Gidget Goes to Hell
Characters: Sam, Dean [Supernatural]
Date Written: December 22, 2008-September 13, 2009
They've been hanging around in Seattle for a couple of weeks with no hunt and it's starting to drive Dean insane. As much as he likes his freedom, having nothing to do, no destination, gets boring after awhile and there's only so many times a man can clean his guns when they're not even getting any use. Sam though, Sam is in his element. He goes down to Pike's Market every morning and comes back with armfuls of produce and two coffees. The scent of the coffee is usually what wakes Dean up and he stumbles into the little kitchenette of the furnished basement apartment they managed to lease with extra cash and a smile. The furniture is from the '70s and there's a homeless dude that thinks their steps are a urinal but it's no worse than any other place their dad dropped them off in when they were kids.
Still, the end of the month is coming up and the landlord, no matter how shady, is going to either expect cash or their asses out of his place. Dean hasn't check their finances in awhile (a.k.a. the wads of cash he keeps stashed all over and the nearest P.O. Box) but money is always a problem. Always has been, always will be with the way they live their lives. He's let Sam's Starbucks habit and the trips to the market slide because getting smiles and home-cooked meals is better than Sam brooding in some corner.
Besides, it's prime, grade-A teasing material.
"Alright, Suzie Homemaker, we gotta start thinking about getting out of here," Dean says through a yawn as Sam hands him a cup of coffee.
Sam pulls the coffee away and holds it out of reach. "What was that?"
Dean stares longingly at the coffee and sighs. "C'mon, Sammy."
"Whatever." Sam rolls his eyes and shoves the cup into Dean's hands. It sloshes up over the lid and scalds Dean's hand.
"Fuck!" He shakes his hand in the air while Sam smirks at him. "Bitch."
"Jerk," Sam replies without heat, his lips quirking up into a tiny smile.
Later that night, Dean goes down to hustle pool at some college bar, which has pretty much been their only source of income lately. Sometimes Sam goes out and comes back with cash and Dean figures he's been running a short con of his own. Only when he stops into a diner on the way home, he finds out his brother's gone legit; he's busing tables.
Dean backs out of there even though he's starving and can't decide whether he wants to laugh his ass off or not. This is getting way too comfortable, way too routine. Job or not, they stay here much longer and Dean's afraid they'll never leave.
Two days before the rent is due, Dean finds something buried on page 14 of the paper that sounds like it's up their alley. By the time Sam comes back from the market, he's got the Impala loaded up. Sam glances at the apartment, the bag of produce he's carrying around his wrist and then back to Dean before he leaves it on the steps, probably for the homeless dude, and gets into the car.
It's not often that hunting takes Sam and Dean to California and Dean can only recall a few times the job ever required being on a beach. Most of the time, that was off-season or in some northern town where it was never exactly bikini weather; now they're in Malibu, in the summer, and he's surrounded by beautiful, half-clothed women. It's enough to make him want to drop to his knees in thanks. He would too, if Sam would stop glaring at him as though checking out chicks over the top of his sunglasses is illegal or something.
"Dude, pass me a beer," Dean says as he snaps his fingers at Sam, never taking his eyes of the blonde babe playing Frisbee in front of him.
"You do realize we're here to work, right?" Sam sighs loudly, but slaps the bottle into his hand anyway.
"Yeah and this ghost likes to attack blondes." Dean turns and raises an eyebrow in the direction of the leggy one in front of them. "Like her."
"Uh, no." Sam shakes his head and then nods in the direction of a tomboyish girl with her dirty blonde hair up in a high ponytail. "More like her."
Dean squints at the girl in question. She's kind of athletic looking yet still feminine in a very barely legal kind of way. Really, she can't be older than eighteen.
"Why her?" Dean muses.
Sam shrugs and then picks up some book he's reading on some obscure subject. Only his brother would find reading to be more interesting than a beach full of gorgeous women. Dean settles further into his rented beach chair and waits for sunset, after which the ghost supposedly strikes.
When Dean opens his eyes, it's dark out, the only light coming from a bonfire further down the beach. He groans and sits up before hitting Sam's arm. His brother is snoring in his chair with the book open on his chest, which is going to make one hell of a funny tan line.
"What the fuck?" Sam mutters as he startles awake.
"We fell asleep and it's past sunset already."
"Oh."
Sam runs a hand over his face and then pulls the EMF reader out of his bag. When he flicks it on, there's nothing but silence. Dean takes it out of Sam's hands and wanders down toward the water with it where the attacks supposedly happen, but there's still nothing.
Dean throws the reader into Sam's lap and then flops down onto the sand. "I've got bupkis."
"Jerk," Sam grumbles. "Guess we just wait it out."
He sets the EMF reader on top of the cooler and then just stares at it. Dean scans the beach looking for anything unusual and doesn't see anything. Unless you count the two chicks in the retro bikinis at the edge of the bonfire pointing at them and giggling behind their hands.
Dean's just about to go introduce himself when Sam grabs his arm. "Dean, does anything about this seem weird to you?"
"Other than you and your grabby hands? No."
Dean follows Sam's line of sight over to the bonfire. That's when he notices that all the girls are wearing retro stuff, the guys too, and the music is coming from a dude strumming a guitar and singing something about surfing.
"Yeah, they're having some kind of theme party. So?" Dean slaps Sam's hand away.
"It's not a theme party." Sam points at the parking lot where the Impala is sitting in a sea of cars from the '50s, and even an old Ford truck from the '30s. Dean's car is the only one built after 1960 as far as he can tell. He stands up and looks to the road where all of the cars are giant, pastel boats.
"Fuck me," he swears softly.
"You're telling me," Sam mutters.
They figure out pretty quickly that their credit cards, and probably most of their cash, are going to be useless here. Even if there is no such thing as an electronic credit card reader, someone is going to notice all the expiration dates are for the next century. So they pack up and sleep in the car, Dean with the passenger seat reclined back and Sam lying across the back seat, his ankles under Dean's headrest.
Hours later they're woken up by someone tapping on the driver's side window. Dean groans and turns his head toward Sam. "You get it, honey."
"Fuck off," Sam mutters, but sits up and rolls down the window.
Two girls are standing there in matching yellow bikinis and brown hair up in high ponytails. They squeal when Sam sticks his head out the window.
"Sandy, it's him! It's really him!" the shorter of the two exclaims and nudges her friend.
"Is it really you, Big Kahuna?" the taller one asks breathlessly.
Dean snorts and they glare at him before looking back to Sam. Sam looks helplessly at Dean and then gives the girls a small smile.
"I'm not--"
His protest is cut off when the short one shoves a magazine through the window. "Oh, please, Kahuna, would you sign it for me, would you?"
The cover of the magazine features a guy who looks startlingly like Sam. If Sam ever cut his hair or knew how to surf since the guy is holding a board in the picture. The tall one produces a pen from somewhere and Sam scrawls something across the picture and hands it back.
Both girls sigh as though Sam had asked for their hand in marriage and then run off to a pack of girls who look just like them, giggling all the way. The whole lot of them turn and wave at Sam and their chorus of hellos reaches all the way to their car.
"Okay, now what, Big Kahuna?" Dean smirks.
"Shut up," Sam mutters. "What was I supposed to do? Tell them I'm a time traveler from the next century?"
"Might be a bit more believable than you on a surfboard, just saying," Dean laughs.
They change in the little tents set up for that purpose and then walk toward a strip of shops next to the beach. Sam digs a quarter out of his pocket with the old design on it instead of the ones featuring the states and buys a newspaper. They both blink when they get twenty cents back in change.
The twenty cents goes toward some coffee in a little diner while they go through the paper together. It's August 19, 1959. Eisenhower is President, Alaska just became the 49th State, and Hawaii is becoming the 50th in a few days. Other than that, there's nothing they can figure out from the paper that will help them.
"Well, this is seriously fucked up," Dean says as he closes the sports section where the Dodgers have only been in LA for one year and the Daytona 500 was run for the first time in February and the paper is still going on about it.
