[Fic] Any Color You Like
Title: Any Color You Like
Fandoms: Supernatural, Stargate Atlantis
Prompt: Dean Winchester walks into a bar and meets Radek Zelenka.
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Radek Zelenka
Genre: Gen
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,193
Summary: It's all about the choices you make.
Notes: Loosely set within in the early seasons of both series. Written for the 2013 intoabar challenge. Thanks for reading! ^_^
"You can have it any color you like, as long as it's black."
--attributed to Henry Ford, re: the Model T automobile
**
Dean had always liked Colorado. Something about the mountains and the crisp morning air, maybe - that consistent, icy threat of a winter storm on the horizon that gave everything an air of purpose.
He could do without the snow on the roads. The Impala wasn’t exactly equipped with snow tires (though he did have a box of chains stashed somewhere in the trunk). Still, just looking at all that white everywhere, especially covering the tops of those huge mountains had always left him feeling refreshed, ready to go out there kill whatever son of a bitch he had to kill, should it go that way.
It was snowing now up in the Rockies, and down here just off of I-70, like it had been pretty much all day. The large flakes were just barely visible outside the windows of the bar.
The bar was of the sports variety, with bright glowing neon signs that lined the windows. A poster on the door boasted karaoke on Thursdays from six till nine. Not Dean’s first choice, but it’d been one of the only places still open on a Sunday night.
When Dean had come in a little while ago, it’d been downright blustery, wind whipping around his neck and ears, and making him wish hadn’t given up on digging his gloves out from the back seat earlier. At least it was warm enough inside.
Dean tipped a bottle of beer back against his lips, shifted in his stool, and looked around, taking in his surroundings. Old habit, he supposed, probably due to the amount of time he’d spent pretending to be some branch of law enforcement or another. Observing strangers in strange towns pretty much came with the job description.
The Broncos game was flashing up above the bar on several large TVs. Sunday Night Football. A group of twenty-somethings, probably college kids home on Christmas break, stood around one of the screens, a large silver bucket filled with bottles of Budweiser on the table in front of them. This place served food, too, and there were several couples seated at the heavy-looking wooden tables and booths that lined the outside of the bar.
Two girls with bleached blonde hair, football jerseys that appeared to have shrunk a few times in the wash, and a little too much makeup occupied the opposite end of the bar from Dean. They looked to have at least ten years on the college crowd, but all the same, their attention was evenly divided between the game, and their fellow Budweiser-drinking bar patrons.
All of this was par for the course, as far as Dean was concerned. Walk into any bar in the country, switch out the team, or the sport for that matter, and you could watch the same scene play out over and over. There was something almost comforting about its familiarity. Dean supposed that was why he ended up here in the first place, while Sam finished up some research back at the motel.
There was one thing out of place though. And if Dean noticed anything, he noticed out of place. Sitting two seats away from him at the bar was a small, skinny guy who looked like he’d missed a few haircuts (like someone else Dean knew), though this guy was definitely thinning on the top. Maybe he was overcompensating. He was a little older, late thirties, with slim, wire-rimmed glasses, and was nursing a glass of vodka. Since Dean had arrived, he’d been chattering into a cell phone that looked way too fancy for his blue-collar looks. It sounded like Russian to Dean, though he wouldn’t put money on it. Sam would probably know better.
There was a vaguely conspiratorial air to the way the man spoke into the phone, his eyes darting around the bar and back over his shoulder a few times. If that didn’t spell nervous, Dean didn’t know what did.
The man seemed harmless enough though, so it was mostly for lack of anything else to occupy his attention that Dean decided to keep his eye on this guy. One eye, anyway. His other eye was on the game. He didn’t really care who was on the winning end tonight, but for the sake of local loyalty, he’d just as soon have the Broncos keep their lead.
It was midway through the second quarter and halfway through Dean’s second beer when the probably-Russian guy slammed his phone down on the bar, and let out a string of expletives. Well, at least Dean assumed they were expletives. Funny how some things sound the same in every language.
Dean raised an eyebrow, and tilted his head towards the guy’s end of the bar. “Everything okay there, chief?”
“Do prdele,” the man said, letting out an angry huff of breath, mostly to himself, and then rolled his eyes. “Naprostej voleh.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry.” The guy smiled sheepishly, as if he’d just noticed Dean. He looked worn out, stressed. Dean no longer had him pegged as blue collar, he realized. More the absent-minded professor type, maybe.
