FIC: Almost At Home
Title: Almost At Home
Author: balefully
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Words: 24,302
Summary: Sam graduates from high school in early June in rural Tennessee. He and Dean start the summer with an all-nighter of celebration; the day after, while both fight hangovers, John calls to assign them their first hunt by themselves. They go to northern Virginia to investigate the homicidal ghost of a dangerous escapee of a high-security prison and mental institution whose MO is beheading people with an axe while wearing a filthy, grotesque bunny suit. Then throughout the long, happy summer, as they move around tackling a series of minor hunts together, John's absences grow longer. Sam and Dean explore their relationship as it burgeons into something they've both been craving and which neither of them regrets.
Warnings: None; Sam is eighteen.
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean are sadly not mine.
Notes: Written for spn_j2_bigbang. Infinite thanks to everyone who listened to me bitch and moan and especially those who whip-cracked and encouraged me to keep on keepin' on (causeways and memphis86, I am looking at you in particular). And love as usual to lazy_daze for a brilliant beta and the best cheerleading/ego-stroking ever. <333! More notes and acknowledgements at the end.
Graphics, Art, and Soundtrack by dark_reaction
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Art and Soundtrack Post
Like a brass cartridge. He is a useful thing,
Almost at home, and yet not quite, not quite.
- from "Desertmartin," by Tom Paulin
The day of Sam's graduation is a Wednesday. Which seems kind of lame to Dean, because graduation ceremonies should obviously be on weekends when people will actually be able to go to them.
But right now it's Tuesday, the night before, and Dean is sprawled lop-sided on the porch swing of their rental, one edge of the weathered bench tipped up so the chain rattles loose with give.
Sam comes out the front door, screen banging behind him. He soaks up the early summer breeze in his t-shirt and boxers, flip of hair wrapped soft around his earlobe as purple bleeds into the sky from the horizon like the sweet ache of a fresh, growing bruise.
"Where are they?" Dean asks, picking thick splinters of wood off the arm of the swing. Sam sits on the creaking wicker armchair on the other side of the porch, knees akimbo.
"Where are what?" Sam says with a sigh. He shifts his long legs to get comfortable. Dean chucks him one of the cushions from the swing, lying in a faded pile by the banister.
"Your tickets. For tomorrow. I dunno if Dad'll be home in time, but I-"
"Not going," Sam says, cutting Dean off. But it's not angry or petulant or even sad. He just sounds like he's not going.
"Seriously? You? Not going to your own graduation? Come on, Sammy."
Sam shrugs, small smile aimed at Dean as he squashes the cushion under himself and gets re-settled. "Don't really care. We've only been here three months, Dean. It's not like it's a sentimental occasion. Just means I don't have to worry about playing catch-up anymore. A relief, not an accomplishment."
Dean hums low and doesn't say anything, pleased and surprised. "Let's do something else instead," he says after a long moment. "Have our own pomp and circumstance."
Sam laughs, warm and short, and leans his head back against the white-washed siding, browned curve of neck blurry in the falling night. "Sure. But only if you buy me some liquor. What's the point of having an older brother if he won't get you something illegal on graduation night?"
"No point at all," Dean says with an answering huff, and lets his eyes drift closed as the first stars blink awake over the distant fields.
Not too long ago, Sam mentioned wanting to apply to college, for scholarships, internships, probably a bunch of other pretentious 'ships. Dean told him it was a fucking awful idea, that Dad wouldn't like it, that the Winchester men just don't work when they're split up. Sam set his mouth in the grim, determined line that means Dean is in for a shit storm-but nothing ever came of it. Nothing beyond some cursory gruff silence and no hot water in the mornings for a week or two.
And now it looks like maybe Sam's seen some sense. He's done with school and the necessities it hauls along with it; their lives can really begin.
*
Sam and his classmates don't have to be in school the day of graduation. As a result, the town center of Bells, Tennessee is full of fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds drunk on freedom, and probably on forties, too. They're milling around in short, delicate sundresses or worn jeans and plain tees. Sam blends right in, tall and lean with a clear farmer's tan under the short sleeves of his white cotton Hanes, rubbed fuzzy and soft with bleachings. Someone will occasionally offer him a wave or a What's up? but Sam just nods deliberately with a neutral smile and bumps his shoulder into Dean's after they walk past.
Summer is pressing in heavy on their town already, deep lines traced around the corners of everyone's eyes as the sun reflects off the bright sides of buildings. Dean slides on his sunglasses, but Sam doesn't bother, content to peer through his bangs at the list of movies playing at the Bells Theater.
At times like this, it's obvious how different Sam is from the other kids in the town, no matter how much he looks the part. At least during the school year they all have something in common; Dean sees these teenagers every day in their neighborhood, Sam one of them, as they all walk home or go to the library to study or hang out at the burger joint on Main Street. He and Sam can both slot into place with them even if they don't fit just right.
In summer, though, it's a completely different world. There's no common thread holding the Winchesters to the mundane; not even going to see a movie on the first day of the rest of Sam's life.
The theater is run-down, probably about to close. One screen and one window at the box office and that's more than enough. Dean sits under the overhang in the shade, comparing the merits of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider to Shrek while Sam nods and works on a bottle of Coke. They decide to grab some lunch and come back in two hours to see Lara Croft, because really, when you get down to it, there's no competition between Angelina Jolie kicking ass and taking names and-pretty much anything else.
*
The movie ends up sucking, but Dean certainly doesn't care, and Sam doesn't really look like he cares, either: all smiles and rolling shoulders and cool skin from the frigid air-conditioning. Every once in a while, shivers will thrill down the thick muscles of his arms, and Dean breathes a laugh through his nose when Sam shakes with it, uncontrollable.
They gorged on popcorn and Skittles and Sno-caps and Reese's Pieces, and they each got one of those Coke slushy things. Dean really wanted cherry, but of course it's some law of movie theaters that only one of the slushy machines can be working at any point in time, so Coke it was.
"'Least your mouth won't be stained red for the rest of your natural life," Sam says with a smirk, and tosses their stacks of trash in the nearest garbage can.
Dean just snorts as they walk out into the twilight, air still baked warm from the heat of the day, wrapping close around them and pressing their goosebumps smooth. He punches Sam on the shoulder and shifts away before Sam can get him back, both of them a little slow with food and contentment muting the rush of their blood.
"ABC store?" Dean says, smiling wickedly. Sam claps his hands together, cupping just enough to make the smack thick and deep in the quiet square. Everyone else is heading over to the school, most likely, and Sam and Dean have the uneven pavement and faded storefronts all to themselves.
"Thought you'd never ask," Sam says. "I want tequila. The good stuff. And Jaeger."
"You're such a wannabe frat boy, Sammy," Dean says, all endearment. "Probably gonna have to get your stomach pumped, and I will be laughing my ass off to kingdom come, just you fuckin' wait."
"Language, young man," Sam says, tight and mock-prissy, which Dean can hardly tell from real prissy.
Dean rolls his eyes, letting his guard down long enough for Sam to leap at him and pinch a huge welt into his elbow while he's not paying attention. Dean yelps and chases Sam up the street, but he doesn't really try that hard to catch him, too busy listening to the rounded echoes of Sam's laugh off the shop windows.
Sam turns, running backwards for a ways while he watches Dean, eyes glittering. He stops in front of the ABC store, leaning against the doorjamb, and shoves his hands in his pockets.
"You suck," Dean mutters, but he can't keep the amusement out of his voice. He doesn't even care that his elbow stings like a motherfucker and is stark white-red, blood pooling puffy under the skin.
"That's what she said," Sam mumbles. Dean doesn't bother perpetuating the game with a heavy cuff upside Sam's head, which would usually be his next move. He's too busy eying the cashier behind the counter and wondering if he could get away with swiping the booze or if he'll have to shell out for it.
He pushes inside, tiny bell ringing and cold wall of a/c instantly soaking into his clothes. He'll make it legit, this time. It's a present for Sam, anyway, and it's always better not to steal those. Makes them more special, or whatever.
"How can I help you?" The woman is middle-aged, worn but not unhappy. Her name is apparently Doris, stitched in white threads of embroidery above a cluster of pink bleach spots on the smock she's wearing. According to Us, which she has folded in front of her like bizarre origami, Tom Cruise is sticking it to Penelope Cruz. Dean approves in theory, but the man was married and has kids, so that kind of sucks.
"Ah," he says, making his way over to the hard liquor, "just need to grab something to get my summer started off right."
He picks a bottle of Jose Cuervo and some Jaegermeister, even though aniseed makes him gag just to think about. He's the best big brother ever and Sammy better not forget it. He throws in a twelve-pack from the stack by the register - something cheap and on sale.
Doris raises an eyebrow at his choices and leans over on her stool to peer out the window. Sam, thankfully, has disappeared from sight. "It's graduation tonight," she says, voice rough with smoke and latent accusation.
"Congrats to 'em," Dean says, smearing on the innocence thick as cold butter. "I'll make sure to raise a toast. The children are our future, you know."
"Sure are," Doris says, blinking back obvious boredom and traces of suspicion as she rings Dean up, through with her inquisition. He hands her his ID-real name, fake card-without being asked, and bags the bottles himself.
"Thanks, Doris," he grins, and drops a dollar in the near-empty tip jar on the counter. She gives him a wave without looking up from her magazine, and he pushes back out into the warm air with a thrill of anticipation he can't quite place.
It's just another night, really, but Sam is sitting on the curb with the fabric of his shirt molding flat against the muscles of his back and Dean's got his hands wrapped around the necks of something good.
*
They walk to the woods outside town, still and quiet. Sam pops open one of the beers as twigs and summer leaves snap green beneath their worn boots. Dean watches as Sam takes a swallow, the quick brush of his tongue over his lips and the short burst of breath he lets escape after the sudden bitter cold hits his throat.
"It's weird, you know," Sam says, kicking at a rock. "I don't feel any different, but I must be. Everything's different."
Dean rolls his eyes and takes a swig of tequila straight from the bottle. No use pussy-footing around; they're here to get drunk, and drunk he'll fucking get. "Man, you have got to be kidding me. I don't want to hear all that crap. You're an egghead genius, you graduated with a fifty-seven point eight GPA or whatever, and you broke that lame school's record in the men's mile four years in a row. The only thing that's different is that you're moving on to bigger and better things."