Pretty much everyone in the place turns to glare at Dean or stare at him in open-mouthed shock. Sam coughs and Dean shrugs.
"Yeah, so, you might want to watch your language," Sam murmurs with one eye on the burly guy behind the counter.
"Like they haven't heard it before," Dean says dismissively.
"Dean, it's 1959. Elvis swiveling his hips and bikinis are major controversies. And some towns still hang people in the public square, so I'd watch it if I were you."
Dean crosses his arms over his chest and slumps in his seat. "Fine, whatever."
Every other girl they talk to on the beach is named Sandy, Margaret, Anne, Mary or some combination of the above. They all have bangs and wear their hair up in pony tails and think red lipstick is trashy. Actually, they think Dean is trashy and most of them won't even talk to him.
After his twentieth brush-off of the day, Dean stalks over to Sam, who is surrounded by a group of the giggling girls. Sam looks uncomfortable and Dean would embarrass the hell out of him if the chicks didn't scatter at the sight of him.
"What the fu-- freakin' hell gives?" Dean grumbles, barely catching himself. "Why won't they talk to me?"
"They think you're a greaser," Sam smirks gleefully.
"Like John Travolta? What's wrong with that?" Dean demands.
"Class division is still pretty prevalent in this era. And girls can get reputations just from looking at a guy so you can see why they wouldn't want to talk to someone who can get them in trouble."
"Trouble?"
"Yeah, like, pregnant. At least I think that's what they mean." Sam shrugs.
"They do realize getting knocked up requires sex, right?" Dean waves his hands in the air, flabbergasted.
"You mean 'going all the way'?" Sam laughs. "Probably not."
Dean throws himself down in the sand next to Sam. "And why do they all have the same name? Jesus, don't these people have any imagination?"
"It's the McCarthy era so I'm pretty sure that's illegal."
"Huh?"
"Did you ever pay attention in class, like, ever?" Sam shakes his head. "You know, the Red Scare? Blacklisting?"
"Right, sure," Dean frowns. "I'm not stupid you know."
Sam gives him the chick-flick face. "I know, Dean."
"So," Dean changes the subject. "What now?"
They wander around town for a bit trying to find any kind of clue as to how they ended up here or how to get back, but only succeed in finding out that pick-pocketing is far too easy and chocolate malts taste kind of weird. Since they keep getting strange looks, Sam drags them into the Woolworth's to buy clothes with some twenties they swiped from a patron in the diner. None of the clothes look remotely comfortable but Dean grabs stuff randomly off the rack and throws it in a dressing room to try on. When he comes out, Sam is hiding behind a stack of sweaters.
"Dude," Dean laughs, "you do realize you're not ten anymore, right?"
Sam grabs his sleeve and pulls him down. "I'm not hiding from you. I'm hiding from these crazy chicks who still think I'm that surfer."
"Aww, is Sammy afraid of the little beach bunnies?" Dean mocks.
"Shut up, man," Sam mumbles.
A second later, Sam's eyes go wide as the girls come closer to their hiding spot. He rolls under another rack while Dean stands up and leans against the sweaters.
"Hey, ladies." He gives them his most charming smile.
They kind of snicker at him, "Gosh, you're such a fream."
"Huh?" That's about all Dean can come up with since he's pretty sure that isn't even a word.
"Let's split, this is totally nowheresville," one of them says before they flounce out of the store.
"Was that even English?" Dean asks the clothes rack he thinks Sam is hiding under.
Dean can't remember the last time he wore dress slacks without it being part of a costume for the job. Maybe Sam's high school graduation or his own or even farther back than that. Now he knows there's a reason he doesn't wear them more often: they fucking itch like hell. Not to mention that there's no give in them and he's not even going to get started on the starched cotton dress shirt Sam made him buy or the loafers. Then again, he didn't have to buy pomade and slick his hair back to fit in like Sam, so score one for him.
"How did James Bond ever kick ass wearing shit like this?" Dean muses as he tries to figure out where to hide the knife he normally straps inside his boot.
"He probably had a special suit made out of like bullet-proof lycra." Sam's voice is muffled as he pulls an undershirt over his head.
"Why couldn't we get stuck in 1982 or something? Then I could've seen Metallica in concert back before they started to suck."
Sam snorts as he pulls on his dress shirt. "There's a reason to travel back in time."
Sleeping in the car gets old pretty quickly. They find a half-built tract of cookie-cutter houses and hunker down in the furnished model for the night. There are twin beds in the master bedroom and everything is all curved and in pastels. Dean keeps expecting Donna Reed to come in and start baking or vacuuming or something in heels like on TV but the only one around is Sam and the last thing Sam needs is to add onto his height.
"We gotta figure out a way to get out of here," Dean says after he searches the kitchen and finds nothing but coffee and a box of stale cookies.
"Maybe it's the Trickster," Sam responds from the living room where he's messing with the rabbit ears on the TV to try and get a signal.
"I fucking hope not 'cause then we'll be stuck here until we learn our lesson or he gets bored or whatever."
Dean flops down on the couch and watches Sam try to get the TV to work. Finally, he gets the local news and slowly backs away with his hands palms out to the set like that will keep it working. He ends of backing right up to the edge of the couch and falls into Dean's lap.
"Dude," Dean grumbles. "Get offa me."
"Nah, I'm good," Sam laughs and shifts to get more comfortable.
"Bitch." Dean shoves at Sam's back.
"Jerk."
Sam slides off Dean to sit next to him on the couch. The big news story of the day is Hawaii becoming a state followed by an earthquake in Yellowstone Park four days ago. It's in black and white and is boring all over.
"What the fuck did these people do for fun?" Dean asks through a yawn.
"Sock hops?" Sam slumps down in his seat. "Or drag races if you believe Grease and James Dean."
"Sock hops?" Dean repeats. "What the fuck is a sock hop?"
"It's a dance. Like prom only you don't wear shoes."
Dean waggles his eyebrows at Sam. "By the end of my prom night, I wasn't wearing shoes. Or much of anything else."
"Ugh," Sam groans. "Did not need to know that."
"What? I could have meant that totally innocently!" Sam shoots Dean a look that clearly states, 'yeah, right.' "Okay so I didn't, but you would not believe how flexible that girl was, I mean--"
Sam waves his hands in surrender. "You're bored. I get it. What do you want me to do about it?"
They end up back at the beach where there's a bonfire and girls who may be dancing or having a seizure, it's hard to tell. The guys are playing touch football or grilling hot dogs or doing other manly shit. It's not Dean's kind of fun, but at least it's not a black and white TV with three stations.
As soon as Sam steps into the glow of the fire, the girls coo and giggle, and the guys give big waves as though he's their friend or something. Sam looks uncomfortable and Dean nudges his shoulder while giving his 'go get 'em, tiger' grin.
A blonde girl slides up to Sam and puts her hand on his shoulder. She's all flirty but in an almost innocent way. Dean gives Sam a discreet thumbs-up and wanders toward a gaggle of brunettes in matching bikinis. Unlike before, they don't seem to mind him being there, but Dean quickly figures out that they think he's their in to "The Big Kahuna." So he starts making up shit just to keep them by his side.
One of them, he thinks her name is Maryanne, but it could be Sandy Anne or Margaret Anne or some other combination of names, keeps touching his arm so Dean focuses all his attention on her. She whispers something in his ear about going to the cove and necking and Dean's so going to take her up on that when Sam grabs his other arm and yanks him to his feet before dragging him out of the firelight.
"What the fuck, Sammy?"
"You can't have sex with her, Dean. Do you have any idea what the repercussions could be?" Sam's voice is almost hysterical and he's waving his arms in circles for what seems like no reason. "You could get her pregnant and destroy the space-time continuum."
"Don't you think you're being a bit overdramatic?" Dean huffs. "How do we know we're even really in 1959?"