“My brother is an idiot,” the man said, an apparent translation. “I did not mean to disturb you.”
Dean smiled. Well, that was one thing to drink to, he thought.
“No worries, man. To idiot brothers,” he said, and raised his glass.
Mr. Absent-minded Professor raised his glass too, and to Dean’s surprise, downed the rest of his drink, and signaled to the bartender for another.
Dean raised his eyebrows. “Rough night?”
“You have no idea,” the man said darkly. “We get one week of leave and the first thing he asks me? Why am I not coming home for a visit. The second? How quickly can I wire him his money.”
Dean nodded, commiserating, not because he had any personal experience with family members asking for money, but because the guy looked like he needed it. And there was something Dean kind of liked about him.
“Younger brother?”
“Yes.” The man sighed. “Four years, but sometimes it feels like four decades.”
Dean smiled. Yeah, he definitely liked this guy. “I think I know what you mean.”
“My brother?” the man continued. “Always the rebel. Burned down our house in the middle of winter when we were kids.”
“Rough deal,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Mine did too, actually.”
He felt a twinge of guilt the minute the words slipped out of his mouth.
“Well, that’s not fair,” he qualified, his face darkening a little at the memory. “He was a baby at the time. Wasn’t exactly his fault.”
Dean finished off his beer, and was grateful when the bartender anticipated his need for another, sliding a fresh bottle across the bar.
The man gave him a sympathetic look after a moment. “Mine was nine years old. When the fire happened.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean said. “Must’ve been hard.”
“We moved into a tent. Well, after I convinced my father not to disown the kid.”
“No kidding, really?”
“Not kidding,” the man said. “It was not pleasant. There was a lot of snow that winter. How about you?”
“We, uh…” Dean paused out of reflex, trying to decide how much truth to tell, how much to omit. “My dad took us on the road. He traveled a lot, for work, and we lived like that for a long time. Motels, mostly.”
“That must not have been pleasant either.”
“It had its moments.”
The man studied him for a second. “You care for your brother.”
Dean ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, I do. Want to throttle him in his sleep sometimes, the stubborn bastard, but… Mostly I just worry about him. Since our dad died, I want to make sure he’s on the right path, you know?”
“You feel responsible for him.”
“I’ve been protecting him my whole life. Kind of hard to stop now.”
“This is good,” the man said. Dean gave him a questioning look.
“You’re close, even after all these years. My family… I do my best to protect them too, but I don’t know if I can say this about them, that we are close. They do not want my protection, maybe.” The man shook his head. “My job,” he said, by way of explanation. “It’s very demanding.”
The way the man said the words, Dean knew better than to ask what that job was. He’d learned that in towns like this, with strong ties to military bases - it was usually better not to ask. The word “classified” seemed to come up a lot around these parts. Dean didn’t know much about what went on at Cheyenne Mountain, but Bobby had once warned him not to poke at that bee’s nest unless he was ready to spend a long time running from the swarm.
“I left them for an opportunity of a lifetime.” The man’s voice was a mix of astonishment, and regret. “I don’t think I made a mistake, but sometimes… I wonder. What if I had not come here?”
“Hey, you gotta do your best with what you’ve got, right? Sometimes you don’t have a choice as to which path you take.”
The man smiled - a slow, tired smile - and took a sip of his drink. “You always have a choice.”
“Doesn’t feel that way sometimes.”
Dean was about to attempt to qualify that, something about duty, maybe, when the door to the bar opened, welcoming them with a blast of frigid air, and Sam.
“Had a feeling you’d still be here,” Sam said by way of greeting, as he slid into the empty seat next to Dean. There were snowflakes melting into his hair as he shrugged out of his jacket.
A familiar sense of pride swelled in Dean’s chest, as he leaned over to nod to his new friend. “This is my brother, Sam. I’m Dean. We work together. Family business.”
The man extended a hand to both of them. “Dr. Radek Zeleka,” the man offered, with a smile. “Pleased to
meet you.”
Sam fixed Dean with a curious look, which Dean returned, his eyes widening a little. Doctor. That, he hadn’t really expected.
He ordered himself another beer, and one for Sam, local brew this time.
Dr. Zelenka quietly went back to his vodka.
The Broncos, not so quietly, added to their lead with an impressive 40-yard touchdown pass.