Sam huffs a laugh and downs the rest of his beer. For a fraction of a second, Dean actually thinks he's going to chuck the empty can into the woods like a normal high schooler, but he doesn't. Sam stops walking, kicking away the leaves on the ground to expose hard-packed dirt, and sets the can down. He rests a foot heavily on the top, leaning his weight on the can as he pulls two pencils out of one of his pockets. He touches the very points of the pencils to the sides of the can, hardly any pressure at all, and the can instantly smashes. The metallic crunch echoes off the trees and scares away at least two squirrels; the can is a perfect flat coin of aluminum. Sam slides in it his pocket along with the pencils and keeps walking.
"You're such a freak. I can't-it's actually impossible to overstate how much of a freak you are," Dean says. He blinks and jogs a few steps to catch up with Sam.
"It's just a can," Sam says, blank-faced, but his voice is smiling.
"There's some sort of 'can' joke I should be making, but fuck me if I can think of one." Dean pulls a beer from the pack in his arm and opens it with one hand. He downs it as fast as he's able while not tripping over anything.
Sometimes it feels like it's all he can do to keep up with Sam, whether they're running through the woods or he's two beers behind on a drinking night. Big brothers aren't supposed to be the tagalongs.
Dean just tosses his can haphazardly into the thicket of oaks; they walk on, drinking.
"Why didn't you finish?" Sam asks after the long quiet settles, punctuated only by glugging and hissing at the rank taste of Jaegermeister. It's like Sam's picking up the thread of an old conversation they've never had, but Dean knows what he means.
The dark is trickling through the trees, now; they're coming up to a nearby outcropping of boulders, and if Dean remembers correctly, there's one with a nice flat top that'll be perfect for their purposes. Hopefully they can find it.
"Didn't need to. Didn't want to," he says. "There's nothing a high school diploma could teach me that I need to know. No reason to stick around except to keep Child Services off Dad's back."
Sam stops suddenly, and Dean looks over to see him breathe in deep and melt down into the grass. He's on his back with his feet on the ground, knees bent up, thighs pulling tight in his jeans. "No. I guess there wasn't. You never really-"
"What?" Dean snaps. The night was not supposed to go like this. He isn't going to sit here knocking back shots while Sam judges him and finds him wanting. "I never really what? Had friends? Study dates? Sam, everyone at those schools was snot-nosed and ignorant and-"
"Worrying about their pimples and prom dresses when you were shooting werewolves full of silver, I know," Sam mutters. "I'm sorry I actually like people. And doing things that don't involve mud and guts and imminent doom." Dean hears him pop open another can.
"You actually just said 'imminent doom'," Dean laughs, annoyance ebbing away as he settles cross-legged next to Sam in the grass. "You're such a pussy."
He gulps another mouthful of Jaeger and chases it with some beer, retching the whole time. His nose is feeling kind of fuzzy, and he suddenly has the inexplicable urge to grind his molars. Drunkenness lies just around the corner. Which is good, because Sam is hogging the tequila and there is no doubt in Dean's mind that he'll vomit if he has to swallow one more drop of black liquorice hell.
"Whatever, shut up," Sam says, and smacks Dean's knee half-heartedly. His hand settles under Dean's calf, and Sam doesn't move it. He does, however, take an impressive drink of tequila, and then slides the bottle into the warm space between Dean's legs. "Here. You'll be saying a lot worse real soon."
Dean just smiles and sets the bottle of Jaeger on Sam's pelvis, propped to lean against his thighs. It's precarious, barely cradled in the shallow dip of Sam's hip, but it's staying up. "You're totally getting there, if that's the best you can come up with."
"I am absolutely getting there," Sam murmurs, and it's like there's syrup coating his vocal cords. "I'm allowed to be a cheap date - I'm only eighteen. I've been drunk, like. Twice ever."
"A cheap date, huh?" Dean says between swallows. The neck of the bottle is warm where Sam was holding it, and the base fits perfectly in the triangle of his folded legs. His jeans burn where Sam slid it against him, and Dean is definitely, definitely going to be wasted any minute now. Zero to sixty in two-point-five.
"You know what I mean." Sam turns towards Dean, forgetting the bottle of liquor perched on him, and it clunks to the ground. "Fuck," he hisses, and windmills his arms hilariously while lying down on his side. The bottle rolls awkwardly, watering the grass with liberal amounts of Jaeger, and Sam scrambles after it. "Why didn't you put the fucking cap on?" he demands once he's finally caught it. His hair is all jacked up, sticking out crazily, and he's got grass stains all over his white t-shirt.
Dean is practically choking. His throat burns because he started laughing halfway through a swallow and it's very possible that the inside of his nose is getting scorched off by tequila, but he doesn't even care, because Sam is fucking priceless. They've lost at least a third of the alcohol from the bottle, and it was worth every bit.
Sam grunts and takes a long pull, then bends over, fishing around in the grass for his beer. Or beers. He has at least two going at once, and Dean's heard of two-fisted drinking but Sam's up to three fists now, and-Dean does not mean that the way it sounds. In his head.
He is definitely drunk.
After a second during which Dean's positive all he did was blink, Sam's suddenly across the clearing and up on top of the boulder they've been heading for the whole time. The moon is full, and he's silhouetted against the stars like a felt-board story, and Dean breathes deep through the burn in his nose and throat and the numbness of his cheeks; he swears he can smell Sam. Clean and boy and grass and pencils and illegal booze and bleach and aluminum.
Make that smashed. Not drunk, completely smashed out of his head.
Sam whistles with his thumb and middle finger in his mouth, loud and shrill in the muzzy quiet of the clearing. Dean just groans. "I'm too comfortable here. Fuck off."
"No, no. You want some of this. You really, really wanna come up here," Sam calls back, and he's listing a little to the side. Then he's fumbling with something in his lap and Dean can't even feel his own eyebrows crinkle as he makes a what the fuck? face. After a confused second, Dean pulls himself to his knees, then his feet, and shuffles over to the boulder just in time to see a pinprick of orange flare up in front of Sam's lips as he hears a strained inhale.
"Did you just roll a joint?" he asks, feeling around for a hand-hold on the boulder. "Are you fucking smoking up, Sammy?"
Sam just laughs, warm and smoke-rough, pale cloud rushing past his lips and up against Dean's when Dean rolls onto the top of the rock next to him. "And what if I am?"
It tastes sour, rich, and Dean didn't even know he was craving it. "Then I say you'd better pass the freaking dutchie, man, or I'm telling Dad. Also, I hereby revoke your goody-goody badge forever."
Sam snorts out his second toke and passes the joint to Dean. "You can have it. In all its metaphorical glory," Sam says. "Anyway, I got this stuff from Taylor. Couple weeks ago. It really does pay to go to study groups."
Dean inhales, sucking down the burn and holds it tight for long seconds. He can feel Sam's eyes on him, so he tries not to look too dopey-drunk. The moonlight is bright and clear and if he can see Sam's eyelashes one-by-one fanned against his cheek, then Sam can see his stupid pot-face expressions. He breathes out long and slow, immediately inhaling another toke.
As he holds it in his chest, he can see Sam breathe in, Dean's smoke curling gently up his nose, into the soft curve of his mouth. Dean just smiles and relaxes, blowing his whole breath out in one puff through his nostrils.
They pass the joint back and forth until it's a nub and Sam yelps when he burns his fingers trying to hold it. They light another one, and smoke it down until the same fucking thing happens again. Dean can't help but laugh, Sam flicking his hand in the air and making pitiful noises. He sticks his fingers in his mouth, presumably to soothe the burn, and Dean stops laughing abruptly.
He was going to say something, but he can't fucking remember what it was. Sam is blinking at him with squinty eyes, and his cheeks are looking sort of puffy, and damn pot really doesn't do anyone any favors in the attractiveness department.
Not that he was thinking about how attractive Sam is. Or isn't. Or whatever.
"What the fuck are you even talking about?" Sam mumbles, fingers still pressing heavy on his tongue. It's a miracle Dean can understand him.
"Huh?" Dean says.
"You're babbling about squintiness and being attractive and I can't follow what you're saying and I don't really know if it's because you're high or because I am. Squintiness isn't a word, though. I'm pretty sure-"
"Did I say that out loud?" Dean mutters. He presses his lips in a firm line and imagines supergluing them shut. Superglue would probably taste really bad, but then if he used it on his lips and was tasting it, that would mean his tongue would get glued to his lips too, and-
"Shut up," Sam groans, and claps his hand over Dean's mouth none too gently. "Shut up. You're. Whatevering. Hosing my yellow-harshing. Harshing my mellow."
Dean starts laughing, and he doesn't stop. Is physically incapable of stopping, really. Sam rolls another spliff and lights it up, then pushes Dean bodily off the boulder.
He lies in a pile at the foot of the rock for as long as it takes to calm down; he pulls himself to his feet and knuckles at his eyes for a moment, trying to make sense of the shadowy lump where Sam used to be.
Sam's crouched down, on his knees but with his forehead pressed against the rock, arms wrapped around his legs; the third joint is gone. Dean's pretty sure he's humming, too, but he can't make out what. "Sam?" he says, tail ends of snickers still coloring his tone. "When you're done communing with nature, we need to get the hell out of here. It's-um. I don't actually know what time it is. But it's. You know. When it is."
Sam sits up, staring at Dean owlishly. His eyes aren't that red anymore, and Dean figures he must've been prostrate on the ground longer than he'd thought.
"We good?" Sam asks, sounding a little spacey still. "I'm done with the rock."
"You're-done with the rock. Right." Dean nods and grabs Sam's firm forearm, veins and smooth cool skin, tugging him down into a spindly stagger on the grass. When Sam's steadied himself, they both head back the way they came.
The sky is fading grayish around the edges, a black page in a closed book, sunlight bleaching out the edges and not the middle. "I'm really glad we did this," Sam says.
Dean tries not to groan; Sam sounds serious. "What, are you going to write me a thank you note when we get back home or something, Miss Manners?"
"Dean, shut up. I mean it." His voice is still a little warm and fuzzy. "It was good. A good end to the year and everything. I mean, what if this is our last chance?"
Dean scoffs. "What, are you planning to go all straight-arrow now that you're an adult or something? Or just mourning the fact that Taylor won't be around to hook you up anymore?"
Sam looks down at his feet, then up at Dean, gaze straight and even. There's something sad in his eyes, maybe even guilty. "Something like that," he says; Dean can barely hear him.
"Man, you're still high," Dean says, laughing. Sam just watches him, a wistful little smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
They push through the front door of their house before dawn breaks over the hills, and Dean falls into his single on the other side of the room from Sam, feeling a little colder than he did before. But good. Definitely good. Watching Sam's deep breaths shift his comforter is good, too.
"Congratulations, Sammy," he says, already halfway to sleep.
