SPN FIC - The Box (Part 2 of 6)
The story began here.
Summer 2000. John, the boys, and Bobby are in a small Connecticut coastal town investigating signs of demon activity. Or John and Bobby are, at least. Dean's delivering pizza (with a side order of Dean) and Sam has taken a job doing yard work for a young couple with a big, rambling house on a bluff overlooking the ocean. A nice way to spend the summer, right? Um ... not so much. The nice young couple has their secrets, and some digging for a rose garden unearths something that was long-buried for a very good reason.
CHARACTERS: Sam (age 17), Dean (age 21), John, Bobby, various OCs
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG for language and some pondering about sexin'
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: Remains to be seen; Prologue and 6 parts (this part is 4343 words)
THE BOX
By Carol Davis
Dean could have slept through the Battle of Gettysburg, Sam thought as he slid out of bed in the dim gray light of just-past-dawn.
The explosion of Mt. St. Helen's.
The launch of Apollo 13.
It'd been that way forever. Whenever the two of them were alone, when Dean was fulfilling his Dad-imposed duties as Sam's protector, he coasted just beneath the surface of sleep and the small sound of Sam rolling over in bed was enough to wake him. But these past few nights, with Dad and Bobby nearby, available (and able) to act as the first line of defense, Dean had given in to the need for some quality Z's and was so deeply unconscious that Sam could have set off a grenade with no more response from Dean than a brief twitch of puzzlement, or maybe a snuffly snort.
The whole thing was stupid, anyway - Dean denying himself a good night's sleep so he could protect Sam. At seventeen, Sam was as tall as his older brother and only a few pounds lighter.
He needed Dean to protect him?
From what?
Shaking his head, Sam groped for the jeans he'd thrown onto the chair in the corner next to the closet door, stepped into them and fastened them. The two shirts he'd worn the day before had gone into the laundry hamper (though it was anybody's guess when they'd see the inside of a washing machine) so he reached into the closet for replacements, rejecting one that didn't pass the sniff test and pulling on a tee and button-down that did. The bedsprings creaked when he sat down to pull on socks and sneakers, but as he'd expected, Dean didn't stir.
The house was small enough to spit from one end of it to the other, which made any noise he might produce easily audible from all three of its tiny bedrooms. Sam figured any extra time his father and Bobby could spend sleeping was time they weren't arguing or threatening each other, so he crept as silently as possible into the kitchen, eased open the cupboard and the fridge for cereal and milk, lifted a bowl and spoon out of the dish drainer in the sink, and sat down to eat a quick, solitary breakfast.
Weird kind of friendship, he thought, where every conversation involved at least one threat to kick the other person's ass. That made him wonder if his father had ever had the kind of friendship with someone that involved going to ball games, attending a cookout at the other person's house, enjoying a companionable beer or two and talking about the weather or the price of gas or the situation in the Middle East. Dad presumably had been friends with Mike Guenther, the guy who'd co-owned the garage in Lawrence, but what that had involved, Sam had no real idea; he'd never asked, and Dad volunteered damn little about his life before.
So Sam was left with this: Dad and Bobby tolerating each other so they could work a job.
Hell of a way to live, he thought as he quietly ate his Cap'n Crunch.
When he finished, he ran just enough water to rinse out the bowl, returned the milk carton and the cereal box to their proper places, shoved the last of the power bars into the pocket of his jeans and gently opened the back door.
"Kinda early," his father commented as he stepped out onto the stoop.
It was enough of a surprise that Sam let out a thin squeak, like a startled hamster. His heart pattered wildly for a moment, and he had to stand there on the stoop, hands clenched, not looking at his father sitting in a battered, rusty lawn chair a couple yards away, until he calmed down and could think of responding with something other than What the FUCK, Dad.
His father blinked a couple of times in a way that made him look like an owl.
"It's supposed to get hot," Sam muttered. "I figured I'd get the heavy stuff done while it's still cool."
"Heavy stuff?"
"Patio blocks."
"Thought you were just mowing the grass."
There were days when simply being within shouting distance of his father raised Sam's hackles. This was shaping up to be one of them. "Their regular guy's still in the hospital. He won't be back on his feet for a while."
"They paying you for the extra work?"
"No," Sam said. "I figured I'd do it as a public service."
One of Dad's eyebrows lifted a little but the rest of his face remained impassive. "They say how long?"
Sam looked away from him, down the rutted dirt path that served as a driveway, the connector between their borrowed, weather- and time-worn little house and the smooth asphalt of the main road. Dean would be able to stand here and answer Dad's questions, he thought: could do a back-and-forth with Dad, no real emotion involved, just an exchange of information. And really - he wanted to do that too. Wanted to do what Dean would do, just answer the questions. Talk with his father for a few minutes as the sky grew slowly but steadily brighter, make up for spending the rest of the day apart. Dad hadn't asked him anything unreasonable, after all. He wanted to make sure Sam wasn't being taken advantage of. Wanted to make sure Sam hadn't been sweet-talked into agreeing to something that wasn't fair.