"We don't know. So keep your hands to yourself."
Sam stalks off back to the party where he starts chatting up a blonde girl with a flat chest; the only one not wearing a bikini. Dean kicks at the sand and glares in his direction. "Hypocrite."
On the walk back to the tract house, Sam tells him all about the girl. Her name is Sandra Lawrence and she is the only female surfer on this stretch of beach. She hangs out with a bunch of surfer dudes called the Hot Shots and has a massive crush on the one named Bob or Burt or something like that.
"So," Sam says after rambling on for the whole walk. "I think she's the one. The ghost."
"And you base this on what? That she was the only flat-chested blonde there?"
"Yeah, plus she's pregnant."
Dean blinks. "Huh?"
"Okay, so I'm assuming she is based on the location of the slight curve of her belly, her choice of swimsuit and the way she kept biting her lip while resting her hand on her belly while staring at Burt or Bob or whatever."
"Even if she is, what does that have to do with anything?" Dean waves his hand to indicate the tract house they're squatting in. "Why are we here?"
"Like I told you before, getting pregnant without being married is very bad news. Girls got shipped off to give birth so the family wouldn't be shamed and abortions were pretty much unheard of but a lot of girls tried to get back-alley ones or tried to do it themselves. It's pretty much the end of everything and this Sandra girl has ambition. She wants to be a surfer and go to college and have a career."
Dean nods along as he opens the door to the house. "Yeah, but how did she end up dead?"
"I've got a couple of theories. One, she died while trying to get an abortion. Two, the dude that got her pregnant killed her. Three, her family killed her."
Sam follows Dean into the house, shutting the door behind him. He picks up the box of cookies and frowns at it before eating a few of them.
"Well, that's fucking depressing," Dean mutters as he puts the drinks he stole from the bonfire in the fridge.
"Not the best time to be a girl. Or a liberal. Or not white. Or not Christian. Or…"
"I get the point," Dean says as he slaps his hand over Sam's mouth. "Life sucks for everyone except rich, white, Christian dudes."
"Yeah, so I'm thinking we have to tail this girl." Sam jumps up to sit on the counter. "And Burt or Bob."
"I'll take the chick," Dean immediately volunteers.
"Ha," Sam says dryly. "I don't think so. Just because she's already pregnant doesn't mean she needs to get an STD."
Dean clutches his stomach. "Low blow, dude."
Sam flips him off. "She lives on Maple and he lives on Oak according to one of the other surfers. Both only a few blocks from here, so let's get going."
No one ever says anything about stake-outs being boring, but they are. Very, very boring. Dean fights back a yawn as he watches Burt/Bob watch TV with his parents. When the parents go to bed, Dean figures so will the dude, but he doesn't; instead, he slips out the back door and cuts through a few backyards. Dean follows behind him and watches as he climbs a trellis up to a small terrace.
"Very Romeo and Juliet," Dean mutters, knowing that Sam is two bushes over.
"With the dying even," Sam whispers back.
A few minutes later, Romeo climbs back down and takes off running. Dean shrugs at Sam and then climbs up himself. Sandra is sitting on her bed crying into a raggedy teddy bear.
"Yeah, so she's still alive," Dean says as he jumps back down. "I'm starving. Let's go get something to eat."
Sam shakes his head as they make their way back to the house they're squatting in. "Dude, we don't have any money left and even if we did, everything is probably closed."
"Fuck this time traveling shit, man."
The locks on the corner grocery store are ridiculously easy to pick and there's no alarm system or cameras, not even a dog. Dean pops open the cash register and skims off the top, leaving enough so it'll take awhile for someone to notice in the morning. He waves the bills at Sam before grabbing a cart.
"Haven't done this in awhile."
Sam tosses cans of soup into the cart. "What, rob a grocery store?"
"Fuck you, Sammy. I meant grocery shopping. Think the last time was right before you left."
"Dean…" Sam trails off because it's still a sore subject for both of them.
"Nah, it's alright." Dean shrugs. "Stole more often than shopped. Dad would take off and leave me with twenty bucks to get by on half the time. Remember that winter in Utica?"
"Kinda hard to forget," Sam mutters as he examines two boxes of cereal.
"Dad forgot to pay the gas bill and it got so cold that we were wandering around in every stitch of clothing we owned to keep warm. It was one of those times we just had the one bed and you refused to get out of it, even to go to school, and so I just let you sleep the day away there with me."
"How can you sound like that's such a found memory for you?" Sam grits out and throws both boxes into the cart.
Dean grabs his arm. "You know I love Dad. But those times it was you and me? Some of the best times I ever had."
Sam shuffles his feet like he's uncomfortable but doesn't shrug Dean's hand off. "Yeah, for me too."
"Look!" Dean picks up a can off the shelf and grins triumphantly. "Spam!"
"We can take anything we want out of here and you pick meat in a can?"
For a moment, Dean stares at the can. He's never really had much a choice when it comes to food, just cheap and cheaper. When they were kids, all they ever ate was stuff that came out of a can. Or a box. Store-brand spaghetti, soup, beans and sometimes if they were lucky they could afford brand-name cereal or something. Then there was the diner food which wasn't all that much better half the time.
"You're right." Dean puts the tin back on the shelf. "What aisle you think the caviar's in?"
Sam raises his eyebrow. "Dean, do you know what caviar really is?"
"Of course," Dean scoffs, but then puts the Spam in the cart anyway.
Back at the ranch house, Sam puts the groceries away while Dean kicks back on the couch with a beer. It's like Seattle all over again only less entertaining. Dean's skin is itching with the need to do something, anything. So he gets up and hovers behind Sam.
"You could be useful and help me cook," Sam suggests without turning around.
Dean grabs a carrot and holds it up like a knife. "I can totally Iron Chef this bitch."
"Or you can peel it." Sam hands him a peeler and points to the sink.
After two minutes, Dean hands Sam back a carrot that looks like it was attacked by a vampire or maybe a werewolf. When Sam frowns, Dean pouts a little. "What? Dude, it's harder than it looks."
Sam makes an executive decision and sends Dean off to check on Romeo and Juliet.
Hoping to move things along, Dean climbs the trellis outside Nancy's window since Sid is decimating a meatloaf and doesn't look like he's going anywhere anytime soon. Through the curtains he can see Nancy's on the phone with someone. She's on her stomach, swinging her legs in the air while she twirls one of her blonde locks. Dean shifts a bit and he can just make out the conversation.
"What would you do Mary Lou?" Pause. "I can't believe you'd even suggest that." Pause. "Well Peggy is… is… fast." Pause. "Maybe we can just get married." Pause. "It's the right thing to do."
The bedroom door opens and a woman with a mile's worth of blonde hair piled on her head comes tottering in on pink high heels. Sandra Dee quickly hangs up the phone and smiles all bright and fake. Dean can't hear the conversation but neither woman looks happy.
He starts back down the trellis and that's when he hears a high-pitched scream. Someone is shouting, "Gary! Gary! There's a cat burglar outside the window."
"Shit."
Dean jumps down the rest of the way and scrambles toward the back fence. Deep baying follows behind him and he risks a glance over his shoulder to see an enormous mutt chasing after him like he's got a steak tied to his ass. He leaps for the fence and manages to get himself halfway up before the thing is attacking his new shoes. They get lost along with part of his left pant leg as he hurls himself over onto the small strip of grass between the fence and the sidewalk.
After waiting a second to make sure the dog isn't planning on following him, Dean hauls himself to his feet. He's more concerned about Sam mocking him than walking back to the house in bare feet.
Sam cannot stop laughing. "And what kind of dog was it again?"
Dean viciously stabs a piece of potato with his fork and mumbles with his mouth full. "A poodle."
Now Sam is clutching his stomach like he can't breathe. The table is shaking from his laughter. Dean's lips quirk into a small smile even as he kicks Sam's shin.
"Shut up, bitch."
"Jerk." Sam is still laughing while he rubs his leg. "That hurt."