He's pretty sure Sam says, "Thank you," but it might've been something else.
*
Dean falls out of bed at ten AM. He hits the floor with a thick thud and starts awake, rolling up immediately and reaching for the knife in his nightstand drawer.
He's heaving, eyes pinned wide, and scans the room. Nothing. Just-just falling out of bed. Sam is dead to the world, heavy breathing muffled by the pillow and probably copious drool, if Dean knows his brother. Which he does.
There's a railroad spike through Dean's head. And his joints feel like someone filled them with jelly, achy and wobbly. His mouth is sticky-dry, his hair is grease-slick, and his sheets are clammy with sweat.
He scrubs at his face and staggers into the bathroom with a groan. He doesn't dare to look in the mirror. After he takes a sorely needed piss, he forces down five plastic Dixie cups of water and two Tylenol. The water from the sink is ice cold and stings like torture when he sticks his face under the faucet, but it's worth it when he stumbles back to bed feeling at least half alive.
He'll give himself an hour more. Keeping on track means being functional by noon so he can wake Sam up and pester the hell out of his graduated ass.
At eleven thirty, Dean jerks awake again, and the railroad spike has diminished to a manageable pinch between his eyes.
This time, he manages a shower and a shave and brushes his teeth. He's only a little pale, freckles bursting obviously over his cheeks and nose and in his ears, hair wet into dark spikes from temple to nape.
Sam is still unconscious. His breathing is raspy and labored, allergies probably irritating him after being outside all night. He's never snored, doesn't even when he's got a cold, but the heavy inhales and exhales into his pillow are almost as loud as if he did.
"Rise and shine, Sammy!" Dean shouts in Sam's ear. He leaps on the bed with a yelp, Sam bouncing with the mattress and startling awake.
"Shit." Sam's panting and jumpy, and Dean laughs long and loud. "What the fuck, Dean. Jesus Christ." And then all the blood drains out of his face in an instant. Sam hurls himself out of bed, hits the ground running, and barely makes it into the bathroom before puking liberally into the sink.
"You hit the mind-altering substances a little hard last night, huh," Dean says, and decides not to mention that he still feels pretty shitty himself, despite being able to move without revisiting the Red Vines from the movie theater yesterday.
"Go fuck yourself," Sam grumbles. He's obviously still a surly teenager in there somewhere under the geek, which kind of makes Dean feel a little better about himself.
"Would if I could, Sammy, would if I could." He's being overloud and obnoxious on purpose, and the death glare Sam gives him is pretty impressive. This is his job, though. What are big brothers for, if not getting their little brothers drunk and stoned and then mocking them the next morning? Doesn't matter Sam did the stoned part all on his own.
He goes out to their dingy little kitchen, beaming at Sam's misfortune. Schadenfreude's a bitch when you're not on the right end of it. But he is.
"I'm making breakfast," he calls back to Sam. "Lots of grease, just for you."
All he hears in return is a pretty pathetic garble. He'll make Sam some dry toast. His cruelty only extends so far.
The doors of the cabinets are coming loose, and Dean makes a note on the whiteboard by the phone-which came with the house; not like Dad was actually fussy enough to put one up himself-that he should tighten up the hinges soon. Right above his scribble is a smeared red reminder that trash days are Tuesday and Saturday, and that the air conditioner needs a new filter.
Most of the dishes came with the house. The frying pan is scratched up, rusty around the handle, but the Winchesters aren't exactly picky. Dean makes himself bacon and eggs, his favorite hangover food.
While the bacon's frying, he closes his eyes and just listens: it sounds like raindrops splattering on the roof, the beginning of a rough summer thunderstorm.
Sam shuffles in while Dean's stirring some oatmeal in their one saucepan. His feet scuff on the peeling edges of the fake linoleum floor where it's yellowed and brittle. His drawstring sweats hang loose around his hips, and he's wearing a clean shirt; still smells like puke and sweat and dirt, though.
"What, too enamored of your own stench to spare me by taking a shower?"
Sam shakes his head gingerly, mumbling, "Can't stand up and close my eyes or tilt my head back without falling over. Just have to deal, I guess."
"Sorry, man," Dean says softly after a second. He hands Sam a chipped white plate with four slices of dry toast on it. "Think you can handle butter or jelly or something?" He pours Sam a pint glass of tap water, too.
"This is fine," Sam manages, and goes to lie down on the couch in the family room.
The phone rings, like it waited politely for Sam to be out of the kitchen first. "Hello?" Dean says. There's really only one person who would be calling.
"Dean, how're things?" Dad asks, gruff and quiet. He doesn't mean it in the small-talk way. He means it in the have-you-fucked-up-yet way.
"Good, good. Great. Sam's graduation was last night but he didn't wanna go, so we just hung out. Saw a movie. No big deal. Everything's pretty quiet."
"Fine," Dad says. "That's fine."
"You're still coming home this afternoon, right?" Dean can't really keep the pathetic hope out of his voice. He tries, though.
"About that-"
Dean stays silent, pressing his lips tight together.
"I won't be home for a while yet. Another job came up, and I-"
"Are you okay?" Dean's fingers hurt from gripping the receiver so tightly.
"Yeah, yeah. Fine."
"We can come out there, Dad. It's okay-we can help, I know-"
"No," Dad spits out down the line. Dean flinches. "No, I need you boys to do something else for me."
"Sure." Dean's ready with the whiteboard marker.
"There's something going on over in Virginia. Caleb called me with some leads. Sounds like some sort of psycho spirit is causing a spate of axe-wound victims to show up at the hospitals in the area."
"Want us to do some research for you?"
"Not for me. I want you to take Sammy and the both of you check it out. Thirty-eight point eight, negative seventy-seven point three." Dean pops the cap on the marker and scribbles down the coordinates. "Shouldn't be too bad, but both of you must go." His voice goes deep and angry. "If I hear about you ever doing something like this without your brother, or if you let him go off without you, there will be hell to pay, Dean."
"Yessir," Dean says with a thick swallow. The memory of a black-robed figure and cold fear gripping Dean's guts in Wisconsin overwhelms him for a second, before the thrill of Dad giving them their own hunt takes over. "You gonna meet us there?" Dean knows Dad can probably hear how excited he is, but he doesn't even care.
"I think you both can take care of it on your own. Just remember-"
"I know, Dad. The rules. It's fine, we'll be fine. We can handle it, definitely. Won't split up, remember the rules, got it." He shuts up before Dad has to tell him to.
"It shouldn't take more than a couple days. Call Pastor Jim soon as you've got it taken care of. I'll be checking in."
"Right. Yessir."
"Bye, Dean." He sounds sort of funny, but Dean figures it must just be the connection.
"Bye, Dad." Dean hangs up, and his cheeks actually hurt from smiling. He whoops, jogging into the family room. "Guess what, pukebreath," he says, leaping onto the end of the couch where Sam's feet are.
Sam pulls his legs up just in time to avoid getting his shins cracked in half. "Shh," he groans, smothering his face with a throw pillow. "Could you not, please? My eardrums are going to burst brains and blood and earwax all over the couch, and you'll be really pissed off." Dean's impressed at Sam's level of coherency, actually. The water and toast have worked wonders.
"Too fucking bad." Dean pulls Sam's legs into his lap and smacks him on the knee.
"What the hell are you so Pollyanna chipper about?" Sam mutters, flinging the pillow at Dean's head.
"We've got some stuff to do, Sammy." He can't keep the smile off his face.
"Now? Right now?" Sam groans, and kicks his heels into Dean's stomach. It's feeble attempt, though, and Dean feels guilty.
"Well. Maybe not right now. But as soon as you're ready to rejoin the world of the living, we're going on a hunt."
"Dad's back? Or is he gonna meet up with us?" Sam actually doesn't sound disappointed, and it's all Dean can do not to crow about it.
"Um, not exactly. We're going on our own."
"What?" Sam manages to sit up. He definitely still looks like shit, but color is slowly creeping back into his face. "By ourselves? We'll get slaughtered, Dean!" He sounds genuinely freaked.
"Nah, we'll be fine. Dad said it's super easy."
"Why don't you just go by yourself, then?"
Dean's joy doesn't even dissipate. This is the best week ever. "Because Dad'll have my balls if I leave you. You know the rules, we can't hunt by ourselves."
"Can't you work on him about it? I'm not going if we're not all together. You know we work better when we're together." Sam is petulant, pulling his feet out of Dean's lap like it's a punishment.
"We are together, Sammy," Dean smiles, warm and happy. He reaches over to loop an arm around Sam's sweaty neck, pulling him in for a gentle noogie. "Let me know when standing up isn't gonna make you hurl chunks, and we'll get going. I'll check the maps and pack while you recuperate or whatever."
"Happy graduation to me," Sam mutters darkly, pulling away from Dean. He shoves him weakly, but his eyes are looking brighter. "I'm not moving until five at the earliest. And I get to drive at least halfway."
"The hell you do," Dean laughs, and gets to his feet. He's not even remotely hungover anymore, and he has the almost irresistible urge to go find Lacey Stewart in town for some afternoon delight to officially cap off the best day ever.
He can't, though. They have work to do.
*
The drive will take them ten hours if Dean floors it. Not counting traffic once they get to northern Virginia, which is apparently where they're headed. The coordinates Dad gave him point to Fairfax Station, which means suburbs, which means hell on earth, as far as Dean's concerned.
Forty is almost deserted, at least until they get to Nashville. It's a Thursday night, pick-ups and sedans winding their way home from work. Sam's doing well considering the rough start he got this morning, and he pulls some intricate navigational tricks out of his ass that have Dean pumping a fist in the air as they sail past some congestion.
It's clear going all the way to eighty-one after that. Dean rewards Sam by popping in The Doors for a good stretch of road. The kid needs a break from Led Zep and Mötörhead every once in a while or he'll be a total shit the entire time they're in Virginia.
Dean hums along to every single song on his Waiting for the Sun tape, and he catches Sammy nodding along, too. It's past dusk now, stars thick and bright in the country sky, and Jim Morrison is singing about freedom's shore.
Dean's not sure how far it is to the beach from Lynchburg, but once they pass Charlottesville and the clot of SUVs with university stickers on the bumpers, it's too late to turn back south. They wouldn't be able to see the crashing summer waves, anyway, and there'd be too many drunk college losers dancing around their bonfires.
Dean eyes Sam, slumped in the passenger seat with his head pressed against the window, staring out at the silver blanket of stars, and promises silently that they'll stop at the beach on the way home. They have a hunt to take care of, and now's not the time for side trips, as much as Dean wants to make one. Sammy hasn't been to the beach since he was about eight, and even then it was because Dad needed to put a harpoon through a homicidal mermaid.
