled with something that sounded partly like admiration and partly like disgust. He scrunched up his nose, “Man, I hear that thin’ stink like a sonuvabitch.”
The guy was sitting next to the open door, tucked in the shadow, with his back against the wall of the boxcar and arms resting loosely on the bent knees, a combination of interest and amusement jostling in his young features. He took a drag on his cigarette, tilted his head backwards and puffed out a cloud of smoke floating above himself.
“So they say,” Dean muttered flintily, unable to bleach the sudden memory of the mushy, yellowish matter violently separated from the skull with a gunshot. If it reeked, Dean couldn’t quite recall. He knew though, that while smothered on the face of a raging, long-dead lunatic, the shit made a hell of an impression.
Dean unloaded the duffel from his shoulder, made a cursory motion to unzip it just enough to get easy access to its insides. He reached to the back of his head, winced when his leather wrapped fingers came back bloody.
The guy jutted his chin in Dean’s general direction, “Banged your head pretty good, eh?”
Banged yours even worse. “No brain spilling danger. That baby stays right in,” the triumph in his voice was only half counterfeited.
The guy smirked, exhaled another portion of gray smoke through his nose. “Lord’s blessings, gotta take ‘em where ya can get ‘em. The ol’ man ain’t too generous these days. I’m Sonny, but folks call me Sprite.”
“Dean.”
Sprite flicked the bum of his cigarette through the door and motioned with his beat-up pack, shrugged when Dean shook his head and fished out another rolled-up smoke for himself.
“You’re a ramblin’ man, Dean, I can tell,” he said, cupping the cigarette with his hand while trying to light it up with a match. His gaze leveled with Dean’s. “I seen you guys before, the road, she just flicker in your eyes.”
Dean cocked an eyebrow in mild amusement, “Flicker, huh?”
“Oh, you can laugh all you want but I can tell alright,” Sprite wasn’t at all taken aback, an earnest smile twisting his face. “Everybody got a thing and if you see it enough times, you learn to recognize the look.”
“What’s yours then?”
Sprite gave him the smuggest meaningful evil eye Dean had seen in a while, “Man, I’m a lover boy.”
***
Dean flung a pebble at a distant pylon, couldn’t help a smile when the metallic clatter announced that the projectile had hit its target. Four out of six.
“Dean?”
“What now, you little dipshit?”
“Dad says you can’t call me that!”
Well, Dad says a lot of things, don’t he? “As you wish, pansy ass.”
“Dean!”
Another pebble, a miss this time.
“Dean?”
Jesus H. Christ. “Yeah?”
Sam dug a finger into a hole in his jeans and when he spoke again his voice sounded frail. “You think Dad would be mad that we’re here?”
Dean thought about Dad telling him not to bum around the town, imagined him coming back to an empty motel room and not finding them there. Yeah, he would burst a freaking blood vessel. Hell, he’d probably make him run laps chained to the Impala’s rear bumper. Dean realized he wouldn’t mind, he really, really wouldn’t.
“I’d say ice-creams are outta the question, Sammy.”
Sam dipped his chin.“I didn’t want to get us in trouble,” he muttered guiltily into his lap.
Dean took in the utter misery that his brother seemed to be right now. He sighed, waved his hand flippantly, “Nah, don’t worry about it-“
-he’s not gonna find out.
The words almost slipped from his lips, he caught them just in time. He didn’t mean them, not in that way, but the very thought still struck him with white terror.
He swallowed, trying to work the spit around the lump in his throat, punched Sam in the shoulder, harder than he’d intended.
“Just for the record - next time you pull one like this? I’ll cuff you to a pipe. Where there’s no way you could reach the can.”
Sam massaged his shoulder and pouted in the ultimate I-will-never-speak-to-you-again manner only an eight year old could consider anywhere near dire.
***
“She’s the cutest little thin’ you ever seen, I tell ya. With the dewy gold skin and the smile that strike you right into your very soul.”
Dean brushed his finger against the map stretched on the dusty floor of the boxcar. He peered outside and checked the time - not yet. His gaze roamed from where he’d marked red the route of the short train line and drawn a prominent cross a few miles before the narrow blue line of the Colorado river to the part where it always roamed these days; the roads he had never driven through wound around the San Francisco Bay all too familiar. He didn’t need a map to picture them in his head anymore.
“Gonna be pickin’ them grapes on her folks’ farm. I ain’t told ‘er that yet, but I’m gonna save us the money - I got some already - buy a small stretch a land. She said there’s nothing like sittin’ on the porch and watchin’ the day go down. She said that I gotta see it, that there’s nothin’ like the California sun. I swear, I don’t even know what she sees in a bum like me.”