"I lost my shoes. Does that mean I can wear my boots?" Dean asks while chewing bread.
"Say it, don't spray it." Sam wrinkles his nose. "We're going to have to buy new ones. And more clothes."
"I don't plan on being here long enough to need more clothes, Sammy."
Two weeks later they're back at the Woolworth's. A week after that, they almost get caught by the real estate company and move into an apartment over a surf shop where the rent is free as long as Sam makes an appearance downstairs every once in awhile.
"We have got to get the fuck out of here," Dean gripes as they're walking along the shore.
It's a beautiful day out, but then again, every day here has been a beautiful day. Dean is beginning to long for rain and overpriced coffee. Seattle was too trendy, too modern, too hipster, but at least it had character; California is just too perfect. The whole place is starting to make his skin crawl.
"What do you want me to do about it?" Sam snaps back before picking up his pace, leaving Dean behind.
They fight a lot more now with nothing else to do. There are no monsters here other than human ones, and even those are too far in the shadows to find, and they've been in the same town for more than a month. Really, they haven't spent this much time together without a job being involved since before Sam left for college. Other than Seattle and Dean supposes this is kind of a job but they can't seem to wrap it up and there's no where else to go.
Sam is all rough around the edges and uses words like weapons. It's not something new, but it's just there all the time now with nothing to buffer it. Dean knows his personality flaws are coming into stark relief now too; the neediness being at the forefront of them all. He feels weak needing Sam near all the time and that makes him put up his macho front which just pisses Sam off to no end. So Sam wanders off and Dean feels abandoned and they start all over again like a record that skips on the same song.
Part of the problem is that they can't make attachments to anyone other than each other for fear of messing up the future somehow. Sam has all these books he stole from the library stacked up in the kitchen that explain this whole space-time thing. Dean really doesn't think making out with someone is going to destroy the world but that's probably because he hasn't gotten laid since before Seattle, even.
"Think about it, Dean," Sam explains while folding some laundry. "Say it's just making out with some girl or whatever. But because she's too busy with you so she misses out on meeting the guy she's meant to marry. So she doesn't marry him and they don't have kids and so their great-grandkid doesn't exist and therefore doesn't, like, invent a cure for cancer."
"I think you're being overdramatic," Dean mutters as he sinks deeper into the couch cushions, even though he knows that Sam is right.
"I think you're being an asshole." Sam throws a balled up pair of socks at Dean's head. "Help me fold these, lazy."
Sometimes it's like that; they get domestic, like an old married couple, and the fact that it feels so natural scares Dean more than anything. He can see them growing old here like spinster sisters or something. That's usually when he starts cleaning the guns he hasn't had the use for in months.
Meanwhile, nothing remotely interesting happens between Romeo and Juliet. Sure, it becomes more obvious every day that she's pregnant but she's also got an engagement ring on her finger and save the dates sent out. It doesn't seem like they have anything to do with anything, but Dean checks-up on them anyway because there's nothing better for him to do, either.
Dean is following Nancy while she picks out dresses when he notices someone familiar browsing one of the racks. He sneaks up behind the guy, jabbing his gun into his back.
"Nice to see you too, Dean," the guy says as he turns around.
"I knew it had to be you," Dean growls. "Fucking Trickster, get us out of here or I'll kill you."
"Nah." The Trickster holds up a purple dress, examining it. "You haven't learned your lesson yet."
Instead of rushing the Trickster, Dean slams into the rack of dresses and barely holds back a long string of curses. The bastard is gone and Dean's covered in taffeta while girls giggle at him behind their hands. It's humiliating in more ways that one.
"It's the fucking Trickster," Dean announces as soon as he gets inside the apartment.
Sam looks up from some book he's been reading and sighs. "I knew it. Fuck."
"Says we haven't learned out lesson yet. What the fuck kind of lesson are we supposed to be learning here?"
Dean rants and raves and kicks the couch a couple of times. Sam just looks resigned.
"So I tried to drive out of town again today. No luck," Sam finally says when Dean's collapsed on the couch next to him.
"Yeah, well, this obviously has nothing to do with that chick being pregnant," Dean mutters.
"Yeah," Sam agrees and goes back to his book.
After a few minutes, Dean gets up and goes into the bathroom to jerk off. He's got one hand on his dick and two fingers in his mouth because some chick in Vermont introduced him to his prostate and he's not shy about anything that gets him off when he realizes that despite his sexual frustration, he's actually content to be living a quiet life with Sam. It's really fucked up to be thinking about that when he's fingering his ass but nothing in his life has ever been normal.
Sam is down in the shop posing for photos and Dean's trying to fix the leaky faucet in the kitchen when the Trickster shows up again. He's just sitting there on the counter swinging his legs while Dean considers stabbing him with the wrench but sighs instead.
"What?"
"Jerking off while thinking about your brother? Not exactly my thing but whatever works for you."
"Dude!" Dean exclaims. "I wasn't thinking about him like that!"
"Like I said, whatever floats your boat," he shrugs. "Anyway, this is getting kind of boring so…"
Dean blinks and finds himself standing in a kitchen in some house with really ugly yellow walls in the middle of pouring a cup of coffee. He only snaps out of it when it starts to overflow the mug and burn his hand.
"What the fucking fuck?" he swears, shaking the liquid off his hand.
"Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too," Sam says.
Turning around, he finds his brother leaning against the wall, his hands jammed into his pockets. Dean takes in the rest of the room and shakes his head.
"Where the fuck are we?"
"I don't know. One minute I was signing an autograph and the next I was standing in a bathroom brushing my teeth."
"The Trickster." Dean snaps his fingers. "He came to me in the kitchen and was talking to me about… whatever and then he said he was bored."
Sam raises an eyebrow. "Whatever?"
"Doesn't matter," Dean mutters, shaking his head quickly.
They start exploring the house after that. It's a ranch-style house with three bedrooms and one bathroom and a basement with a ton of shit in boxes. Outside is a detached garage with the Impala sitting nice and safe inside, a big backyard with a dying vegetable garden and a front yard with a maple tree and barely any grass. The whole block has similar houses as far as they can see. There's no EMF, no sulfur, no nothing.
"Think we're still stuck in the 50s?" Sam asks as Dean makes sure all of their gear is still in the trunk.
That's when Dean's cell phone starts ringing.
"Guess not," they say at the same time.
According to Bobby, they just vanished off the face of the earth for six months without a trace. From the GPS signal on Sam's phone, they're apparently in a suburb of Chicago. A search on the title records for this property finds that it's owned outright by Samuel Floyd and Dean Osbourne. The same names are on the registration in the glove box of the Impala and the pile of bills sitting in the mail box.
Neither of them knows what to do with this information. Even less so when a neighbor crosses the lawn to shake their hands.
"Sam, Dean, how was the trip to California?"
"Uh, great," Sam mutters, clearly at a loss.
"Sunny," Dean chimes in when the guy keeps staring at them.
"Well, I've got to get off to work. Good to see you back."
The guy disappears back to his own house and Dean turns back to Sam. "Seriously, what the fuck?"
That's when Sam finds the letter from the Trickster under a bill from ComEd.
Sam and Dean,
By now, I'm sure Dean has said 'what the fuck' at least ten times and Sam has researched this house to death trying to find a reason behind it all. All you really need to know is your slate has been wiped clean, this house is yours scot-free, and apparently your dad had a life insurance policy so you're set on money for awhile. Who knew?
C'mon guys, would retirement really be all that bad? Think about it.
PS-I gave you separate last names in case… well, Dean knows.
"Dean knows what?" Sam asks as he looks back and forth between the letter and Dean.
"I really fucking hate that guy," Dean sighs.
Sam stares at him for a long moment and then shakes his head. Dean looks around the yard and then shrugs.
"I think I saw some steaks in the fridge and there's a grill out back."
"Yeah, okay," Sam shrugs back. "I could go for some steak."