Sixty-six is faster than Dean thought it would be. Bumper-to-bumper traffic clogs the out-bound lanes, but they're doing at least twenty-five over the limit in-bound, the only car in the HOV lane and the discrete radar under the dash showing no speed-traps in range.
"What exactly is the job?" Sam asks. He hasn't spoken since the last rest stop they took, at least two hundred miles, but not in the bad way. In the easy, comfortable way, where his breath and the slow curl of his fingers on the door handle are more than enough conversation.
"Angry spirit, Dad says. In Fairfax Station, possibly. I don't know anything else about it, but apparently there've been a bunch of yuppie types with weird axe injuries. And if they know what happened, they're not talking, so. It's probably our kind of gig."
"No fatalities?"
"Not yet," Dean says, sighing. "Well, that Dad mentioned anyway. But he hasn't done much research. Said Caleb told him about the hospital reports and that's about it. I wouldn't rule it out."
Sam bites at his lip, concentration furrow creasing his brow. He starts picking at the grime under his nails, and Dean has the urge to grab his hands to make the faint clicking stop before it drives him crazy.
He switches from his tape to the classic rock station, instead, and turns up Hotel California until Sam glares at him. When Sam takes it one step further and seizes the lobe of Dean's ear between his fingernails and digs them in, twisting, Dean jumps and yelps.
"Jesus Christ, Sam!" he shouts, but Sam's just laughing, turning so the corner where the seat meets the window cradles his back and he can watch Dean flush deep red in frustration, struggling to keep them on the road. "That fucking hurts, you little punk!"
"You know how I feel about The Eagles, Dean. You only get what you deserve." He sits in smug silence until they turn off onto one twenty-three and Dean needs directions.
It takes them a while to find a motel in their price range with the front desk still open. As it's about three AM, it's too late to do any research at one of the dozens of libraries in the area and too dark to get a good look at the town itself to actually find where this spirit could be holed up. Dad was less than vague, plus their map of the place is both complicated and extremely out of date.
"What the hell, man, we're gonna have to sleep in the car at this rate," Sam grumbles.
"It won't kill us if we do," Dean mutters, but he keeps driving around. There's got to be something. "What is with these people? Nothing under ninety bucks a night is a fucking swindle."
They end up at the Breezeway motel in Fairfax, peeling white paint and stucco walls under a faded red and yellow awning much more their style than the stacked-high Hiltons with BMWs in the parking lots.
They get to their room, and it's like someone shoved them into a sitcom from the seventies. Everything's brown - shag carpets, metal cabinets, walls. It's retro without being retro chic.
Sam blinks and throws his duffle on the luggage rack in the corner; the scream of an eighteen-wheeler passing by presses in at the window and Dean squints as the light filters through the heavy brown curtains. "Whatever, it was cheap," Sam says, and eyes the two beds.
"Which one do you want?" Dean asks, and debates the merits of being closer to the door or to the bathroom.
"I guess that one," Sam says, and flops down on the bed to the right, the one next to the bathroom, "since I'm used to it."
The bed closest to the door has always been Dad's, and Dean shares the second bed with Sam. Except now they get to have their own beds, fucking finally. It makes sense that Dean would get the one that used to be their dad's. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself now that you won't be heaving your nasty-ass breath on me all night long," he says. A whole queen-size of his own seems like unheard-of luxury.
"At least I don't roll on people," Sam huffs, like he's about a second away from sticking his tongue out at Dean.
"Slander!" Dean says, facetiously shocked. He grabs his toothbrush and toothpaste and heads to the bathroom while Sam rolls his eyes. "Shut up and get ready for bed. We should be up by about nine-thirty at the latest. Set the alarm."
Sam's still punching random buttons, trying to figure out the clock-radio when Dean's done washing his face and brushing his teeth.
Dean crawls into the saggy bed, pulling up the cheap white comforter. He intends to read through the previous day's paper to get a feel of the place they'll be wandering around in the morning, but he feels his eyes slamming shut by the time he turns to the second page.
He figures it can't hurt just to close them for a minute, and the last thing he hears is Sam spitting into the sink.
The next thing he's aware of is a stray dog barking, shrill and close. It sounds little and ratty, probably an escapee from one of the nearby yards with a literal white picket fence. Dean groans and turns over, facing the middle of the room instead of the window, and yanks at the covers to get them up over his ears.
They don't budge, though. After a long moment of confusion, he realizes he can't pull them up any farther because someone has hogged them all, and is lying on more than half of them. "Sammy?" he grumbles, pushing at the lump curled on the far edge of the bed, encased in a huge swathe of blanket. "What-bed? You've got-?" The words are slow and sticky in his mouth, tasting of stale sleep.
Sam just snorts and smacks his lips, soft smile on his face, burrowing deeper under the sheets before flopping over towards Dean. He blows out a hot breath right in Dean's face. Rolling his eyes, Dean just shoves harder, trying to dump Sam over the side. Sam, typically, won't budge. "Fine. Whatever. Just don't breathe all over me-"
He doesn't have any trouble drifting off again; if anything, the hot damp against him from Sam's side of the bed just sinks heavy into Dean's skin like southern humidity and lulls him steadily back to sleep.
*
The alarm screams obnoxiously at nine-thirty AM on the nose. Dean rolls over to smack the sleep button, but winds up with an armful of Sam, instead. "Huh-shit," he says into Sam's scapula. He also appears to have stuck his elbow in a cold, drying pool of spit on Sam's pillow. "Fucking gross."
Completely forgoing any courtesies that involve not jamming various bony appendages into Sam's vulnerable spots, Dean scrambles over his little brother to turn the alarm off. He wipes his elbow clean in the vicinity of Sam's kidneys, harder than strictly necessary, and then with a strong heave-ho, shoves Sam out of his bed and onto the floor. A hollow thud suggests that Sam hit something on the way down.
Sam wakes up with a pained moan, and Dean could not actually care less that Sam may have concussed himself on the corner of the nightstand. "What'd you do that for?" Sam whines.
"You were in my bed, dude," Dean says, heading to the sink to brush his teeth. He almost trips when his feet get tangled in the comforter from Sam's bed; Sam must've tried to sleep there before he moved. Dean doesn't really know what to make of that.
"My mattress has pokey springs in it," Sam says. He sounds like he actually means it. Dean has a hard time telling when it comes to Sam, sometimes, though.
"So in a fit of pique, you decide to drench my bed in your spit. Thanks. You're such a pal."
"At least I don't snore like a chainsaw," Sam shoots back, defensive.
"Shut the fuck up, droolface. I'm the wronged party here, so you don't get to mount a case."
Sam just huffs, leaning back against the headboard so hard it slams into the wall. He grabs the remote from the drawer of the nightstand and starts flipping through channels, punching at the buttons like he has something to prove. He must be looking for local news, because after watching for a while, he says, "Nothing big," right as Dean finishes shaving.
"Anything small?"
"Nope. Mostly DC stuff, anyway. And run-of-the-mill human interest crap." Dean holds off on turning on the water in the shower long enough to hear the news anchor talking about a heroic neighbor saving a family from their burning home.
"Library it is," Dean says, and turns on the water full blast, as hot as he can stand it.
*
"Okay, so I've got some back issues of this free local paper, the Sun Gazette," Sam says from the stacks.
They've hit at least four libraries already, and there are another five at least within close driving distance. It's almost obscene, and Sam is lapping it up.
The Chantilly Library, their current location, is a large, open-plan building with aluminum shelves, plum carpeting, and row upon row of high-tech computers. It's crawling with annoying little kids and their Stepford parents, geekface high-schoolers who would probably be Sam's friends under other circumstances, and bored housewives who would probably be more than just Dean's friends under other circumstances.
Sam shoots him a disgusted look when he catches Dean leering at a hot young MILF bending down to reach the low shelf in the self-help section. "Hello? Earth to Dean? Sun Gazette."
"I heard you," Dean says, and turns his attention to Sam. "Remind me not to callously dismiss your love of the library in future," he adds, smiling.
"I'm exhausting the amount of times I'm physically capable of saying 'Shut up' to one person," Sam mutters, and shoves the newspaper at Dean. "Read. If you even can."
"Ha ha," Dean says dryly. He flips the paper the right way around and scans the article Sam was pointing to. "This is just a review of a TV show. Am I on the wrong-"
"Yeah, but look at it," Sam urges. Dean reads it more carefully.
Scariest Places on Earth: 6
(Fox Family)
Hosted by Linda Blair
An ordinary family is sent to investigate infamously haunted locations in this horror-genre reality show. The episode features the Bunnyman Bridge in Virginia, said to be haunted by a lunatic that escaped from a nearby asylum and kept himself alive by killing and eating wild rabbits, leaving their carcasses to be found strewed across suburban neighborhoods. Reportedly, he dressed as a rabbit when he killed his victims, always with an axe. They were left hanging near the bridge, and to this day reports of mutilated bodies and appearances of a tall man in a dirty rabbit suit near an overpass in Clifton are still filed. The second location featured in the show…
"I'll be damned," Dean says, impressed. "That's a perfect lead if ever there was one. Angry spirit of a guy in a fucking rabbit suit? Appearances centered around a bridge in Clifton-"
"Plus, it says under further references there's a paper on the bridge and the spirit by some guy, Conley. We can get one of the librarians to call around and have a look for us while we're checking out the bridge," Sam says. He's tilting back in his chair as far as he can go, and Dean just barely catches himself before he barks at Sam that he's about to crack his head open. Dean's doing the exact same thing with his chair, after all, and he'd never live it down.
"Good thinking. You photocopy, I'll go have a chat with-" Dean eyes the youngest, hottest librarian behind the desk, getting a read on her nametag, "Heather. Report back in ten."
Sam rolls his eyes and grabs the paper back from Dean.
Heather's not even paying attention when Dean sidles up to her section of the check-out desk. "Morning," he says, and leans into her line of sight. She's staring at something beyond the New Arrivals shelf. He gives her a quick smile, then turns to see what she was looking at.
Sam, apparently. Bending down to refill the bottom paper tray of the copier. Dean doesn't know whether to be smitten by a woman after his own heart, or weirded out and uncomfortable, getting an eyeful of Sam's t-shirt riding up the smooth skin of his back and his jeans pulling tight and frayed across his-well.
"How can I help you?" Heather asks brightly. She could always be this chipper, but if Dean knows anything-and he does-she's enjoying perving on his brother a little too much. He's kind of proud, actually.