Dean folded the map and stuck it back into the duffel. Climbing to his feet, he inched towards the open door and slumped down next to it, squinted against the blow of air. “Sounds like you got it all covered.”
Sprite gave him a lopsided what-can-you-do smile, he shrugged, “I told you I never been one for the road. And that gal, she’s somethin’ else, you know? Somethin’ special.”
The corners of Dean’s lips quirked down in acknowledgement, he nodded at the passing-by red land outlined by the gray summits looming in the distance, didn’t say anything.
“So what’s in there for you, huh? ‘Sides the California sun?”
Dean sighed, suddenly feeling achingly weary of all the tiptoeing he and Dad excelled in so much.
“My brother,” he said before he could think better of it, the words as heavy as lead. He shook his head, huffed out a humorless laugh, “I guess he never felt one for the road either.”
Sprite pursed his lips, lifted the cigarette to his mouth. “And what about you? You ever think a staying in one place long enough to call it home? Find a woman, have a buncha sprouts runnin’ around?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” Dean sighed. It was muddy ground, this conversation, but he couldn’t really find it in himself to lie. It didn’t matter anyway; he swept his eyes over the changing view, it was almost time. “But it’s just a thought, I honestly don’t think I would be any good at it.”
“Man,” Sprite drawled, shaking his head. “This?” He waved a hand around the boxcar disbelievingly, but he was also smiling a friendly smile that Dean was surprised to find reflected in his own face. “This is pretty fucked-up.”
Dean gave him a what-can-you-do shrug of his own, “You said it yourself, seems like just my thing.”
***
“So what’s the deal with this station, huh?”
Sam darted his gaze towards him, but didn’t answer. Dean drew up closer so that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder.
“Oh, come on,” he drawled, nudged his brother slightly with a knee. “I know there’s something going on, I can practically see the steam coming outta your ears.”
Sam went back to contemplating the hole in his jeans, picking at the loose threads of denim with a meticulously executed vengeance. When he finally answered his voice sounded uncertain. “You’ll laugh.”
“As if that stopped you before.”
The silence lasted all of thirty seconds and Dean had to give it to the little assmonkey that it was longer than he would have bet on.
“You think that something can exist even though we can’t understand it?”
Dean dragged his hand up and down his scalp, Sammy and his weirdo questions. “Well, I don’t understand your blabbering half the time, so go figure.”
“No,” Sam shook his head adamantly. “I mean, things that are not really… normal.”
Dean froze.
“Like, you know,” Sam continued, “Pastor Jim says God’s watching over us. So maybe, other things are as well.”
Oh crap. “What things?” Dean asked in a forced voice, a tingle of scare crawling down his back. He started to regret asking.
“Look,” Sam stuck his hand into his pocket and when it emerged, something silver was hanging from it. “This is St Christopher,” he said proudly, showing Dean the large medallion with an engraved figure of a bearded man. “I checked.”
Dean didn’t know what to do with that information. He blinked, studied the thing for a second. “Where’d you get this from?”
“I found it. And you know what he does?” Sam asked eagerly, too excited to wait for the answer. “He’s the patron of travelers! Like Dad. Like us!”
Dean raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Man, dude’s wearing a dress.”
“Don’t you get it?” Sam demanded, frustration vying with impatience in his voice. “Maybe I was supposed to find it!”
Dean started to shake his head, but Sam was on a roll, definitely not in a state to pay any attention.
“At first I wanted to give it to Dad so that he’s safe when he’s not with us. But since I found it, it’s not really mine and it wouldn’t have been a real gift. But I figured if I gave it back maybe St Christopher will watch over us anyway. I mean, it doesn’t hurt to try, right?”
Dean was about to point out that some creepy dude in a dress watching over them didn’t strike him as particularly tempting. ‘Cause if he really did exist, Dad would salt and burn his ass for the effort, thank you very much. But then he thought about going back to their empty motel room, thought about the emergency numbers that Dad had drilled into his head and Dean wasn’t going to use unless there was a goddamn reason to. Thought about another night of staring into the darkness, repeating in his head that Dad was on his way, that any minute he could burst through the door and be all over his ass for the mess the place was, that maybe his little brother’s snoring wasn’t really snoring but a distant engine rumble.
“So what’s the plan?” He asked instead.
***
“Got some pretty big news for you, man. World-altering big.” The tingle of adrenaline surged through his fingers when Dean’s hand closed around the cold grip of the sawed-off. “You’re 63 years past your expiration date.”
Sprite’s eyes locked on the nose of the gun, the inherent cigarette slipping away from his fingers, dragging a thin wisp of smoke with itself. He sucked in a breath, a silent, involuntary appeal, “My Lord.”