Dean whistles as he heads inside. Retirement is going to be sweet.
Date Written: December 22, 2008-September 13, 2009
They've been hanging around in Seattle for a couple of weeks with no hunt and it's starting to drive Dean insane. As much as he likes his freedom, having nothing to do, no destination, gets boring after awhile and there's only so many times a man can clean his guns when they're not even getting any use. Sam though, Sam is in his element. He goes down to Pike's Market every morning and comes back with armfuls of produce and two coffees. The scent of the coffee is usually what wakes Dean up and he stumbles into the little kitchenette of the furnished basement apartment they managed to lease with extra cash and a smile. The furniture is from the '70s and there's a homeless dude that thinks their steps are a urinal but it's no worse than any other place their dad dropped them off in when they were kids.
Still, the end of the month is coming up and the landlord, no matter how shady, is going to either expect cash or their asses out of his place. Dean hasn't check their finances in awhile (a.k.a. the wads of cash he keeps stashed all over and the nearest P.O. Box) but money is always a problem. Always has been, always will be with the way they live their lives. He's let Sam's Starbucks habit and the trips to the market slide because getting smiles and home-cooked meals is better than Sam brooding in some corner.
Besides, it's prime, grade-A teasing material.
"Alright, Suzie Homemaker, we gotta start thinking about getting out of here," Dean says through a yawn as Sam hands him a cup of coffee.
Sam pulls the coffee away and holds it out of reach. "What was that?"
Dean stares longingly at the coffee and sighs. "C'mon, Sammy."
"Whatever." Sam rolls his eyes and shoves the cup into Dean's hands. It sloshes up over the lid and scalds Dean's hand.
"Fuck!" He shakes his hand in the air while Sam smirks at him. "Bitch."
"Jerk," Sam replies without heat, his lips quirking up into a tiny smile.
Later that night, Dean goes down to hustle pool at some college bar, which has pretty much been their only source of income lately. Sometimes Sam goes out and comes back with cash and Dean figures he's been running a short con of his own. Only when he stops into a diner on the way home, he finds out his brother's gone legit; he's busing tables.
Dean backs out of there even though he's starving and can't decide whether he wants to laugh his ass off or not. This is getting way too comfortable, way too routine. Job or not, they stay here much longer and Dean's afraid they'll never leave.
Two days before the rent is due, Dean finds something buried on page 14 of the paper that sounds like it's up their alley. By the time Sam comes back from the market, he's got the Impala loaded up. Sam glances at the apartment, the bag of produce he's carrying around his wrist and then back to Dean before he leaves it on the steps, probably for the homeless dude, and gets into the car.
It's not often that hunting takes Sam and Dean to California and Dean can only recall a few times the job ever required being on a beach. Most of the time, that was off-season or in some northern town where it was never exactly bikini weather; now they're in Malibu, in the summer, and he's surrounded by beautiful, half-clothed women. It's enough to make him want to drop to his knees in thanks. He would too, if Sam would stop glaring at him as though checking out chicks over the top of his sunglasses is illegal or something.
"Dude, pass me a beer," Dean says as he snaps his fingers at Sam, never taking his eyes of the blonde babe playing Frisbee in front of him.
"You do realize we're here to work, right?" Sam sighs loudly, but slaps the bottle into his hand anyway.
"Yeah and this ghost likes to attack blondes." Dean turns and raises an eyebrow in the direction of the leggy one in front of them. "Like her."
"Uh, no." Sam shakes his head and then nods in the direction of a tomboyish girl with her dirty blonde hair up in a high ponytail. "More like her."
Dean squints at the girl in question. She's kind of athletic looking yet still feminine in a very barely legal kind of way. Really, she can't be older than eighteen.
"Why her?" Dean muses.
Sam shrugs and then picks up some book he's reading on some obscure subject. Only his brother would find reading to be more interesting than a beach full of gorgeous women. Dean settles further into his rented beach chair and waits for sunset, after which the ghost supposedly strikes.
When Dean opens his eyes, it's dark out, the only light coming from a bonfire further down the beach. He groans and sits up before hitting Sam's arm. His brother is snoring in his chair with the book open on his chest, which is going to make one hell of a funny tan line.
"What the fuck?" Sam mutters as he startles awake.
"We fell asleep and it's past sunset already."
"Oh."
Sam runs a hand over his face and then pulls the EMF reader out of his bag. When he flicks it on, there's nothing but silence. Dean takes it out of Sam's hands and wanders down toward the water with it where the attacks supposedly happen, but there's still nothing.
Dean throws the reader into Sam's lap and then flops down onto the sand. "I've got bupkis."
"Jerk," Sam grumbles. "Guess we just wait it out."
He sets the EMF reader on top of the cooler and then just stares at it. Dean scans the beach looking for anything unusual and doesn't see anything. Unless you count the two chicks in the retro bikinis at the edge of the bonfire pointing at them and giggling behind their hands.
Dean's just about to go introduce himself when Sam grabs his arm. "Dean, does anything about this seem weird to you?"
"Other than you and your grabby hands? No."
Dean follows Sam's line of sight over to the bonfire. That's when he notices that all the girls are wearing retro stuff, the guys too, and the music is coming from a dude strumming a guitar and singing something about surfing.
"Yeah, they're having some kind of theme party. So?" Dean slaps Sam's hand away.
"It's not a theme party." Sam points at the parking lot where the Impala is sitting in a sea of cars from the '50s, and even an old Ford truck from the '30s. Dean's car is the only one built after 1960 as far as he can tell. He stands up and looks to the road where all of the cars are giant, pastel boats.
"Fuck me," he swears softly.
"You're telling me," Sam mutters.
They figure out pretty quickly that their credit cards, and probably most of their cash, are going to be useless here. Even if there is no such thing as an electronic credit card reader, someone is going to notice all the expiration dates are for the next century. So they pack up and sleep in the car, Dean with the passenger seat reclined back and Sam lying across the back seat, his ankles under Dean's headrest.
Hours later they're woken up by someone tapping on the driver's side window. Dean groans and turns his head toward Sam. "You get it, honey."
"Fuck off," Sam mutters, but sits up and rolls down the window.
Two girls are standing there in matching yellow bikinis and brown hair up in high ponytails. They squeal when Sam sticks his head out the window.
"Sandy, it's him! It's really him!" the shorter of the two exclaims and nudges her friend.
"Is it really you, Big Kahuna?" the taller one asks breathlessly.
Dean snorts and they glare at him before looking back to Sam. Sam looks helplessly at Dean and then gives the girls a small smile.
"I'm not--"
His protest is cut off when the short one shoves a magazine through the window. "Oh, please, Kahuna, would you sign it for me, would you?"
The cover of the magazine features a guy who looks startlingly like Sam. If Sam ever cut his hair or knew how to surf since the guy is holding a board in the picture. The tall one produces a pen from somewhere and Sam scrawls something across the picture and hands it back.
Both girls sigh as though Sam had asked for their hand in marriage and then run off to a pack of girls who look just like them, giggling all the way. The whole lot of them turn and wave at Sam and their chorus of hellos reaches all the way to their car.
"Okay, now what, Big Kahuna?" Dean smirks.
"Shut up," Sam mutters. "What was I supposed to do? Tell them I'm a time traveler from the next century?"
"Might be a bit more believable than you on a surfboard, just saying," Dean laughs.
They change in the little tents set up for that purpose and then walk toward a strip of shops next to the beach. Sam digs a quarter out of his pocket with the old design on it instead of the ones featuring the states and buys a newspaper. They both blink when they get twenty cents back in change.
The twenty cents goes toward some coffee in a little diner while they go through the paper together. It's August 19, 1959. Eisenhower is President, Alaska just became the 49th State, and Hawaii is becoming the 50th in a few days. Other than that, there's nothing they can figure out from the paper that will help them.
"Well, this is seriously fucked up," Dean says as he closes the sports section where the Dodgers have only been in LA for one year and the Daytona 500 was run for the first time in February and the paper is still going on about it.