*
Part 2
Author: balefully
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Words: 24,302
Summary: Sam graduates from high school in early June in rural Tennessee. He and Dean start the summer with an all-nighter of celebration; the day after, while both fight hangovers, John calls to assign them their first hunt by themselves. They go to northern Virginia to investigate the homicidal ghost of a dangerous escapee of a high-security prison and mental institution whose MO is beheading people with an axe while wearing a filthy, grotesque bunny suit. Then throughout the long, happy summer, as they move around tackling a series of minor hunts together, John's absences grow longer. Sam and Dean explore their relationship as it burgeons into something they've both been craving and which neither of them regrets.
Warnings: None; Sam is eighteen.
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean are sadly not mine.
Notes: Written for spn_j2_bigbang. Infinite thanks to everyone who listened to me bitch and moan and especially those who whip-cracked and encouraged me to keep on keepin' on (causeways and memphis86, I am looking at you in particular). And love as usual to lazy_daze for a brilliant beta and the best cheerleading/ego-stroking ever. <333! More notes and acknowledgements at the end.
Graphics, Art, and Soundtrack by dark_reaction
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Art and Soundtrack Post
Like a brass cartridge. He is a useful thing,
Almost at home, and yet not quite, not quite.
- from "Desertmartin," by Tom Paulin
The day of Sam's graduation is a Wednesday. Which seems kind of lame to Dean, because graduation ceremonies should obviously be on weekends when people will actually be able to go to them.
But right now it's Tuesday, the night before, and Dean is sprawled lop-sided on the porch swing of their rental, one edge of the weathered bench tipped up so the chain rattles loose with give.
Sam comes out the front door, screen banging behind him. He soaks up the early summer breeze in his t-shirt and boxers, flip of hair wrapped soft around his earlobe as purple bleeds into the sky from the horizon like the sweet ache of a fresh, growing bruise.
"Where are they?" Dean asks, picking thick splinters of wood off the arm of the swing. Sam sits on the creaking wicker armchair on the other side of the porch, knees akimbo.
"Where are what?" Sam says with a sigh. He shifts his long legs to get comfortable. Dean chucks him one of the cushions from the swing, lying in a faded pile by the banister.
"Your tickets. For tomorrow. I dunno if Dad'll be home in time, but I-"
"Not going," Sam says, cutting Dean off. But it's not angry or petulant or even sad. He just sounds like he's not going.
"Seriously? You? Not going to your own graduation? Come on, Sammy."
Sam shrugs, small smile aimed at Dean as he squashes the cushion under himself and gets re-settled. "Don't really care. We've only been here three months, Dean. It's not like it's a sentimental occasion. Just means I don't have to worry about playing catch-up anymore. A relief, not an accomplishment."
Dean hums low and doesn't say anything, pleased and surprised. "Let's do something else instead," he says after a long moment. "Have our own pomp and circumstance."
Sam laughs, warm and short, and leans his head back against the white-washed siding, browned curve of neck blurry in the falling night. "Sure. But only if you buy me some liquor. What's the point of having an older brother if he won't get you something illegal on graduation night?"
"No point at all," Dean says with an answering huff, and lets his eyes drift closed as the first stars blink awake over the distant fields.
Not too long ago, Sam mentioned wanting to apply to college, for scholarships, internships, probably a bunch of other pretentious 'ships. Dean told him it was a fucking awful idea, that Dad wouldn't like it, that the Winchester men just don't work when they're split up. Sam set his mouth in the grim, determined line that means Dean is in for a shit storm-but nothing ever came of it. Nothing beyond some cursory gruff silence and no hot water in the mornings for a week or two.
And now it looks like maybe Sam's seen some sense. He's done with school and the necessities it hauls along with it; their lives can really begin.
*
Sam and his classmates don't have to be in school the day of graduation. As a result, the town center of Bells, Tennessee is full of fresh-faced eighteen-year-olds drunk on freedom, and probably on forties, too. They're milling around in short, delicate sundresses or worn jeans and plain tees. Sam blends right in, tall and lean with a clear farmer's tan under the short sleeves of his white cotton Hanes, rubbed fuzzy and soft with bleachings. Someone will occasionally offer him a wave or a What's up? but Sam just nods deliberately with a neutral smile and bumps his shoulder into Dean's after they walk past.
Summer is pressing in heavy on their town already, deep lines traced around the corners of everyone's eyes as the sun reflects off the bright sides of buildings. Dean slides on his sunglasses, but Sam doesn't bother, content to peer through his bangs at the list of movies playing at the Bells Theater.
At times like this, it's obvious how different Sam is from the other kids in the town, no matter how much he looks the part. At least during the school year they all have something in common; Dean sees these teenagers every day in their neighborhood, Sam one of them, as they all walk home or go to the library to study or hang out at the burger joint on Main Street. He and Sam can both slot into place with them even if they don't fit just right.
In summer, though, it's a completely different world. There's no common thread holding the Winchesters to the mundane; not even going to see a movie on the first day of the rest of Sam's life.
The theater is run-down, probably about to close. One screen and one window at the box office and that's more than enough. Dean sits under the overhang in the shade, comparing the merits of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider to Shrek while Sam nods and works on a bottle of Coke. They decide to grab some lunch and come back in two hours to see Lara Croft, because really, when you get down to it, there's no competition between Angelina Jolie kicking ass and taking names and-pretty much anything else.
*
The movie ends up sucking, but Dean certainly doesn't care, and Sam doesn't really look like he cares, either: all smiles and rolling shoulders and cool skin from the frigid air-conditioning. Every once in a while, shivers will thrill down the thick muscles of his arms, and Dean breathes a laugh through his nose when Sam shakes with it, uncontrollable.
They gorged on popcorn and Skittles and Sno-caps and Reese's Pieces, and they each got one of those Coke slushy things. Dean really wanted cherry, but of course it's some law of movie theaters that only one of the slushy machines can be working at any point in time, so Coke it was.
"'Least your mouth won't be stained red for the rest of your natural life," Sam says with a smirk, and tosses their stacks of trash in the nearest garbage can.
Dean just snorts as they walk out into the twilight, air still baked warm from the heat of the day, wrapping close around them and pressing their goosebumps smooth. He punches Sam on the shoulder and shifts away before Sam can get him back, both of them a little slow with food and contentment muting the rush of their blood.
"ABC store?" Dean says, smiling wickedly. Sam claps his hands together, cupping just enough to make the smack thick and deep in the quiet square. Everyone else is heading over to the school, most likely, and Sam and Dean have the uneven pavement and faded storefronts all to themselves.
"Thought you'd never ask," Sam says. "I want tequila. The good stuff. And Jaeger."
"You're such a wannabe frat boy, Sammy," Dean says, all endearment. "Probably gonna have to get your stomach pumped, and I will be laughing my ass off to kingdom come, just you fuckin' wait."
"Language, young man," Sam says, tight and mock-prissy, which Dean can hardly tell from real prissy.
Dean rolls his eyes, letting his guard down long enough for Sam to leap at him and pinch a huge welt into his elbow while he's not paying attention. Dean yelps and chases Sam up the street, but he doesn't really try that hard to catch him, too busy listening to the rounded echoes of Sam's laugh off the shop windows.
Sam turns, running backwards for a ways while he watches Dean, eyes glittering. He stops in front of the ABC store, leaning against the doorjamb, and shoves his hands in his pockets.
"You suck," Dean mutters, but he can't keep the amusement out of his voice. He doesn't even care that his elbow stings like a motherfucker and is stark white-red, blood pooling puffy under the skin.
"That's what she said," Sam mumbles. Dean doesn't bother perpetuating the game with a heavy cuff upside Sam's head, which would usually be his next move. He's too busy eying the cashier behind the counter and wondering if he could get away with swiping the booze or if he'll have to shell out for it.
He pushes inside, tiny bell ringing and cold wall of a/c instantly soaking into his clothes. He'll make it legit, this time. It's a present for Sam, anyway, and it's always better not to steal those. Makes them more special, or whatever.
"How can I help you?" The woman is middle-aged, worn but not unhappy. Her name is apparently Doris, stitched in white threads of embroidery above a cluster of pink bleach spots on the smock she's wearing. According to Us, which she has folded in front of her like bizarre origami, Tom Cruise is sticking it to Penelope Cruz. Dean approves in theory, but the man was married and has kids, so that kind of sucks.
"Ah," he says, making his way over to the hard liquor, "just need to grab something to get my summer started off right."
He picks a bottle of Jose Cuervo and some Jaegermeister, even though aniseed makes him gag just to think about. He's the best big brother ever and Sammy better not forget it. He throws in a twelve-pack from the stack by the register - something cheap and on sale.
Doris raises an eyebrow at his choices and leans over on her stool to peer out the window. Sam, thankfully, has disappeared from sight. "It's graduation tonight," she says, voice rough with smoke and latent accusation.
"Congrats to 'em," Dean says, smearing on the innocence thick as cold butter. "I'll make sure to raise a toast. The children are our future, you know."
"Sure are," Doris says, blinking back obvious boredom and traces of suspicion as she rings Dean up, through with her inquisition. He hands her his ID-real name, fake card-without being asked, and bags the bottles himself.
"Thanks, Doris," he grins, and drops a dollar in the near-empty tip jar on the counter. She gives him a wave without looking up from her magazine, and he pushes back out into the warm air with a thrill of anticipation he can't quite place.
It's just another night, really, but Sam is sitting on the curb with the fabric of his shirt molding flat against the muscles of his back and Dean's got his hands wrapped around the necks of something good.
*
They walk to the woods outside town, still and quiet. Sam pops open one of the beers as twigs and summer leaves snap green beneath their worn boots. Dean watches as Sam takes a swallow, the quick brush of his tongue over his lips and the short burst of breath he lets escape after the sudden bitter cold hits his throat.
"It's weird, you know," Sam says, kicking at a rock. "I don't feel any different, but I must be. Everything's different."
Dean rolls his eyes and takes a swig of tequila straight from the bottle. No use pussy-footing around; they're here to get drunk, and drunk he'll fucking get. "Man, you have got to be kidding me. I don't want to hear all that crap. You're an egghead genius, you graduated with a fifty-seven point eight GPA or whatever, and you broke that lame school's record in the men's mile four years in a row. The only thing that's different is that you're moving on to bigger and better things."