Dean scrubbed the back of his skull with his free hand. What had he got himself into? Sweet talking, seriously? Dad would get a stroke from all the laughing. Right after he kicked his ass six ways to Sunday.
“Throw me your smokes.”
“Wha- Why?”
“I got a point to make.”
It didn’t seem to resolve any confusion, but obediently, Sprite fished out the pack and swung it at Dean. Halfway across the boxcar it dissipated into a blurry fog and then disappeared completely.
“Holy-“
“Now check your pocket.” Dean sighed at Sprite’s questioning look, “Just go ahead and fuckin’ do it.”
It was pure terror that contorted Sprite’s face when he stared at the pack of cigarettes sitting in his trembling palm, his gaze closed in on that single decrepit object like it was a threat that he had just seen for the first time and recognized for what it was.
“You’re dead,” Dean nodded to no one in particular. “But I think you already know that. You died in 1938, exactly 63 years ago. Some kind of fight, you got thrown out of the train, right before the state border. At first I thought that was what’s keeping you here, vengeance.”
Sprite’s eyes were still fixed on the pack and Dean thought that he should’ve just blasted the guy’s, the thing’s ass with rock salt. Seemed much kinder than this.
“Derailments started only three years ago, that’s why it took so long for anybody to realize-“
“Derailments?” The word was small, haunted.
Dean nodded reluctantly, “Yeah. Three of them actually.”
“Jesus.” Sprite finally lifted his gaze, and it was heavy with the realization. He was silent for some time. “What now?”
Dean shrugged, “Not much choice you got there, dude. You’re not gonna make it to California, time you got off this train.”
“Got off?”
“Yeah, you know, this whole accept-shit-and-move-on thing. On the bright side, it’s been 63 years, that chick of yours is either dead or not that far from the edge, some unearthly getting laid might be involved.”
Sprite’s mouth twisted a notch, a sad shadow of a smile crossing his features. “Small blessings, huh?”
“Taking into account your dick ensured you a first class ticket to ghostville, I’d say not so small after all.”
“Love, man,” Sprite gave him a crooked grin. “Not dick, love. One day you might even see the difference.” He stood up, dusted off his trousers with a single swipe of hands, expression desolate but set. “Hope the ol’ road leads you somewhere good. So long, Dean.”
He looked at Sprite as he stepped out of the boxcar. He still looked even when there was nothing but the red raw land to look at anymore.
***
“How’s this freak even gonna find it?” Dean hollered over the noise, jumping from the steps leading inside the train and moving back towards Sammy .
The machine had already started to tumble away, together with the medallion tied neatly by its chain to the door handle.
“He doesn’t have to.”
“What?”
“He doesn’t have to.”
The last wagon passed them by; they gazed after it for a while.
“I thought you said you wanted to give it back.” Dean said finally when the train became nothing more than a hazy stain on the reddening sky.
“Yeah, but you know, so that somebody else can find it. Like I did,” Sam looked up at Dean and smiled with satisfaction. “I figured it’s enough if St Christopher sees me giving it back, then he can take care of the rest. And where else is he supposed to be if not on a train?”
“You calculated a pee break into this, right?”
Sam’s flustered expression was all the answer he needed. And all the spur.
“’Cause you know, l’d hate the guy to miss it just ‘cause he got shitty timing and a small bladder.”
The penny finally dropped and Sam’s death-promising glare made Dean let out the chuckle he’d been holding back.
“You’re such a jerk!” Sam said, but there was no heart behind it, and when Dean looked at him, the little prick still actually looked kind of smug about himself. Dean snorted, not without affection.
They were quiet for some time, neither too eager to leave even though the task seemed to have been completed.
“Dean?” There was something wistful to Sam’s tone, a note Dean had never really liked.
He groaned, “Yeah?”
“When’s Dad coming back?”
Well now, there it was, the million dollar question. Ding, ding, ding! Straight in the bull’s eye Sammy. “Soon.”
His brother looked ruefully towards where the train had disappeared a good while ago. It was a moment before he opened his mouth again, and when he did the words that followed sounded small and uncertain and lined with just a barely audible hint of shame.
“I don’t really like travelling all that much.”
It wasn’t even a complaint, more like stating a fact. But accepting its existence and the actual admission had never been on the same page in Dean’s book. It was a spell, one that breathed a shape into something remote and tacit, and anchored it in reality. He looked at his brother, only to be met by a despondent look on his face. It made something in him cave in just a little.
“I know,” he nodded, voice little above a whisper.
Travelling was a pretty broad term in their lives.