Sam lowered his voice, and started to talk shop. The case they were up here investigating was proving to be a frustrating series of dead ends--a string of missing persons, possible ties to witchcraft, possible ties to nothing at all.
After a few minutes, their doctor friend stood up to leave.
“Take care, my brothers,” he said warmly, patting both of them on the shoulder before he left.
“What was that all about?” Sam said, raising his eyebrows at Dean after the man had left. “Since when do you get to know the locals?”
“Nah, he’s not local. Shore leave from the base, some kind of contractor. Scientist, maybe?”
“Okay…”
“What can I say, we bonded. Turns out his brother burned down their house when he was a kid, too.”
It was a tired jab, half-hearted, but not without a tiny bit of weight. Sam just rolled his eyes until Dean nudged him with his shoulder.
“C’mon man, I’m just kidding. Guy had to live in a tent with his whole family though. Middle of winter. That’s no joke.”
“Rough deal,” Sam said, sounding sympathetic.
“Tell me about it.”
Dean sipped at his beer and stared at the space below the TV in front of him, and then at Sam.
Dean had no judgment to pass on anyone, but he didn’t want to be that person sitting in a bar, wondering aloud to a stranger whether he’d made the right life choices. At least not where Sam was concerned.
“You know,” he began, and Sam looked over at him. “I know we’ve had our differences since all this started, but I’m really glad you’re here. I want you to know that.”
“Dean--”
“No, I’m serious. Hunting with you again, it feels like where we’re meant to be - where we’ve chosen to be, you know?”
This was dangerous territory - no one knew that better than Dean, so he was relieved when Sam just nodded. The slight smile - genuine, a little embarrassed - on his brother’s face sent a sliver of warmth straight through to Dean’s chest.
“Thinking about some guy’s house burning down led you to this conclusion?”
Dean sighed. “Give me a break, Sammy. Geez.”
“Sure. Whatever you say…”
“Just tell me you’ve got something other than a boatload of nothing on this case before I take it all back, alright,” Dean grumbled.
“Well,” Sam said. “That depends. Weather sucks, but we’re running out of time if we want to get a jump on the next potential vic. You up for a stake out?”
“You know me, Sammy. The colder the better.” Dean let out a breath, and turned to face his brother. “Just lead the way.”
end
Fandoms: Supernatural, Stargate Atlantis
Prompt: Dean Winchester walks into a bar and meets Radek Zelenka.
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Radek Zelenka
Genre: Gen
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,193
Summary: It's all about the choices you make.
Notes: Loosely set within in the early seasons of both series. Written for the 2013 intoabar challenge. Thanks for reading! ^_^
"You can have it any color you like, as long as it's black."
--attributed to Henry Ford, re: the Model T automobile
**
Dean had always liked Colorado. Something about the mountains and the crisp morning air, maybe - that consistent, icy threat of a winter storm on the horizon that gave everything an air of purpose.
He could do without the snow on the roads. The Impala wasn’t exactly equipped with snow tires (though he did have a box of chains stashed somewhere in the trunk). Still, just looking at all that white everywhere, especially covering the tops of those huge mountains had always left him feeling refreshed, ready to go out there kill whatever son of a bitch he had to kill, should it go that way.
It was snowing now up in the Rockies, and down here just off of I-70, like it had been pretty much all day. The large flakes were just barely visible outside the windows of the bar.
The bar was of the sports variety, with bright glowing neon signs that lined the windows. A poster on the door boasted karaoke on Thursdays from six till nine. Not Dean’s first choice, but it’d been one of the only places still open on a Sunday night.
When Dean had come in a little while ago, it’d been downright blustery, wind whipping around his neck and ears, and making him wish hadn’t given up on digging his gloves out from the back seat earlier. At least it was warm enough inside.
Dean tipped a bottle of beer back against his lips, shifted in his stool, and looked around, taking in his surroundings. Old habit, he supposed, probably due to the amount of time he’d spent pretending to be some branch of law enforcement or another. Observing strangers in strange towns pretty much came with the job description.
The Broncos game was flashing up above the bar on several large TVs. Sunday Night Football. A group of twenty-somethings, probably college kids home on Christmas break, stood around one of the screens, a large silver bucket filled with bottles of Budweiser on the table in front of them. This place served food, too, and there were several couples seated at the heavy-looking wooden tables and booths that lined the outside of the bar.