Sam huffs a laugh and downs the rest of his beer. For a fraction of a second, Dean actually thinks he's going to chuck the empty can into the woods like a normal high schooler, but he doesn't. Sam stops walking, kicking away the leaves on the ground to expose hard-packed dirt, and sets the can down. He rests a foot heavily on the top, leaning his weight on the can as he pulls two pencils out of one of his pockets. He touches the very points of the pencils to the sides of the can, hardly any pressure at all, and the can instantly smashes. The metallic crunch echoes off the trees and scares away at least two squirrels; the can is a perfect flat coin of aluminum. Sam slides in it his pocket along with the pencils and keeps walking.
"You're such a freak. I can't-it's actually impossible to overstate how much of a freak you are," Dean says. He blinks and jogs a few steps to catch up with Sam.
"It's just a can," Sam says, blank-faced, but his voice is smiling.
"There's some sort of 'can' joke I should be making, but fuck me if I can think of one." Dean pulls a beer from the pack in his arm and opens it with one hand. He downs it as fast as he's able while not tripping over anything.
Sometimes it feels like it's all he can do to keep up with Sam, whether they're running through the woods or he's two beers behind on a drinking night. Big brothers aren't supposed to be the tagalongs.
Dean just tosses his can haphazardly into the thicket of oaks; they walk on, drinking.
"Why didn't you finish?" Sam asks after the long quiet settles, punctuated only by glugging and hissing at the rank taste of Jaegermeister. It's like Sam's picking up the thread of an old conversation they've never had, but Dean knows what he means.
The dark is trickling through the trees, now; they're coming up to a nearby outcropping of boulders, and if Dean remembers correctly, there's one with a nice flat top that'll be perfect for their purposes. Hopefully they can find it.
"Didn't need to. Didn't want to," he says. "There's nothing a high school diploma could teach me that I need to know. No reason to stick around except to keep Child Services off Dad's back."
Sam stops suddenly, and Dean looks over to see him breathe in deep and melt down into the grass. He's on his back with his feet on the ground, knees bent up, thighs pulling tight in his jeans. "No. I guess there wasn't. You never really-"
"What?" Dean snaps. The night was not supposed to go like this. He isn't going to sit here knocking back shots while Sam judges him and finds him wanting. "I never really what? Had friends? Study dates? Sam, everyone at those schools was snot-nosed and ignorant and-"
"Worrying about their pimples and prom dresses when you were shooting werewolves full of silver, I know," Sam mutters. "I'm sorry I actually like people. And doing things that don't involve mud and guts and imminent doom." Dean hears him pop open another can.
"You actually just said 'imminent doom'," Dean laughs, annoyance ebbing away as he settles cross-legged next to Sam in the grass. "You're such a pussy."
He gulps another mouthful of Jaeger and chases it with some beer, retching the whole time. His nose is feeling kind of fuzzy, and he suddenly has the inexplicable urge to grind his molars. Drunkenness lies just around the corner. Which is good, because Sam is hogging the tequila and there is no doubt in Dean's mind that he'll vomit if he has to swallow one more drop of black liquorice hell.
"Whatever, shut up," Sam says, and smacks Dean's knee half-heartedly. His hand settles under Dean's calf, and Sam doesn't move it. He does, however, take an impressive drink of tequila, and then slides the bottle into the warm space between Dean's legs. "Here. You'll be saying a lot worse real soon."
Dean just smiles and sets the bottle of Jaeger on Sam's pelvis, propped to lean against his thighs. It's precarious, barely cradled in the shallow dip of Sam's hip, but it's staying up. "You're totally getting there, if that's the best you can come up with."
"I am absolutely getting there," Sam murmurs, and it's like there's syrup coating his vocal cords. "I'm allowed to be a cheap date - I'm only eighteen. I've been drunk, like. Twice ever."
"A cheap date, huh?" Dean says between swallows. The neck of the bottle is warm where Sam was holding it, and the base fits perfectly in the triangle of his folded legs. His jeans burn where Sam slid it against him, and Dean is definitely, definitely going to be wasted any minute now. Zero to sixty in two-point-five.
"You know what I mean." Sam turns towards Dean, forgetting the bottle of liquor perched on him, and it clunks to the ground. "Fuck," he hisses, and windmills his arms hilariously while lying down on his side. The bottle rolls awkwardly, watering the grass with liberal amounts of Jaeger, and Sam scrambles after it. "Why didn't you put the fucking cap on?" he demands once he's finally caught it. His hair is all jacked up, sticking out crazily, and he's got grass stains all over his white t-shirt.
Dean is practically choking. His throat burns because he started laughing halfway through a swallow and it's very possible that the inside of his nose is getting scorched off by tequila, but he doesn't even care, because Sam is fucking priceless. They've lost at least a third of the alcohol from the bottle, and it was worth every bit.
Sam grunts and takes a long pull, then bends over, fishing around in the grass for his beer. Or beers. He has at least two going at once, and Dean's heard of two-fisted drinking but Sam's up to three fists now, and-Dean does not mean that the way it sounds. In his head.
He is definitely drunk.
After a second during which Dean's positive all he did was blink, Sam's suddenly across the clearing and up on top of the boulder they've been heading for the whole time. The moon is full, and he's silhouetted against the stars like a felt-board story, and Dean breathes deep through the burn in his nose and throat and the numbness of his cheeks; he swears he can smell Sam. Clean and boy and grass and pencils and illegal booze and bleach and aluminum.
Make that smashed. Not drunk, completely smashed out of his head.
Sam whistles with his thumb and middle finger in his mouth, loud and shrill in the muzzy quiet of the clearing. Dean just groans. "I'm too comfortable here. Fuck off."
"No, no. You want some of this. You really, really wanna come up here," Sam calls back, and he's listing a little to the side. Then he's fumbling with something in his lap and Dean can't even feel his own eyebrows crinkle as he makes a what the fuck? face. After a confused second, Dean pulls himself to his knees, then his feet, and shuffles over to the boulder just in time to see a pinprick of orange flare up in front of Sam's lips as he hears a strained inhale.
"Did you just roll a joint?" he asks, feeling around for a hand-hold on the boulder. "Are you fucking smoking up, Sammy?"
Sam just laughs, warm and smoke-rough, pale cloud rushing past his lips and up against Dean's when Dean rolls onto the top of the rock next to him. "And what if I am?"
It tastes sour, rich, and Dean didn't even know he was craving it. "Then I say you'd better pass the freaking dutchie, man, or I'm telling Dad. Also, I hereby revoke your goody-goody badge forever."
Sam snorts out his second toke and passes the joint to Dean. "You can have it. In all its metaphorical glory," Sam says. "Anyway, I got this stuff from Taylor. Couple weeks ago. It really does pay to go to study groups."
Dean inhales, sucking down the burn and holds it tight for long seconds. He can feel Sam's eyes on him, so he tries not to look too dopey-drunk. The moonlight is bright and clear and if he can see Sam's eyelashes one-by-one fanned against his cheek, then Sam can see his stupid pot-face expressions. He breathes out long and slow, immediately inhaling another toke.
As he holds it in his chest, he can see Sam breathe in, Dean's smoke curling gently up his nose, into the soft curve of his mouth. Dean just smiles and relaxes, blowing his whole breath out in one puff through his nostrils.
They pass the joint back and forth until it's a nub and Sam yelps when he burns his fingers trying to hold it. They light another one, and smoke it down until the same fucking thing happens again. Dean can't help but laugh, Sam flicking his hand in the air and making pitiful noises. He sticks his fingers in his mouth, presumably to soothe the burn, and Dean stops laughing abruptly.
He was going to say something, but he can't fucking remember what it was. Sam is blinking at him with squinty eyes, and his cheeks are looking sort of puffy, and damn pot really doesn't do anyone any favors in the attractiveness department.
Not that he was thinking about how attractive Sam is. Or isn't. Or whatever.
"What the fuck are you even talking about?" Sam mumbles, fingers still pressing heavy on his tongue. It's a miracle Dean can understand him.
"Huh?" Dean says.
"You're babbling about squintiness and being attractive and I can't follow what you're saying and I don't really know if it's because you're high or because I am. Squintiness isn't a word, though. I'm pretty sure-"
"Did I say that out loud?" Dean mutters. He presses his lips in a firm line and imagines supergluing them shut. Superglue would probably taste really bad, but then if he used it on his lips and was tasting it, that would mean his tongue would get glued to his lips too, and-
"Shut up," Sam groans, and claps his hand over Dean's mouth none too gently. "Shut up. You're. Whatevering. Hosing my yellow-harshing. Harshing my mellow."
Dean starts laughing, and he doesn't stop. Is physically incapable of stopping, really. Sam rolls another spliff and lights it up, then pushes Dean bodily off the boulder.
He lies in a pile at the foot of the rock for as long as it takes to calm down; he pulls himself to his feet and knuckles at his eyes for a moment, trying to make sense of the shadowy lump where Sam used to be.
Sam's crouched down, on his knees but with his forehead pressed against the rock, arms wrapped around his legs; the third joint is gone. Dean's pretty sure he's humming, too, but he can't make out what. "Sam?" he says, tail ends of snickers still coloring his tone. "When you're done communing with nature, we need to get the hell out of here. It's-um. I don't actually know what time it is. But it's. You know. When it is."
Sam sits up, staring at Dean owlishly. His eyes aren't that red anymore, and Dean figures he must've been prostrate on the ground longer than he'd thought.
"We good?" Sam asks, sounding a little spacey still. "I'm done with the rock."
"You're-done with the rock. Right." Dean nods and grabs Sam's firm forearm, veins and smooth cool skin, tugging him down into a spindly stagger on the grass. When Sam's steadied himself, they both head back the way they came.
The sky is fading grayish around the edges, a black page in a closed book, sunlight bleaching out the edges and not the middle. "I'm really glad we did this," Sam says.
Dean tries not to groan; Sam sounds serious. "What, are you going to write me a thank you note when we get back home or something, Miss Manners?"
"Dean, shut up. I mean it." His voice is still a little warm and fuzzy. "It was good. A good end to the year and everything. I mean, what if this is our last chance?"
Dean scoffs. "What, are you planning to go all straight-arrow now that you're an adult or something? Or just mourning the fact that Taylor won't be around to hook you up anymore?"
Sam looks down at his feet, then up at Dean, gaze straight and even. There's something sad in his eyes, maybe even guilty. "Something like that," he says; Dean can barely hear him.
"Man, you're still high," Dean says, laughing. Sam just watches him, a wistful little smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
They push through the front door of their house before dawn breaks over the hills, and Dean falls into his single on the other side of the room from Sam, feeling a little colder than he did before. But good. Definitely good. Watching Sam's deep breaths shift his comforter is good, too.
"Congratulations, Sammy," he says, already halfway to sleep.