They sat on the platform some more, until the sun sank completely below the horizon and the wind picked up, making them shiver in their sweat-soaked clothes. Dean imagined the silent clink clink of the silver bouncing against the metal, striking the rhythm of the huge machine roaring away. And maybe also of another, smaller one, heading in the exact opposite direction. He really wanted to think it was true.
***
It had been three months since Sam had gone to California and a little over twenty miles from Santa Clara to Palo Alto seemed as far as from whatever state Dean had been to during that time. He breathed in the prickling smell of smoke, watched the flames lick the bones and charcoal slowly eat the milky hue. Sam had made his choice and Dean thought that maybe he understood, it just didn’t change anything; he would hunt, eat, fuck, and count the miles to Stanford, a fucking datum point that was alighted in his mind and ticked whenever he lay in dark and waited for sleep to come. He vaguely realized it had always been there, counting had just never involved miles before.
It was dawn when the fire died out, air crispy and lit red with the first bashful rays of sun. He headed back east, his steps sounding hollow under the brightening California sky.
Author: judith_88_g
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Genre: Gen
Characters: Dean, Sam, OC
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 4,400
Disclaimer: Not mine, Santa's that mean.
Summary: Set in Stanford!era, with flashbacks to the summer of 1991. Dean train-hops.
A/N: Based on the prompt at hoodie-time that can be found here. Slapped around by the very lovely, fastidious sailoreyes67 and always helpful spangielka, massive thank-yous flying your way, ladies. All remaining mistakes are of course all mine.
What’s your road, man?- holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road.
It’s an anywhere road for anybody anyhow.
~Dean Moriarty to Sal Paradise in “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac
Dean scrunched up his eyes at the low hanging sun and looked down the tracks for the hundredth time. It had been over two hours. Two hours of lounging on his ass in the searing Arizona sun and staring at the point where the bleached sky touched the railroads. It would be much less frustrating if there were any timetables to rely on. He was vaguely tempted to put his ear down to the ground and listen for distant vibrations and the characteristic clickity clack of an advancing freight train. It seemed to do the trick just fine in movies, but somehow Dean had a feeling that it had very little to do with the truth. Movies were easy like that. Reality on the other hand, had a callous habit of proving that if something sounded too effortless to work, it usually was.
Dean dragged a hand through his sweat-soaked hair and flashed his eyes towards the other end of the tracks disappearing in the West. His fingers heedlessly ghosted over the key pad in his pocket. One phone call, that was all it would take to finish the job, one phone call. One phone call and a little over twenty miles up the U.S. 101 from Palo Alto to Santa Clara where the bones had been buried. It used to be so obvious, natural as breathing, and if somebody had told him before that the very thought of calling his brother would cut this deep, Dean would laugh and laugh at the absurdity. He still somehow couldn’t believe it, it was so fucking surreal.
How the hell had it come to this?
***
Dean trod ferociously down the dusty street, a steady stream of curses, half of whose meaning he only vaguely suspected, falling from his mouth. The heat seemed to crawl over him, his T-shirt plastered to his sweaty chest and the dry hot air prickling his nostrils abrasively. Wherever he was, Sammy had better be weeping over his sorry ass, because if he wasn’t already, Dean sure as hell was going to make him.
The weight of the gun felt odd in his pocket. Dad always said he was not to touch it unless there was an immediate danger to him or Sammy; Dean figured that the little squirt going missing could easily count as such. Besides, Dad had also said that he wouldn’t be longer than three days and that deadline had skidded to a soundless crash yesterday. He tightened his grip around the handle, imagined what it would feel like to pull it out and shoot something other than an array of bottles and partly squashed cans. Tiny droplets of sweat were trickling down his face, persistent and abrading in a way that a mosquito buzzing could get at night. He didn’t wipe them away; his hands seemed too heavy and gawky and jelled.
When he finally reached his destination, the station was deserted apart from one familiar, slight figure facing the railroad tracks, scrawny legs wrapped in the used-to-be Dean’s cut-off jeans dangling freely from the platform. The sight flooded him with a strange, debilitating warmth. In a flash though, it was gone, washed away by boiling anger.
“What part of stay in the fucking room didn’t you get, you little shit?”
Sam’s head snapped back and his eyes seemed ridiculously huge in his eight-year-old face.
“Dean!” He squawked, his voice a mixture of surprise and fear.
Dean lunged towards his brother and in an instant Sam was standing on his own two feet, expression that of a deer caught in the headlights. The sight had an uncanny effect of stopping Dean in place. It wasn’t exactly surprising, his brother’s reaction. Or unjustified for that matter. And maybe that was the thing that had done it; the fight evaporated and, though he tried, Dean couldn’t get hold of more than just its whisper-thin shadow.
“I told you to stay,” he gritted out and suddenly, there was tightness in his throat. Four days. Four fucking days. He tried to swallow it down.