Two girls with bleached blonde hair, football jerseys that appeared to have shrunk a few times in the wash, and a little too much makeup occupied the opposite end of the bar from Dean. They looked to have at least ten years on the college crowd, but all the same, their attention was evenly divided between the game, and their fellow Budweiser-drinking bar patrons.
All of this was par for the course, as far as Dean was concerned. Walk into any bar in the country, switch out the team, or the sport for that matter, and you could watch the same scene play out over and over. There was something almost comforting about its familiarity. Dean supposed that was why he ended up here in the first place, while Sam finished up some research back at the motel.
There was one thing out of place though. And if Dean noticed anything, he noticed out of place. Sitting two seats away from him at the bar was a small, skinny guy who looked like he’d missed a few haircuts (like someone else Dean knew), though this guy was definitely thinning on the top. Maybe he was overcompensating. He was a little older, late thirties, with slim, wire-rimmed glasses, and was nursing a glass of vodka. Since Dean had arrived, he’d been chattering into a cell phone that looked way too fancy for his blue-collar looks. It sounded like Russian to Dean, though he wouldn’t put money on it. Sam would probably know better.
There was a vaguely conspiratorial air to the way the man spoke into the phone, his eyes darting around the bar and back over his shoulder a few times. If that didn’t spell nervous, Dean didn’t know what did.
The man seemed harmless enough though, so it was mostly for lack of anything else to occupy his attention that Dean decided to keep his eye on this guy. One eye, anyway. His other eye was on the game. He didn’t really care who was on the winning end tonight, but for the sake of local loyalty, he’d just as soon have the Broncos keep their lead.
It was midway through the second quarter and halfway through Dean’s second beer when the probably-Russian guy slammed his phone down on the bar, and let out a string of expletives. Well, at least Dean assumed they were expletives. Funny how some things sound the same in every language.
Dean raised an eyebrow, and tilted his head towards the guy’s end of the bar. “Everything okay there, chief?”
“Do prdele,” the man said, letting out an angry huff of breath, mostly to himself, and then rolled his eyes. “Naprostej voleh.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry.” The guy smiled sheepishly, as if he’d just noticed Dean. He looked worn out, stressed. Dean no longer had him pegged as blue collar, he realized. More the absent-minded professor type, maybe.
“My brother is an idiot,” the man said, an apparent translation. “I did not mean to disturb you.”
Dean smiled. Well, that was one thing to drink to, he thought.
“No worries, man. To idiot brothers,” he said, and raised his glass.
Mr. Absent-minded Professor raised his glass too, and to Dean’s surprise, downed the rest of his drink, and signaled to the bartender for another.
Dean raised his eyebrows. “Rough night?”
“You have no idea,” the man said darkly. “We get one week of leave and the first thing he asks me? Why am I not coming home for a visit. The second? How quickly can I wire him his money.”
Dean nodded, commiserating, not because he had any personal experience with family members asking for money, but because the guy looked like he needed it. And there was something Dean kind of liked about him.
“Younger brother?”
“Yes.” The man sighed. “Four years, but sometimes it feels like four decades.”
Dean smiled. Yeah, he definitely liked this guy. “I think I know what you mean.”
“My brother?” the man continued. “Always the rebel. Burned down our house in the middle of winter when we were kids.”
“Rough deal,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Mine did too, actually.”
He felt a twinge of guilt the minute the words slipped out of his mouth.
“Well, that’s not fair,” he qualified, his face darkening a little at the memory. “He was a baby at the time. Wasn’t exactly his fault.”
Dean finished off his beer, and was grateful when the bartender anticipated his need for another, sliding a fresh bottle across the bar.
The man gave him a sympathetic look after a moment. “Mine was nine years old. When the fire happened.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean said. “Must’ve been hard.”
“We moved into a tent. Well, after I convinced my father not to disown the kid.”
“No kidding, really?”
“Not kidding,” the man said. “It was not pleasant. There was a lot of snow that winter. How about you?”
“We, uh…” Dean paused out of reflex, trying to decide how much truth to tell, how much to omit. “My dad took us on the road. He traveled a lot, for work, and we lived like that for a long time. Motels, mostly.”
“That must not have been pleasant either.”
“It had its moments.”
The man studied him for a second. “You care for your brother.”
Dean ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, I do. Want to throttle him in his sleep sometimes, the stubborn bastard, but… Mostly I just worry about him. Since our dad died, I want to make sure he’s on the right path, you know?”