He's pretty sure Sam says, "Thank you," but it might've been something else.
*
Dean falls out of bed at ten AM. He hits the floor with a thick thud and starts awake, rolling up immediately and reaching for the knife in his nightstand drawer.
He's heaving, eyes pinned wide, and scans the room. Nothing. Just-just falling out of bed. Sam is dead to the world, heavy breathing muffled by the pillow and probably copious drool, if Dean knows his brother. Which he does.
There's a railroad spike through Dean's head. And his joints feel like someone filled them with jelly, achy and wobbly. His mouth is sticky-dry, his hair is grease-slick, and his sheets are clammy with sweat.
He scrubs at his face and staggers into the bathroom with a groan. He doesn't dare to look in the mirror. After he takes a sorely needed piss, he forces down five plastic Dixie cups of water and two Tylenol. The water from the sink is ice cold and stings like torture when he sticks his face under the faucet, but it's worth it when he stumbles back to bed feeling at least half alive.
He'll give himself an hour more. Keeping on track means being functional by noon so he can wake Sam up and pester the hell out of his graduated ass.
At eleven thirty, Dean jerks awake again, and the railroad spike has diminished to a manageable pinch between his eyes.
This time, he manages a shower and a shave and brushes his teeth. He's only a little pale, freckles bursting obviously over his cheeks and nose and in his ears, hair wet into dark spikes from temple to nape.
Sam is still unconscious. His breathing is raspy and labored, allergies probably irritating him after being outside all night. He's never snored, doesn't even when he's got a cold, but the heavy inhales and exhales into his pillow are almost as loud as if he did.
"Rise and shine, Sammy!" Dean shouts in Sam's ear. He leaps on the bed with a yelp, Sam bouncing with the mattress and startling awake.
"Shit." Sam's panting and jumpy, and Dean laughs long and loud. "What the fuck, Dean. Jesus Christ." And then all the blood drains out of his face in an instant. Sam hurls himself out of bed, hits the ground running, and barely makes it into the bathroom before puking liberally into the sink.
"You hit the mind-altering substances a little hard last night, huh," Dean says, and decides not to mention that he still feels pretty shitty himself, despite being able to move without revisiting the Red Vines from the movie theater yesterday.
"Go fuck yourself," Sam grumbles. He's obviously still a surly teenager in there somewhere under the geek, which kind of makes Dean feel a little better about himself.
"Would if I could, Sammy, would if I could." He's being overloud and obnoxious on purpose, and the death glare Sam gives him is pretty impressive. This is his job, though. What are big brothers for, if not getting their little brothers drunk and stoned and then mocking them the next morning? Doesn't matter Sam did the stoned part all on his own.
He goes out to their dingy little kitchen, beaming at Sam's misfortune. Schadenfreude's a bitch when you're not on the right end of it. But he is.
"I'm making breakfast," he calls back to Sam. "Lots of grease, just for you."
All he hears in return is a pretty pathetic garble. He'll make Sam some dry toast. His cruelty only extends so far.
The doors of the cabinets are coming loose, and Dean makes a note on the whiteboard by the phone-which came with the house; not like Dad was actually fussy enough to put one up himself-that he should tighten up the hinges soon. Right above his scribble is a smeared red reminder that trash days are Tuesday and Saturday, and that the air conditioner needs a new filter.
Most of the dishes came with the house. The frying pan is scratched up, rusty around the handle, but the Winchesters aren't exactly picky. Dean makes himself bacon and eggs, his favorite hangover food.
While the bacon's frying, he closes his eyes and just listens: it sounds like raindrops splattering on the roof, the beginning of a rough summer thunderstorm.
Sam shuffles in while Dean's stirring some oatmeal in their one saucepan. His feet scuff on the peeling edges of the fake linoleum floor where it's yellowed and brittle. His drawstring sweats hang loose around his hips, and he's wearing a clean shirt; still smells like puke and sweat and dirt, though.
"What, too enamored of your own stench to spare me by taking a shower?"
Sam shakes his head gingerly, mumbling, "Can't stand up and close my eyes or tilt my head back without falling over. Just have to deal, I guess."
"Sorry, man," Dean says softly after a second. He hands Sam a chipped white plate with four slices of dry toast on it. "Think you can handle butter or jelly or something?" He pours Sam a pint glass of tap water, too.
"This is fine," Sam manages, and goes to lie down on the couch in the family room.
The phone rings, like it waited politely for Sam to be out of the kitchen first. "Hello?" Dean says. There's really only one person who would be calling.
"Dean, how're things?" Dad asks, gruff and quiet. He doesn't mean it in the small-talk way. He means it in the have-you-fucked-up-yet way.
"Good, good. Great. Sam's graduation was last night but he didn't wanna go, so we just hung out. Saw a movie. No big deal. Everything's pretty quiet."
"Fine," Dad says. "That's fine."
"You're still coming home this afternoon, right?" Dean can't really keep the pathetic hope out of his voice. He tries, though.
"About that-"
Dean stays silent, pressing his lips tight together.
"I won't be home for a while yet. Another job came up, and I-"
"Are you okay?" Dean's fingers hurt from gripping the receiver so tightly.
"Yeah, yeah. Fine."
"We can come out there, Dad. It's okay-we can help, I know-"
"No," Dad spits out down the line. Dean flinches. "No, I need you boys to do something else for me."
"Sure." Dean's ready with the whiteboard marker.
"There's something going on over in Virginia. Caleb called me with some leads. Sounds like some sort of psycho spirit is causing a spate of axe-wound victims to show up at the hospitals in the area."
"Want us to do some research for you?"
"Not for me. I want you to take Sammy and the both of you check it out. Thirty-eight point eight, negative seventy-seven point three." Dean pops the cap on the marker and scribbles down the coordinates. "Shouldn't be too bad, but both of you must go." His voice goes deep and angry. "If I hear about you ever doing something like this without your brother, or if you let him go off without you, there will be hell to pay, Dean."
"Yessir," Dean says with a thick swallow. The memory of a black-robed figure and cold fear gripping Dean's guts in Wisconsin overwhelms him for a second, before the thrill of Dad giving them their own hunt takes over. "You gonna meet us there?" Dean knows Dad can probably hear how excited he is, but he doesn't even care.
"I think you both can take care of it on your own. Just remember-"
"I know, Dad. The rules. It's fine, we'll be fine. We can handle it, definitely. Won't split up, remember the rules, got it." He shuts up before Dad has to tell him to.
"It shouldn't take more than a couple days. Call Pastor Jim soon as you've got it taken care of. I'll be checking in."
"Right. Yessir."
"Bye, Dean." He sounds sort of funny, but Dean figures it must just be the connection.
"Bye, Dad." Dean hangs up, and his cheeks actually hurt from smiling. He whoops, jogging into the family room. "Guess what, pukebreath," he says, leaping onto the end of the couch where Sam's feet are.
Sam pulls his legs up just in time to avoid getting his shins cracked in half. "Shh," he groans, smothering his face with a throw pillow. "Could you not, please? My eardrums are going to burst brains and blood and earwax all over the couch, and you'll be really pissed off." Dean's impressed at Sam's level of coherency, actually. The water and toast have worked wonders.
"Too fucking bad." Dean pulls Sam's legs into his lap and smacks him on the knee.
"What the hell are you so Pollyanna chipper about?" Sam mutters, flinging the pillow at Dean's head.
"We've got some stuff to do, Sammy." He can't keep the smile off his face.
"Now? Right now?" Sam groans, and kicks his heels into Dean's stomach. It's feeble attempt, though, and Dean feels guilty.
"Well. Maybe not right now. But as soon as you're ready to rejoin the world of the living, we're going on a hunt."
"Dad's back? Or is he gonna meet up with us?" Sam actually doesn't sound disappointed, and it's all Dean can do not to crow about it.
"Um, not exactly. We're going on our own."
"What?" Sam manages to sit up. He definitely still looks like shit, but color is slowly creeping back into his face. "By ourselves? We'll get slaughtered, Dean!" He sounds genuinely freaked.
"Nah, we'll be fine. Dad said it's super easy."
"Why don't you just go by yourself, then?"
Dean's joy doesn't even dissipate. This is the best week ever. "Because Dad'll have my balls if I leave you. You know the rules, we can't hunt by ourselves."
"Can't you work on him about it? I'm not going if we're not all together. You know we work better when we're together." Sam is petulant, pulling his feet out of Dean's lap like it's a punishment.
"We are together, Sammy," Dean smiles, warm and happy. He reaches over to loop an arm around Sam's sweaty neck, pulling him in for a gentle noogie. "Let me know when standing up isn't gonna make you hurl chunks, and we'll get going. I'll check the maps and pack while you recuperate or whatever."
"Happy graduation to me," Sam mutters darkly, pulling away from Dean. He shoves him weakly, but his eyes are looking brighter. "I'm not moving until five at the earliest. And I get to drive at least halfway."
"The hell you do," Dean laughs, and gets to his feet. He's not even remotely hungover anymore, and he has the almost irresistible urge to go find Lacey Stewart in town for some afternoon delight to officially cap off the best day ever.
He can't, though. They have work to do.
*
The drive will take them ten hours if Dean floors it. Not counting traffic once they get to northern Virginia, which is apparently where they're headed. The coordinates Dad gave him point to Fairfax Station, which means suburbs, which means hell on earth, as far as Dean's concerned.
Forty is almost deserted, at least until they get to Nashville. It's a Thursday night, pick-ups and sedans winding their way home from work. Sam's doing well considering the rough start he got this morning, and he pulls some intricate navigational tricks out of his ass that have Dean pumping a fist in the air as they sail past some congestion.
It's clear going all the way to eighty-one after that. Dean rewards Sam by popping in The Doors for a good stretch of road. The kid needs a break from Led Zep and Mötörhead every once in a while or he'll be a total shit the entire time they're in Virginia.
Dean hums along to every single song on his Waiting for the Sun tape, and he catches Sammy nodding along, too. It's past dusk now, stars thick and bright in the country sky, and Jim Morrison is singing about freedom's shore.
Dean's not sure how far it is to the beach from Lynchburg, but once they pass Charlottesville and the clot of SUVs with university stickers on the bumpers, it's too late to turn back south. They wouldn't be able to see the crashing summer waves, anyway, and there'd be too many drunk college losers dancing around their bonfires.
Dean eyes Sam, slumped in the passenger seat with his head pressed against the window, staring out at the silver blanket of stars, and promises silently that they'll stop at the beach on the way home. They have a hunt to take care of, and now's not the time for side trips, as much as Dean wants to make one. Sammy hasn't been to the beach since he was about eight, and even then it was because Dad needed to put a harpoon through a homicidal mermaid.