“Dean?” The word sounded small and uncertain.
Dean kicked the pebbles at his feet, watched them scatter away.
“You can’t do that kinda shit,” he said advancing a few steps and jabbing a finger against Sam’s chest. Not you too. One person’s plenty enough.
Sam stared back at him with those huge eyes and for a moment Dean wasn’t sure whether his brother was about to bolt or cry. In the end he did neither, just nodded. “Okay.”
***
The low rumble of the train cut through the stale air eventually and Dean could swear it was the sweetest sound he’d heard in a while. Climbing to a stand, he threw the straps of his duffel bag securely over one shoulder and strutted closer to the railroad crossing. The street wasn’t terribly busy which meant not so many eyes witnessing the stunt he was about to make. Which was good. As long as he didn’t need anybody to call an ambulance. He just hoped he wouldn’t lose any limbs in the process.
The roaring grew gradually and was shortly followed by the huge machine bursting into view, its size combined with speed making Dean reconsider what had earlier seemed like a very neat strategy of avoiding yard-bulls. He pulled on the leather gloves and tried to think of a possibly least-bloody way of hopping onto the thing.
The train started to slow down. First wagons cruised by, stirring up a small breeze which flounced pleasantly against his face. Then, there it was, an open boxcar. It felt like a nod from the Universe, a treat rare enough in Dean’s world that his first instinct told him to run in the opposite direction. He shook it off, ran up and leaped, putting into the jump all the strength he could muster.
***
“Why’s mine not working?” Sam whined miserably, wiped his mouth with the heel of his palm pulling a disgusted face. “Yours’s all together and joined and mine’s like a sprinkle.”
They were sitting on the platform, casting long irregular shadows over the tracks as the sun grazed their backs assiduously on its way down somewhere below the horizon.
“Man,” Dean gave his brother an assessing look, made a dramatic gesture of shaking his head. “You’re so lame that it takes all the fun outta winning. Stand up.”
“What?”
Dean sprang to his feet himself. “Come on you little monkey pants. Up and at ‘em.”
Sam looked up at Dean with a smidge of confusion but followed suit.
“It’s a matter of the right technique. Knowledge and skill, Sammy-boy. Here,” Dean said in all earnest. “Gather as much of the thing as you can, move it to the front, and then purse your lips and blow. Just remember not to open your mouth too much, ‘s what screws up the range.”
To demonstrate, he hocked, waggled his mouth a little, and then sent a cord of spittle as far as he could.
“Whoa! You see that?” Dean exclaimed in amazement when the glob had landed over the tracks. “It’s gotta be some sort of record!”
Sam grinned, his wide eyes making something warm nestle around Dean’s chest.
“Okay, Sammy, your turn.”
His brother’s brow furrowed, he looked as if he was mentally cataloguing and revising everything step by step. Then his spine bent a little and as it shot forward he spat forcefully ahead. His head immediately turned towards Dean, all broad smile and expectant gaze.
“Not so bad for a pansy little booger eater,” Dean beamed, nodded, “not so bad at all.”
***
He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his balance the moment his feet hit the floor of the boxcar with a hollow thud. Dean rolled on his side and crashed head-first into something solid, the blow painting constellations of annoyingly vibrant stars behind his closed lids.
“Sheeit! Hey fella, you okay?”
Dean’s head shot upwards, only a fraction before his fingers wove around the ivory handle resting comfortingly against his lower back. The wave of nausea hit him hard and he fought to swallow down the coppery taste crawling down his tongue. Straightening up his upper body Dean flicked his eyes to the owner of the voice; judging by his shabby clothes and general defiance of hygiene he was no newbie here. Dean didn’t draw the gun, but didn’t lose the touch of the cold metal either.
“For a minute there I thought your brain gonna spill out,” the guy whistled with something that sounded partly like admiration and partly like disgust. He scrunched up his nose, “Man, I hear that thin’ stink like a sonuvabitch.”
The guy was sitting next to the open door, tucked in the shadow, with his back against the wall of the boxcar and arms resting loosely on the bent knees, a combination of interest and amusement jostling in his young features. He took a drag on his cigarette, tilted his head backwards and puffed out a cloud of smoke floating above himself.
“So they say,” Dean muttered flintily, unable to bleach the sudden memory of the mushy, yellowish matter violently separated from the skull with a gunshot. If it reeked, Dean couldn’t quite recall. He knew though, that while smothered on the face of a raging, long-dead lunatic, the shit made a hell of an impression.
Dean unloaded the duffel from his shoulder, made a cursory motion to unzip it just enough to get easy access to its insides. He reached to the back of his head, winced when his leather wrapped fingers came back bloody.