Pretty much everyone in the place turns to glare at Dean or stare at him in open-mouthed shock. Sam coughs and Dean shrugs.
"Yeah, so, you might want to watch your language," Sam murmurs with one eye on the burly guy behind the counter.
"Like they haven't heard it before," Dean says dismissively.
"Dean, it's 1959. Elvis swiveling his hips and bikinis are major controversies. And some towns still hang people in the public square, so I'd watch it if I were you."
Dean crosses his arms over his chest and slumps in his seat. "Fine, whatever."
Every other girl they talk to on the beach is named Sandy, Margaret, Anne, Mary or some combination of the above. They all have bangs and wear their hair up in pony tails and think red lipstick is trashy. Actually, they think Dean is trashy and most of them won't even talk to him.
After his twentieth brush-off of the day, Dean stalks over to Sam, who is surrounded by a group of the giggling girls. Sam looks uncomfortable and Dean would embarrass the hell out of him if the chicks didn't scatter at the sight of him.
"What the fu-- freakin' hell gives?" Dean grumbles, barely catching himself. "Why won't they talk to me?"
"They think you're a greaser," Sam smirks gleefully.
"Like John Travolta? What's wrong with that?" Dean demands.
"Class division is still pretty prevalent in this era. And girls can get reputations just from looking at a guy so you can see why they wouldn't want to talk to someone who can get them in trouble."
"Trouble?"
"Yeah, like, pregnant. At least I think that's what they mean." Sam shrugs.
"They do realize getting knocked up requires sex, right?" Dean waves his hands in the air, flabbergasted.
"You mean 'going all the way'?" Sam laughs. "Probably not."
Dean throws himself down in the sand next to Sam. "And why do they all have the same name? Jesus, don't these people have any imagination?"
"It's the McCarthy era so I'm pretty sure that's illegal."
"Huh?"
"Did you ever pay attention in class, like, ever?" Sam shakes his head. "You know, the Red Scare? Blacklisting?"
"Right, sure," Dean frowns. "I'm not stupid you know."
Sam gives him the chick-flick face. "I know, Dean."
"So," Dean changes the subject. "What now?"
They wander around town for a bit trying to find any kind of clue as to how they ended up here or how to get back, but only succeed in finding out that pick-pocketing is far too easy and chocolate malts taste kind of weird. Since they keep getting strange looks, Sam drags them into the Woolworth's to buy clothes with some twenties they swiped from a patron in the diner. None of the clothes look remotely comfortable but Dean grabs stuff randomly off the rack and throws it in a dressing room to try on. When he comes out, Sam is hiding behind a stack of sweaters.
"Dude," Dean laughs, "you do realize you're not ten anymore, right?"
Sam grabs his sleeve and pulls him down. "I'm not hiding from you. I'm hiding from these crazy chicks who still think I'm that surfer."
"Aww, is Sammy afraid of the little beach bunnies?" Dean mocks.
"Shut up, man," Sam mumbles.
A second later, Sam's eyes go wide as the girls come closer to their hiding spot. He rolls under another rack while Dean stands up and leans against the sweaters.
"Hey, ladies." He gives them his most charming smile.
They kind of snicker at him, "Gosh, you're such a fream."
"Huh?" That's about all Dean can come up with since he's pretty sure that isn't even a word.
"Let's split, this is totally nowheresville," one of them says before they flounce out of the store.
"Was that even English?" Dean asks the clothes rack he thinks Sam is hiding under.
Dean can't remember the last time he wore dress slacks without it being part of a costume for the job. Maybe Sam's high school graduation or his own or even farther back than that. Now he knows there's a reason he doesn't wear them more often: they fucking itch like hell. Not to mention that there's no give in them and he's not even going to get started on the starched cotton dress shirt Sam made him buy or the loafers. Then again, he didn't have to buy pomade and slick his hair back to fit in like Sam, so score one for him.
"How did James Bond ever kick ass wearing shit like this?" Dean muses as he tries to figure out where to hide the knife he normally straps inside his boot.
"He probably had a special suit made out of like bullet-proof lycra." Sam's voice is muffled as he pulls an undershirt over his head.
"Why couldn't we get stuck in 1982 or something? Then I could've seen Metallica in concert back before they started to suck."
Sam snorts as he pulls on his dress shirt. "There's a reason to travel back in time."
Sleeping in the car gets old pretty quickly. They find a half-built tract of cookie-cutter houses and hunker down in the furnished model for the night. There are twin beds in the master bedroom and everything is all curved and in pastels. Dean keeps expecting Donna Reed to come in and start baking or vacuuming or something in heels like on TV but the only one around is Sam and the last thing Sam needs is to add onto his height.
"We gotta figure out a way to get out of here," Dean says after he searches the kitchen and finds nothing but coffee and a box of stale cookies.
"Maybe it's the Trickster," Sam responds from the living room where he's messing with the rabbit ears on the TV to try and get a signal.
"I fucking hope not 'cause then we'll be stuck here until we learn our lesson or he gets bored or whatever."
Dean flops down on the couch and watches Sam try to get the TV to work. Finally, he gets the local news and slowly backs away with his hands palms out to the set like that will keep it working. He ends of backing right up to the edge of the couch and falls into Dean's lap.
"Dude," Dean grumbles. "Get offa me."
"Nah, I'm good," Sam laughs and shifts to get more comfortable.
"Bitch." Dean shoves at Sam's back.
"Jerk."
Sam slides off Dean to sit next to him on the couch. The big news story of the day is Hawaii becoming a state followed by an earthquake in Yellowstone Park four days ago. It's in black and white and is boring all over.
"What the fuck did these people do for fun?" Dean asks through a yawn.
"Sock hops?" Sam slumps down in his seat. "Or drag races if you believe Grease and James Dean."
"Sock hops?" Dean repeats. "What the fuck is a sock hop?"
"It's a dance. Like prom only you don't wear shoes."
Dean waggles his eyebrows at Sam. "By the end of my prom night, I wasn't wearing shoes. Or much of anything else."
"Ugh," Sam groans. "Did not need to know that."
"What? I could have meant that totally innocently!" Sam shoots Dean a look that clearly states, 'yeah, right.' "Okay so I didn't, but you would not believe how flexible that girl was, I mean--"
Sam waves his hands in surrender. "You're bored. I get it. What do you want me to do about it?"
They end up back at the beach where there's a bonfire and girls who may be dancing or having a seizure, it's hard to tell. The guys are playing touch football or grilling hot dogs or doing other manly shit. It's not Dean's kind of fun, but at least it's not a black and white TV with three stations.
As soon as Sam steps into the glow of the fire, the girls coo and giggle, and the guys give big waves as though he's their friend or something. Sam looks uncomfortable and Dean nudges his shoulder while giving his 'go get 'em, tiger' grin.
A blonde girl slides up to Sam and puts her hand on his shoulder. She's all flirty but in an almost innocent way. Dean gives Sam a discreet thumbs-up and wanders toward a gaggle of brunettes in matching bikinis. Unlike before, they don't seem to mind him being there, but Dean quickly figures out that they think he's their in to "The Big Kahuna." So he starts making up shit just to keep them by his side.
One of them, he thinks her name is Maryanne, but it could be Sandy Anne or Margaret Anne or some other combination of names, keeps touching his arm so Dean focuses all his attention on her. She whispers something in his ear about going to the cove and necking and Dean's so going to take her up on that when Sam grabs his other arm and yanks him to his feet before dragging him out of the firelight.
"What the fuck, Sammy?"
"You can't have sex with her, Dean. Do you have any idea what the repercussions could be?" Sam's voice is almost hysterical and he's waving his arms in circles for what seems like no reason. "You could get her pregnant and destroy the space-time continuum."
"Don't you think you're being a bit overdramatic?" Dean huffs. "How do we know we're even really in 1959?"
"We don't know. So keep your hands to yourself."