“You feel responsible for him.”
“I’ve been protecting him my whole life. Kind of hard to stop now.”
“This is good,” the man said. Dean gave him a questioning look.
“You’re close, even after all these years. My family… I do my best to protect them too, but I don’t know if I can say this about them, that we are close. They do not want my protection, maybe.” The man shook his head. “My job,” he said, by way of explanation. “It’s very demanding.”
The way the man said the words, Dean knew better than to ask what that job was. He’d learned that in towns like this, with strong ties to military bases - it was usually better not to ask. The word “classified” seemed to come up a lot around these parts. Dean didn’t know much about what went on at Cheyenne Mountain, but Bobby had once warned him not to poke at that bee’s nest unless he was ready to spend a long time running from the swarm.
“I left them for an opportunity of a lifetime.” The man’s voice was a mix of astonishment, and regret. “I don’t think I made a mistake, but sometimes… I wonder. What if I had not come here?”
“Hey, you gotta do your best with what you’ve got, right? Sometimes you don’t have a choice as to which path you take.”
The man smiled - a slow, tired smile - and took a sip of his drink. “You always have a choice.”
“Doesn’t feel that way sometimes.”
Dean was about to attempt to qualify that, something about duty, maybe, when the door to the bar opened, welcoming them with a blast of frigid air, and Sam.
“Had a feeling you’d still be here,” Sam said by way of greeting, as he slid into the empty seat next to Dean. There were snowflakes melting into his hair as he shrugged out of his jacket.
A familiar sense of pride swelled in Dean’s chest, as he leaned over to nod to his new friend. “This is my brother, Sam. I’m Dean. We work together. Family business.”
The man extended a hand to both of them. “Dr. Radek Zeleka,” the man offered, with a smile. “Pleased to
meet you.”
Sam fixed Dean with a curious look, which Dean returned, his eyes widening a little. Doctor. That, he hadn’t really expected.
He ordered himself another beer, and one for Sam, local brew this time.
Dr. Zelenka quietly went back to his vodka.
The Broncos, not so quietly, added to their lead with an impressive 40-yard touchdown pass.
Sam lowered his voice, and started to talk shop. The case they were up here investigating was proving to be a frustrating series of dead ends--a string of missing persons, possible ties to witchcraft, possible ties to nothing at all.
After a few minutes, their doctor friend stood up to leave.
“Take care, my brothers,” he said warmly, patting both of them on the shoulder before he left.
“What was that all about?” Sam said, raising his eyebrows at Dean after the man had left. “Since when do you get to know the locals?”
“Nah, he’s not local. Shore leave from the base, some kind of contractor. Scientist, maybe?”
“Okay…”
“What can I say, we bonded. Turns out his brother burned down their house when he was a kid, too.”
It was a tired jab, half-hearted, but not without a tiny bit of weight. Sam just rolled his eyes until Dean nudged him with his shoulder.
“C’mon man, I’m just kidding. Guy had to live in a tent with his whole family though. Middle of winter. That’s no joke.”
“Rough deal,” Sam said, sounding sympathetic.
“Tell me about it.”
Dean sipped at his beer and stared at the space below the TV in front of him, and then at Sam.
Dean had no judgment to pass on anyone, but he didn’t want to be that person sitting in a bar, wondering aloud to a stranger whether he’d made the right life choices. At least not where Sam was concerned.
“You know,” he began, and Sam looked over at him. “I know we’ve had our differences since all this started, but I’m really glad you’re here. I want you to know that.”
“Dean--”
“No, I’m serious. Hunting with you again, it feels like where we’re meant to be - where we’ve chosen to be, you know?”
This was dangerous territory - no one knew that better than Dean, so he was relieved when Sam just nodded. The slight smile - genuine, a little embarrassed - on his brother’s face sent a sliver of warmth straight through to Dean’s chest.
“Thinking about some guy’s house burning down led you to this conclusion?”
Dean sighed. “Give me a break, Sammy. Geez.”
“Sure. Whatever you say…”
“Just tell me you’ve got something other than a boatload of nothing on this case before I take it all back, alright,” Dean grumbled.
“Well,” Sam said. “That depends. Weather sucks, but we’re running out of time if we want to get a jump on the next potential vic. You up for a stake out?”
“You know me, Sammy. The colder the better.” Dean let out a breath, and turned to face his brother. “Just lead the way.”
end