The guy jutted his chin in Dean’s general direction, “Banged your head pretty good, eh?”
Banged yours even worse. “No brain spilling danger. That baby stays right in,” the triumph in his voice was only half counterfeited.
The guy smirked, exhaled another portion of gray smoke through his nose. “Lord’s blessings, gotta take ‘em where ya can get ‘em. The ol’ man ain’t too generous these days. I’m Sonny, but folks call me Sprite.”
“Dean.”
Sprite flicked the bum of his cigarette through the door and motioned with his beat-up pack, shrugged when Dean shook his head and fished out another rolled-up smoke for himself.
“You’re a ramblin’ man, Dean, I can tell,” he said, cupping the cigarette with his hand while trying to light it up with a match. His gaze leveled with Dean’s. “I seen you guys before, the road, she just flicker in your eyes.”
Dean cocked an eyebrow in mild amusement, “Flicker, huh?”
“Oh, you can laugh all you want but I can tell alright,” Sprite wasn’t at all taken aback, an earnest smile twisting his face. “Everybody got a thing and if you see it enough times, you learn to recognize the look.”
“What’s yours then?”
Sprite gave him the smuggest meaningful evil eye Dean had seen in a while, “Man, I’m a lover boy.”
***
Dean flung a pebble at a distant pylon, couldn’t help a smile when the metallic clatter announced that the projectile had hit its target. Four out of six.
“Dean?”
“What now, you little dipshit?”
“Dad says you can’t call me that!”
Well, Dad says a lot of things, don’t he? “As you wish, pansy ass.”
“Dean!”
Another pebble, a miss this time.
“Dean?”
Jesus H. Christ. “Yeah?”
Sam dug a finger into a hole in his jeans and when he spoke again his voice sounded frail. “You think Dad would be mad that we’re here?”
Dean thought about Dad telling him not to bum around the town, imagined him coming back to an empty motel room and not finding them there. Yeah, he would burst a freaking blood vessel. Hell, he’d probably make him run laps chained to the Impala’s rear bumper. Dean realized he wouldn’t mind, he really, really wouldn’t.
“I’d say ice-creams are outta the question, Sammy.”
Sam dipped his chin.“I didn’t want to get us in trouble,” he muttered guiltily into his lap.
Dean took in the utter misery that his brother seemed to be right now. He sighed, waved his hand flippantly, “Nah, don’t worry about it-“
-he’s not gonna find out.
The words almost slipped from his lips, he caught them just in time. He didn’t mean them, not in that way, but the very thought still struck him with white terror.
He swallowed, trying to work the spit around the lump in his throat, punched Sam in the shoulder, harder than he’d intended.
“Just for the record - next time you pull one like this? I’ll cuff you to a pipe. Where there’s no way you could reach the can.”
Sam massaged his shoulder and pouted in the ultimate I-will-never-speak-to-you-again manner only an eight year old could consider anywhere near dire.
***
“She’s the cutest little thin’ you ever seen, I tell ya. With the dewy gold skin and the smile that strike you right into your very soul.”
Dean brushed his finger against the map stretched on the dusty floor of the boxcar. He peered outside and checked the time - not yet. His gaze roamed from where he’d marked red the route of the short train line and drawn a prominent cross a few miles before the narrow blue line of the Colorado river to the part where it always roamed these days; the roads he had never driven through wound around the San Francisco Bay all too familiar. He didn’t need a map to picture them in his head anymore.
“Gonna be pickin’ them grapes on her folks’ farm. I ain’t told ‘er that yet, but I’m gonna save us the money - I got some already - buy a small stretch a land. She said there’s nothing like sittin’ on the porch and watchin’ the day go down. She said that I gotta see it, that there’s nothin’ like the California sun. I swear, I don’t even know what she sees in a bum like me.”
Dean folded the map and stuck it back into the duffel. Climbing to his feet, he inched towards the open door and slumped down next to it, squinted against the blow of air. “Sounds like you got it all covered.”
Sprite gave him a lopsided what-can-you-do smile, he shrugged, “I told you I never been one for the road. And that gal, she’s somethin’ else, you know? Somethin’ special.”
The corners of Dean’s lips quirked down in acknowledgement, he nodded at the passing-by red land outlined by the gray summits looming in the distance, didn’t say anything.
“So what’s in there for you, huh? ‘Sides the California sun?”
Dean sighed, suddenly feeling achingly weary of all the tiptoeing he and Dad excelled in so much.
“My brother,” he said before he could think better of it, the words as heavy as lead. He shook his head, huffed out a humorless laugh, “I guess he never felt one for the road either.”