Sam stalks off back to the party where he starts chatting up a blonde girl with a flat chest; the only one not wearing a bikini. Dean kicks at the sand and glares in his direction. "Hypocrite."
On the walk back to the tract house, Sam tells him all about the girl. Her name is Sandra Lawrence and she is the only female surfer on this stretch of beach. She hangs out with a bunch of surfer dudes called the Hot Shots and has a massive crush on the one named Bob or Burt or something like that.
"So," Sam says after rambling on for the whole walk. "I think she's the one. The ghost."
"And you base this on what? That she was the only flat-chested blonde there?"
"Yeah, plus she's pregnant."
Dean blinks. "Huh?"
"Okay, so I'm assuming she is based on the location of the slight curve of her belly, her choice of swimsuit and the way she kept biting her lip while resting her hand on her belly while staring at Burt or Bob or whatever."
"Even if she is, what does that have to do with anything?" Dean waves his hand to indicate the tract house they're squatting in. "Why are we here?"
"Like I told you before, getting pregnant without being married is very bad news. Girls got shipped off to give birth so the family wouldn't be shamed and abortions were pretty much unheard of but a lot of girls tried to get back-alley ones or tried to do it themselves. It's pretty much the end of everything and this Sandra girl has ambition. She wants to be a surfer and go to college and have a career."
Dean nods along as he opens the door to the house. "Yeah, but how did she end up dead?"
"I've got a couple of theories. One, she died while trying to get an abortion. Two, the dude that got her pregnant killed her. Three, her family killed her."
Sam follows Dean into the house, shutting the door behind him. He picks up the box of cookies and frowns at it before eating a few of them.
"Well, that's fucking depressing," Dean mutters as he puts the drinks he stole from the bonfire in the fridge.
"Not the best time to be a girl. Or a liberal. Or not white. Or not Christian. Or…"
"I get the point," Dean says as he slaps his hand over Sam's mouth. "Life sucks for everyone except rich, white, Christian dudes."
"Yeah, so I'm thinking we have to tail this girl." Sam jumps up to sit on the counter. "And Burt or Bob."
"I'll take the chick," Dean immediately volunteers.
"Ha," Sam says dryly. "I don't think so. Just because she's already pregnant doesn't mean she needs to get an STD."
Dean clutches his stomach. "Low blow, dude."
Sam flips him off. "She lives on Maple and he lives on Oak according to one of the other surfers. Both only a few blocks from here, so let's get going."
No one ever says anything about stake-outs being boring, but they are. Very, very boring. Dean fights back a yawn as he watches Burt/Bob watch TV with his parents. When the parents go to bed, Dean figures so will the dude, but he doesn't; instead, he slips out the back door and cuts through a few backyards. Dean follows behind him and watches as he climbs a trellis up to a small terrace.
"Very Romeo and Juliet," Dean mutters, knowing that Sam is two bushes over.
"With the dying even," Sam whispers back.
A few minutes later, Romeo climbs back down and takes off running. Dean shrugs at Sam and then climbs up himself. Sandra is sitting on her bed crying into a raggedy teddy bear.
"Yeah, so she's still alive," Dean says as he jumps back down. "I'm starving. Let's go get something to eat."
Sam shakes his head as they make their way back to the house they're squatting in. "Dude, we don't have any money left and even if we did, everything is probably closed."
"Fuck this time traveling shit, man."
The locks on the corner grocery store are ridiculously easy to pick and there's no alarm system or cameras, not even a dog. Dean pops open the cash register and skims off the top, leaving enough so it'll take awhile for someone to notice in the morning. He waves the bills at Sam before grabbing a cart.
"Haven't done this in awhile."
Sam tosses cans of soup into the cart. "What, rob a grocery store?"
"Fuck you, Sammy. I meant grocery shopping. Think the last time was right before you left."
"Dean…" Sam trails off because it's still a sore subject for both of them.
"Nah, it's alright." Dean shrugs. "Stole more often than shopped. Dad would take off and leave me with twenty bucks to get by on half the time. Remember that winter in Utica?"
"Kinda hard to forget," Sam mutters as he examines two boxes of cereal.
"Dad forgot to pay the gas bill and it got so cold that we were wandering around in every stitch of clothing we owned to keep warm. It was one of those times we just had the one bed and you refused to get out of it, even to go to school, and so I just let you sleep the day away there with me."
"How can you sound like that's such a found memory for you?" Sam grits out and throws both boxes into the cart.
Dean grabs his arm. "You know I love Dad. But those times it was you and me? Some of the best times I ever had."
Sam shuffles his feet like he's uncomfortable but doesn't shrug Dean's hand off. "Yeah, for me too."
"Look!" Dean picks up a can off the shelf and grins triumphantly. "Spam!"
"We can take anything we want out of here and you pick meat in a can?"
For a moment, Dean stares at the can. He's never really had much a choice when it comes to food, just cheap and cheaper. When they were kids, all they ever ate was stuff that came out of a can. Or a box. Store-brand spaghetti, soup, beans and sometimes if they were lucky they could afford brand-name cereal or something. Then there was the diner food which wasn't all that much better half the time.
"You're right." Dean puts the tin back on the shelf. "What aisle you think the caviar's in?"
Sam raises his eyebrow. "Dean, do you know what caviar really is?"
"Of course," Dean scoffs, but then puts the Spam in the cart anyway.
Back at the ranch house, Sam puts the groceries away while Dean kicks back on the couch with a beer. It's like Seattle all over again only less entertaining. Dean's skin is itching with the need to do something, anything. So he gets up and hovers behind Sam.
"You could be useful and help me cook," Sam suggests without turning around.
Dean grabs a carrot and holds it up like a knife. "I can totally Iron Chef this bitch."
"Or you can peel it." Sam hands him a peeler and points to the sink.
After two minutes, Dean hands Sam back a carrot that looks like it was attacked by a vampire or maybe a werewolf. When Sam frowns, Dean pouts a little. "What? Dude, it's harder than it looks."
Sam makes an executive decision and sends Dean off to check on Romeo and Juliet.
Hoping to move things along, Dean climbs the trellis outside Nancy's window since Sid is decimating a meatloaf and doesn't look like he's going anywhere anytime soon. Through the curtains he can see Nancy's on the phone with someone. She's on her stomach, swinging her legs in the air while she twirls one of her blonde locks. Dean shifts a bit and he can just make out the conversation.
"What would you do Mary Lou?" Pause. "I can't believe you'd even suggest that." Pause. "Well Peggy is… is… fast." Pause. "Maybe we can just get married." Pause. "It's the right thing to do."
The bedroom door opens and a woman with a mile's worth of blonde hair piled on her head comes tottering in on pink high heels. Sandra Dee quickly hangs up the phone and smiles all bright and fake. Dean can't hear the conversation but neither woman looks happy.
He starts back down the trellis and that's when he hears a high-pitched scream. Someone is shouting, "Gary! Gary! There's a cat burglar outside the window."
"Shit."
Dean jumps down the rest of the way and scrambles toward the back fence. Deep baying follows behind him and he risks a glance over his shoulder to see an enormous mutt chasing after him like he's got a steak tied to his ass. He leaps for the fence and manages to get himself halfway up before the thing is attacking his new shoes. They get lost along with part of his left pant leg as he hurls himself over onto the small strip of grass between the fence and the sidewalk.
After waiting a second to make sure the dog isn't planning on following him, Dean hauls himself to his feet. He's more concerned about Sam mocking him than walking back to the house in bare feet.
Sam cannot stop laughing. "And what kind of dog was it again?"
Dean viciously stabs a piece of potato with his fork and mumbles with his mouth full. "A poodle."
Now Sam is clutching his stomach like he can't breathe. The table is shaking from his laughter. Dean's lips quirk into a small smile even as he kicks Sam's shin.
"Shut up, bitch."
"Jerk." Sam is still laughing while he rubs his leg. "That hurt."