Sixty-six is faster than Dean thought it would be. Bumper-to-bumper traffic clogs the out-bound lanes, but they're doing at least twenty-five over the limit in-bound, the only car in the HOV lane and the discrete radar under the dash showing no speed-traps in range.
"What exactly is the job?" Sam asks. He hasn't spoken since the last rest stop they took, at least two hundred miles, but not in the bad way. In the easy, comfortable way, where his breath and the slow curl of his fingers on the door handle are more than enough conversation.
"Angry spirit, Dad says. In Fairfax Station, possibly. I don't know anything else about it, but apparently there've been a bunch of yuppie types with weird axe injuries. And if they know what happened, they're not talking, so. It's probably our kind of gig."
"No fatalities?"
"Not yet," Dean says, sighing. "Well, that Dad mentioned anyway. But he hasn't done much research. Said Caleb told him about the hospital reports and that's about it. I wouldn't rule it out."
Sam bites at his lip, concentration furrow creasing his brow. He starts picking at the grime under his nails, and Dean has the urge to grab his hands to make the faint clicking stop before it drives him crazy.
He switches from his tape to the classic rock station, instead, and turns up Hotel California until Sam glares at him. When Sam takes it one step further and seizes the lobe of Dean's ear between his fingernails and digs them in, twisting, Dean jumps and yelps.
"Jesus Christ, Sam!" he shouts, but Sam's just laughing, turning so the corner where the seat meets the window cradles his back and he can watch Dean flush deep red in frustration, struggling to keep them on the road. "That fucking hurts, you little punk!"
"You know how I feel about The Eagles, Dean. You only get what you deserve." He sits in smug silence until they turn off onto one twenty-three and Dean needs directions.
It takes them a while to find a motel in their price range with the front desk still open. As it's about three AM, it's too late to do any research at one of the dozens of libraries in the area and too dark to get a good look at the town itself to actually find where this spirit could be holed up. Dad was less than vague, plus their map of the place is both complicated and extremely out of date.
"What the hell, man, we're gonna have to sleep in the car at this rate," Sam grumbles.
"It won't kill us if we do," Dean mutters, but he keeps driving around. There's got to be something. "What is with these people? Nothing under ninety bucks a night is a fucking swindle."
They end up at the Breezeway motel in Fairfax, peeling white paint and stucco walls under a faded red and yellow awning much more their style than the stacked-high Hiltons with BMWs in the parking lots.
They get to their room, and it's like someone shoved them into a sitcom from the seventies. Everything's brown - shag carpets, metal cabinets, walls. It's retro without being retro chic.
Sam blinks and throws his duffle on the luggage rack in the corner; the scream of an eighteen-wheeler passing by presses in at the window and Dean squints as the light filters through the heavy brown curtains. "Whatever, it was cheap," Sam says, and eyes the two beds.
"Which one do you want?" Dean asks, and debates the merits of being closer to the door or to the bathroom.
"I guess that one," Sam says, and flops down on the bed to the right, the one next to the bathroom, "since I'm used to it."
The bed closest to the door has always been Dad's, and Dean shares the second bed with Sam. Except now they get to have their own beds, fucking finally. It makes sense that Dean would get the one that used to be their dad's. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with myself now that you won't be heaving your nasty-ass breath on me all night long," he says. A whole queen-size of his own seems like unheard-of luxury.
"At least I don't roll on people," Sam huffs, like he's about a second away from sticking his tongue out at Dean.
"Slander!" Dean says, facetiously shocked. He grabs his toothbrush and toothpaste and heads to the bathroom while Sam rolls his eyes. "Shut up and get ready for bed. We should be up by about nine-thirty at the latest. Set the alarm."
Sam's still punching random buttons, trying to figure out the clock-radio when Dean's done washing his face and brushing his teeth.
Dean crawls into the saggy bed, pulling up the cheap white comforter. He intends to read through the previous day's paper to get a feel of the place they'll be wandering around in the morning, but he feels his eyes slamming shut by the time he turns to the second page.
He figures it can't hurt just to close them for a minute, and the last thing he hears is Sam spitting into the sink.
The next thing he's aware of is a stray dog barking, shrill and close. It sounds little and ratty, probably an escapee from one of the nearby yards with a literal white picket fence. Dean groans and turns over, facing the middle of the room instead of the window, and yanks at the covers to get them up over his ears.
They don't budge, though. After a long moment of confusion, he realizes he can't pull them up any farther because someone has hogged them all, and is lying on more than half of them. "Sammy?" he grumbles, pushing at the lump curled on the far edge of the bed, encased in a huge swathe of blanket. "What-bed? You've got-?" The words are slow and sticky in his mouth, tasting of stale sleep.
Sam just snorts and smacks his lips, soft smile on his face, burrowing deeper under the sheets before flopping over towards Dean. He blows out a hot breath right in Dean's face. Rolling his eyes, Dean just shoves harder, trying to dump Sam over the side. Sam, typically, won't budge. "Fine. Whatever. Just don't breathe all over me-"
He doesn't have any trouble drifting off again; if anything, the hot damp against him from Sam's side of the bed just sinks heavy into Dean's skin like southern humidity and lulls him steadily back to sleep.
*
The alarm screams obnoxiously at nine-thirty AM on the nose. Dean rolls over to smack the sleep button, but winds up with an armful of Sam, instead. "Huh-shit," he says into Sam's scapula. He also appears to have stuck his elbow in a cold, drying pool of spit on Sam's pillow. "Fucking gross."
Completely forgoing any courtesies that involve not jamming various bony appendages into Sam's vulnerable spots, Dean scrambles over his little brother to turn the alarm off. He wipes his elbow clean in the vicinity of Sam's kidneys, harder than strictly necessary, and then with a strong heave-ho, shoves Sam out of his bed and onto the floor. A hollow thud suggests that Sam hit something on the way down.
Sam wakes up with a pained moan, and Dean could not actually care less that Sam may have concussed himself on the corner of the nightstand. "What'd you do that for?" Sam whines.
"You were in my bed, dude," Dean says, heading to the sink to brush his teeth. He almost trips when his feet get tangled in the comforter from Sam's bed; Sam must've tried to sleep there before he moved. Dean doesn't really know what to make of that.
"My mattress has pokey springs in it," Sam says. He sounds like he actually means it. Dean has a hard time telling when it comes to Sam, sometimes, though.
"So in a fit of pique, you decide to drench my bed in your spit. Thanks. You're such a pal."
"At least I don't snore like a chainsaw," Sam shoots back, defensive.
"Shut the fuck up, droolface. I'm the wronged party here, so you don't get to mount a case."
Sam just huffs, leaning back against the headboard so hard it slams into the wall. He grabs the remote from the drawer of the nightstand and starts flipping through channels, punching at the buttons like he has something to prove. He must be looking for local news, because after watching for a while, he says, "Nothing big," right as Dean finishes shaving.
"Anything small?"
"Nope. Mostly DC stuff, anyway. And run-of-the-mill human interest crap." Dean holds off on turning on the water in the shower long enough to hear the news anchor talking about a heroic neighbor saving a family from their burning home.
"Library it is," Dean says, and turns on the water full blast, as hot as he can stand it.
*
"Okay, so I've got some back issues of this free local paper, the Sun Gazette," Sam says from the stacks.
They've hit at least four libraries already, and there are another five at least within close driving distance. It's almost obscene, and Sam is lapping it up.
The Chantilly Library, their current location, is a large, open-plan building with aluminum shelves, plum carpeting, and row upon row of high-tech computers. It's crawling with annoying little kids and their Stepford parents, geekface high-schoolers who would probably be Sam's friends under other circumstances, and bored housewives who would probably be more than just Dean's friends under other circumstances.
Sam shoots him a disgusted look when he catches Dean leering at a hot young MILF bending down to reach the low shelf in the self-help section. "Hello? Earth to Dean? Sun Gazette."
"I heard you," Dean says, and turns his attention to Sam. "Remind me not to callously dismiss your love of the library in future," he adds, smiling.
"I'm exhausting the amount of times I'm physically capable of saying 'Shut up' to one person," Sam mutters, and shoves the newspaper at Dean. "Read. If you even can."
"Ha ha," Dean says dryly. He flips the paper the right way around and scans the article Sam was pointing to. "This is just a review of a TV show. Am I on the wrong-"
"Yeah, but look at it," Sam urges. Dean reads it more carefully.
Scariest Places on Earth: 6
(Fox Family)
Hosted by Linda Blair
An ordinary family is sent to investigate infamously haunted locations in this horror-genre reality show. The episode features the Bunnyman Bridge in Virginia, said to be haunted by a lunatic that escaped from a nearby asylum and kept himself alive by killing and eating wild rabbits, leaving their carcasses to be found strewed across suburban neighborhoods. Reportedly, he dressed as a rabbit when he killed his victims, always with an axe. They were left hanging near the bridge, and to this day reports of mutilated bodies and appearances of a tall man in a dirty rabbit suit near an overpass in Clifton are still filed. The second location featured in the show…
"I'll be damned," Dean says, impressed. "That's a perfect lead if ever there was one. Angry spirit of a guy in a fucking rabbit suit? Appearances centered around a bridge in Clifton-"
"Plus, it says under further references there's a paper on the bridge and the spirit by some guy, Conley. We can get one of the librarians to call around and have a look for us while we're checking out the bridge," Sam says. He's tilting back in his chair as far as he can go, and Dean just barely catches himself before he barks at Sam that he's about to crack his head open. Dean's doing the exact same thing with his chair, after all, and he'd never live it down.
"Good thinking. You photocopy, I'll go have a chat with-" Dean eyes the youngest, hottest librarian behind the desk, getting a read on her nametag, "Heather. Report back in ten."
Sam rolls his eyes and grabs the paper back from Dean.
Heather's not even paying attention when Dean sidles up to her section of the check-out desk. "Morning," he says, and leans into her line of sight. She's staring at something beyond the New Arrivals shelf. He gives her a quick smile, then turns to see what she was looking at.
Sam, apparently. Bending down to refill the bottom paper tray of the copier. Dean doesn't know whether to be smitten by a woman after his own heart, or weirded out and uncomfortable, getting an eyeful of Sam's t-shirt riding up the smooth skin of his back and his jeans pulling tight and frayed across his-well.
"How can I help you?" Heather asks brightly. She could always be this chipper, but if Dean knows anything-and he does-she's enjoying perving on his brother a little too much. He's kind of proud, actually.
*
Part 2