Sprite pursed his lips, lifted the cigarette to his mouth. “And what about you? You ever think a staying in one place long enough to call it home? Find a woman, have a buncha sprouts runnin’ around?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” Dean sighed. It was muddy ground, this conversation, but he couldn’t really find it in himself to lie. It didn’t matter anyway; he swept his eyes over the changing view, it was almost time. “But it’s just a thought, I honestly don’t think I would be any good at it.”
“Man,” Sprite drawled, shaking his head. “This?” He waved a hand around the boxcar disbelievingly, but he was also smiling a friendly smile that Dean was surprised to find reflected in his own face. “This is pretty fucked-up.”
Dean gave him a what-can-you-do shrug of his own, “You said it yourself, seems like just my thing.”
***
“So what’s the deal with this station, huh?”
Sam darted his gaze towards him, but didn’t answer. Dean drew up closer so that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder.
“Oh, come on,” he drawled, nudged his brother slightly with a knee. “I know there’s something going on, I can practically see the steam coming outta your ears.”
Sam went back to contemplating the hole in his jeans, picking at the loose threads of denim with a meticulously executed vengeance. When he finally answered his voice sounded uncertain. “You’ll laugh.”
“As if that stopped you before.”
The silence lasted all of thirty seconds and Dean had to give it to the little assmonkey that it was longer than he would have bet on.
“You think that something can exist even though we can’t understand it?”
Dean dragged his hand up and down his scalp, Sammy and his weirdo questions. “Well, I don’t understand your blabbering half the time, so go figure.”
“No,” Sam shook his head adamantly. “I mean, things that are not really… normal.”
Dean froze.
“Like, you know,” Sam continued, “Pastor Jim says God’s watching over us. So maybe, other things are as well.”
Oh crap. “What things?” Dean asked in a forced voice, a tingle of scare crawling down his back. He started to regret asking.
“Look,” Sam stuck his hand into his pocket and when it emerged, something silver was hanging from it. “This is St Christopher,” he said proudly, showing Dean the large medallion with an engraved figure of a bearded man. “I checked.”
Dean didn’t know what to do with that information. He blinked, studied the thing for a second. “Where’d you get this from?”
“I found it. And you know what he does?” Sam asked eagerly, too excited to wait for the answer. “He’s the patron of travelers! Like Dad. Like us!”
Dean raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Man, dude’s wearing a dress.”
“Don’t you get it?” Sam demanded, frustration vying with impatience in his voice. “Maybe I was supposed to find it!”
Dean started to shake his head, but Sam was on a roll, definitely not in a state to pay any attention.
“At first I wanted to give it to Dad so that he’s safe when he’s not with us. But since I found it, it’s not really mine and it wouldn’t have been a real gift. But I figured if I gave it back maybe St Christopher will watch over us anyway. I mean, it doesn’t hurt to try, right?”
Dean was about to point out that some creepy dude in a dress watching over them didn’t strike him as particularly tempting. ‘Cause if he really did exist, Dad would salt and burn his ass for the effort, thank you very much. But then he thought about going back to their empty motel room, thought about the emergency numbers that Dad had drilled into his head and Dean wasn’t going to use unless there was a goddamn reason to. Thought about another night of staring into the darkness, repeating in his head that Dad was on his way, that any minute he could burst through the door and be all over his ass for the mess the place was, that maybe his little brother’s snoring wasn’t really snoring but a distant engine rumble.
“So what’s the plan?” He asked instead.
***
“Got some pretty big news for you, man. World-altering big.” The tingle of adrenaline surged through his fingers when Dean’s hand closed around the cold grip of the sawed-off. “You’re 63 years past your expiration date.”
Sprite’s eyes locked on the nose of the gun, the inherent cigarette slipping away from his fingers, dragging a thin wisp of smoke with itself. He sucked in a breath, a silent, involuntary appeal, “My Lord.”
Dean scrubbed the back of his skull with his free hand. What had he got himself into? Sweet talking, seriously? Dad would get a stroke from all the laughing. Right after he kicked his ass six ways to Sunday.
“Throw me your smokes.”
“Wha- Why?”
“I got a point to make.”
It didn’t seem to resolve any confusion, but obediently, Sprite fished out the pack and swung it at Dean. Halfway across the boxcar it dissipated into a blurry fog and then disappeared completely.
“Holy-“
“Now check your pocket.” Dean sighed at Sprite’s questioning look, “Just go ahead and fuckin’ do it.”
It was pure terror that contorted Sprite’s face when he stared at the pack of cigarettes sitting in his trembling palm, his gaze closed in on that single decrepit object like it was a threat that he had just seen for the first time and recognized for what it was.