"I lost my shoes. Does that mean I can wear my boots?" Dean asks while chewing bread.
"Say it, don't spray it." Sam wrinkles his nose. "We're going to have to buy new ones. And more clothes."
"I don't plan on being here long enough to need more clothes, Sammy."
Two weeks later they're back at the Woolworth's. A week after that, they almost get caught by the real estate company and move into an apartment over a surf shop where the rent is free as long as Sam makes an appearance downstairs every once in awhile.
"We have got to get the fuck out of here," Dean gripes as they're walking along the shore.
It's a beautiful day out, but then again, every day here has been a beautiful day. Dean is beginning to long for rain and overpriced coffee. Seattle was too trendy, too modern, too hipster, but at least it had character; California is just too perfect. The whole place is starting to make his skin crawl.
"What do you want me to do about it?" Sam snaps back before picking up his pace, leaving Dean behind.
They fight a lot more now with nothing else to do. There are no monsters here other than human ones, and even those are too far in the shadows to find, and they've been in the same town for more than a month. Really, they haven't spent this much time together without a job being involved since before Sam left for college. Other than Seattle and Dean supposes this is kind of a job but they can't seem to wrap it up and there's no where else to go.
Sam is all rough around the edges and uses words like weapons. It's not something new, but it's just there all the time now with nothing to buffer it. Dean knows his personality flaws are coming into stark relief now too; the neediness being at the forefront of them all. He feels weak needing Sam near all the time and that makes him put up his macho front which just pisses Sam off to no end. So Sam wanders off and Dean feels abandoned and they start all over again like a record that skips on the same song.
Part of the problem is that they can't make attachments to anyone other than each other for fear of messing up the future somehow. Sam has all these books he stole from the library stacked up in the kitchen that explain this whole space-time thing. Dean really doesn't think making out with someone is going to destroy the world but that's probably because he hasn't gotten laid since before Seattle, even.
"Think about it, Dean," Sam explains while folding some laundry. "Say it's just making out with some girl or whatever. But because she's too busy with you so she misses out on meeting the guy she's meant to marry. So she doesn't marry him and they don't have kids and so their great-grandkid doesn't exist and therefore doesn't, like, invent a cure for cancer."
"I think you're being overdramatic," Dean mutters as he sinks deeper into the couch cushions, even though he knows that Sam is right.
"I think you're being an asshole." Sam throws a balled up pair of socks at Dean's head. "Help me fold these, lazy."
Sometimes it's like that; they get domestic, like an old married couple, and the fact that it feels so natural scares Dean more than anything. He can see them growing old here like spinster sisters or something. That's usually when he starts cleaning the guns he hasn't had the use for in months.
Meanwhile, nothing remotely interesting happens between Romeo and Juliet. Sure, it becomes more obvious every day that she's pregnant but she's also got an engagement ring on her finger and save the dates sent out. It doesn't seem like they have anything to do with anything, but Dean checks-up on them anyway because there's nothing better for him to do, either.
Dean is following Nancy while she picks out dresses when he notices someone familiar browsing one of the racks. He sneaks up behind the guy, jabbing his gun into his back.
"Nice to see you too, Dean," the guy says as he turns around.
"I knew it had to be you," Dean growls. "Fucking Trickster, get us out of here or I'll kill you."
"Nah." The Trickster holds up a purple dress, examining it. "You haven't learned your lesson yet."
Instead of rushing the Trickster, Dean slams into the rack of dresses and barely holds back a long string of curses. The bastard is gone and Dean's covered in taffeta while girls giggle at him behind their hands. It's humiliating in more ways that one.
"It's the fucking Trickster," Dean announces as soon as he gets inside the apartment.
Sam looks up from some book he's been reading and sighs. "I knew it. Fuck."
"Says we haven't learned out lesson yet. What the fuck kind of lesson are we supposed to be learning here?"
Dean rants and raves and kicks the couch a couple of times. Sam just looks resigned.
"So I tried to drive out of town again today. No luck," Sam finally says when Dean's collapsed on the couch next to him.
"Yeah, well, this obviously has nothing to do with that chick being pregnant," Dean mutters.
"Yeah," Sam agrees and goes back to his book.
After a few minutes, Dean gets up and goes into the bathroom to jerk off. He's got one hand on his dick and two fingers in his mouth because some chick in Vermont introduced him to his prostate and he's not shy about anything that gets him off when he realizes that despite his sexual frustration, he's actually content to be living a quiet life with Sam. It's really fucked up to be thinking about that when he's fingering his ass but nothing in his life has ever been normal.
Sam is down in the shop posing for photos and Dean's trying to fix the leaky faucet in the kitchen when the Trickster shows up again. He's just sitting there on the counter swinging his legs while Dean considers stabbing him with the wrench but sighs instead.
"What?"
"Jerking off while thinking about your brother? Not exactly my thing but whatever works for you."
"Dude!" Dean exclaims. "I wasn't thinking about him like that!"
"Like I said, whatever floats your boat," he shrugs. "Anyway, this is getting kind of boring so…"
Dean blinks and finds himself standing in a kitchen in some house with really ugly yellow walls in the middle of pouring a cup of coffee. He only snaps out of it when it starts to overflow the mug and burn his hand.
"What the fucking fuck?" he swears, shaking the liquid off his hand.
"Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too," Sam says.
Turning around, he finds his brother leaning against the wall, his hands jammed into his pockets. Dean takes in the rest of the room and shakes his head.
"Where the fuck are we?"
"I don't know. One minute I was signing an autograph and the next I was standing in a bathroom brushing my teeth."
"The Trickster." Dean snaps his fingers. "He came to me in the kitchen and was talking to me about… whatever and then he said he was bored."
Sam raises an eyebrow. "Whatever?"
"Doesn't matter," Dean mutters, shaking his head quickly.
They start exploring the house after that. It's a ranch-style house with three bedrooms and one bathroom and a basement with a ton of shit in boxes. Outside is a detached garage with the Impala sitting nice and safe inside, a big backyard with a dying vegetable garden and a front yard with a maple tree and barely any grass. The whole block has similar houses as far as they can see. There's no EMF, no sulfur, no nothing.
"Think we're still stuck in the 50s?" Sam asks as Dean makes sure all of their gear is still in the trunk.
That's when Dean's cell phone starts ringing.
"Guess not," they say at the same time.
According to Bobby, they just vanished off the face of the earth for six months without a trace. From the GPS signal on Sam's phone, they're apparently in a suburb of Chicago. A search on the title records for this property finds that it's owned outright by Samuel Floyd and Dean Osbourne. The same names are on the registration in the glove box of the Impala and the pile of bills sitting in the mail box.
Neither of them knows what to do with this information. Even less so when a neighbor crosses the lawn to shake their hands.
"Sam, Dean, how was the trip to California?"
"Uh, great," Sam mutters, clearly at a loss.
"Sunny," Dean chimes in when the guy keeps staring at them.
"Well, I've got to get off to work. Good to see you back."
The guy disappears back to his own house and Dean turns back to Sam. "Seriously, what the fuck?"
That's when Sam finds the letter from the Trickster under a bill from ComEd.
Sam and Dean,
By now, I'm sure Dean has said 'what the fuck' at least ten times and Sam has researched this house to death trying to find a reason behind it all. All you really need to know is your slate has been wiped clean, this house is yours scot-free, and apparently your dad had a life insurance policy so you're set on money for awhile. Who knew?
C'mon guys, would retirement really be all that bad? Think about it.
PS-I gave you separate last names in case… well, Dean knows.
"Dean knows what?" Sam asks as he looks back and forth between the letter and Dean.
"I really fucking hate that guy," Dean sighs.
Sam stares at him for a long moment and then shakes his head. Dean looks around the yard and then shrugs.
"I think I saw some steaks in the fridge and there's a grill out back."
"Yeah, okay," Sam shrugs back. "I could go for some steak."
Dean whistles as he heads inside. Retirement is going to be sweet.