“You’re dead,” Dean nodded to no one in particular. “But I think you already know that. You died in 1938, exactly 63 years ago. Some kind of fight, you got thrown out of the train, right before the state border. At first I thought that was what’s keeping you here, vengeance.”
Sprite’s eyes were still fixed on the pack and Dean thought that he should’ve just blasted the guy’s, the thing’s ass with rock salt. Seemed much kinder than this.
“Derailments started only three years ago, that’s why it took so long for anybody to realize-“
“Derailments?” The word was small, haunted.
Dean nodded reluctantly, “Yeah. Three of them actually.”
“Jesus.” Sprite finally lifted his gaze, and it was heavy with the realization. He was silent for some time. “What now?”
Dean shrugged, “Not much choice you got there, dude. You’re not gonna make it to California, time you got off this train.”
“Got off?”
“Yeah, you know, this whole accept-shit-and-move-on thing. On the bright side, it’s been 63 years, that chick of yours is either dead or not that far from the edge, some unearthly getting laid might be involved.”
Sprite’s mouth twisted a notch, a sad shadow of a smile crossing his features. “Small blessings, huh?”
“Taking into account your dick ensured you a first class ticket to ghostville, I’d say not so small after all.”
“Love, man,” Sprite gave him a crooked grin. “Not dick, love. One day you might even see the difference.” He stood up, dusted off his trousers with a single swipe of hands, expression desolate but set. “Hope the ol’ road leads you somewhere good. So long, Dean.”
He looked at Sprite as he stepped out of the boxcar. He still looked even when there was nothing but the red raw land to look at anymore.
***
“How’s this freak even gonna find it?” Dean hollered over the noise, jumping from the steps leading inside the train and moving back towards Sammy .
The machine had already started to tumble away, together with the medallion tied neatly by its chain to the door handle.
“He doesn’t have to.”
“What?”
“He doesn’t have to.”
The last wagon passed them by; they gazed after it for a while.
“I thought you said you wanted to give it back.” Dean said finally when the train became nothing more than a hazy stain on the reddening sky.
“Yeah, but you know, so that somebody else can find it. Like I did,” Sam looked up at Dean and smiled with satisfaction. “I figured it’s enough if St Christopher sees me giving it back, then he can take care of the rest. And where else is he supposed to be if not on a train?”
“You calculated a pee break into this, right?”
Sam’s flustered expression was all the answer he needed. And all the spur.
“’Cause you know, l’d hate the guy to miss it just ‘cause he got shitty timing and a small bladder.”
The penny finally dropped and Sam’s death-promising glare made Dean let out the chuckle he’d been holding back.
“You’re such a jerk!” Sam said, but there was no heart behind it, and when Dean looked at him, the little prick still actually looked kind of smug about himself. Dean snorted, not without affection.
They were quiet for some time, neither too eager to leave even though the task seemed to have been completed.
“Dean?” There was something wistful to Sam’s tone, a note Dean had never really liked.
He groaned, “Yeah?”
“When’s Dad coming back?”
Well now, there it was, the million dollar question. Ding, ding, ding! Straight in the bull’s eye Sammy. “Soon.”
His brother looked ruefully towards where the train had disappeared a good while ago. It was a moment before he opened his mouth again, and when he did the words that followed sounded small and uncertain and lined with just a barely audible hint of shame.
“I don’t really like travelling all that much.”
It wasn’t even a complaint, more like stating a fact. But accepting its existence and the actual admission had never been on the same page in Dean’s book. It was a spell, one that breathed a shape into something remote and tacit, and anchored it in reality. He looked at his brother, only to be met by a despondent look on his face. It made something in him cave in just a little.
“I know,” he nodded, voice little above a whisper.
Travelling was a pretty broad term in their lives.
They sat on the platform some more, until the sun sank completely below the horizon and the wind picked up, making them shiver in their sweat-soaked clothes. Dean imagined the silent clink clink of the silver bouncing against the metal, striking the rhythm of the huge machine roaring away. And maybe also of another, smaller one, heading in the exact opposite direction. He really wanted to think it was true.
***
It had been three months since Sam had gone to California and a little over twenty miles from Santa Clara to Palo Alto seemed as far as from whatever state Dean had been to during that time. He breathed in the prickling smell of smoke, watched the flames lick the bones and charcoal slowly eat the milky hue. Sam had made his choice and Dean thought that maybe he understood, it just didn’t change anything; he would hunt, eat, fuck, and count the miles to Stanford, a fucking datum point that was alighted in his mind and ticked whenever he lay in dark and waited for sleep to come. He vaguely realized it had always been there, counting had just never involved miles before.
It was dawn when the fire died out, air crispy and lit red with the first bashful rays of sun. He headed back east, his steps sounding hollow under the brightening California sky.