Dad not trusting him to have the common sense to work the thing out for himself had nothing to do with it.
"I don't know," Sam muttered. "I told them we might not be here for long. Told him. Mr. Hobbs. He said that was okay."
Dad mulled that over for a minute, gazing off into the trees. Then he said, "Take the truck."
"What?"
"Gonna ride with Bobby today. Nobody's using the truck."
"I -" Sam said, and frowned at his father, who had fished his keyring out of his pocket and was offering it to Sam on the palm of his hand. Dad's expression had turned mild, about as non-judgmental as Sam ever saw it. "Thanks," Sam murmured as he took the keys.
"Should be enough gas in it. Wouldn't argue if you put some more in, though."
"Yeah. Okay."
Then Dad asked, "They having any trouble?"
"With what?"
"Flickering lights. Trouble with the phone."
"I don't know."
"They haven't said anything?"
"We don't exactly sit around and shoot the shit, Dad."
"Need you to do the job, Sam."
Sam stood there, eyes shifting between his father's face and the keyring now lying on the flat of his own palm.
"I'm doing my job," he said after a moment.
"Do both."
"Dad -"
"Not asking you to toss their house, son. Just ask a few questions. Drop it into the conversation. You can do that."
Dean could do it, Sam thought bitterly. "Yeah," he bit off. "All right."
Slowly, Dad lifted his hand and pinched the skin between his eyebrows. "You figure I'm asking for too much?" he said as he kneaded the skin with his fingertips.
"I just -" Sam sputtered. "I just want to do what they're paying me to do. Why can't I do that? Why does everything have to be part of the job?"
"We're trying to help people, here, Sam."
"I - yeah. Whatever."
Maybe it was the early hour. Maybe it was the idea that somebody nearby was trying to sleep. Maybe it was that Dad was too freaking tired to yell. Whatever the explanation was, he didn't let things escalate. Didn't push them into escalating. All he did was sit there and blink for a minute - blink in a way that said his eyes were dry and heavy-lidded and wanted to stay shut. Wanted to provide the curtain that would help him pretend there wasn't a world outside of him.
He didn't yell.
Just said quietly, "Do what you need to do."
Then he stood up from the creaking lawn chair, hesitated for a second as if he wasn't sure his legs would support him, and went on into the house, holding on to the screen door long enough to keep it from slamming behind him.
In a way, that was worse than if he'd yelled.
~~~~~~~~~~
Most days, Sam got his instructions from a note Peter Hobbs left tacked to the door of the tool shed, because the Hobbses had already left for work by the time he arrived. This morning he was early enough to pull into the driveway as Peter was backing out of the garage in his gleaming black Beamer. He stopped the truck half on the gravel of the driveway and half on the grass alongside it to ensure that Peter had enough room to get past, but rather than continuing on his way Peter stopped the car and got out, clearly pleased at the arrival of the truck.
"It's my dad's," Sam explained as he stepped down from the driver's seat.
"He mind if you do a run to Lowe's?"
"I guess not."
"Hang on a second."
Peter ran back into the house, and a minute later Sam could see him in the kitchen, apparently searching for something. A call for help that was silent to Sam brought Larkin into the kitchen; he watched as she looked around a little, then produced a sheet of paper that seemed to be what Peter had been looking for.
Peter was happy enough to have it that he balled a hand under his wife's chin and kissed her softly.
The kissing went on for a while.
When Peter finally came back out, he was a little flushed, smiling, distracted. "Here," he said to Sam, and held out the sheet of paper Larkin had located. "I ordered a bunch of stuff yesterday. They were gonna deliver it tomorrow, but if you can pick it up, I'll call them from the car and tell them you're coming."
"Yeah, okay," Sam said. "Sure."
"Excellent. Any problems, just call my cell."
The little Beamer zipped down the driveway with Peter driving one-handed, using the thumb of his other hand to punch a number into his phone. He hit the car horn lightly as a goodbye, though whether it was meant for Sam or Larkin, Sam couldn't tell.
Sam looked at the list of Peter's purchases: a dozen small rosebushes, two chairs and a table, some decorative items. They were for the little area where the blackberry brambles had been, he figured, components of the reading area Peter planned to set up for his wife - impossible to move by Beamer, but easily transportable in the truck. There was a problem with the request, though: if the reading area was meant to be a surprise, and Larkin was going to be home all morning, Sam would have to sneak Peter's purchases into the tool shed without her seeing. On the other hand, she'd seen the list, so maybe she knew all about Peter's plans.
Or maybe she'd handed over the paper without reading the details.
Frowning, Sam looked over at the kitchen window. Larkin was still visible there, puttering around, maybe putting together a lunch to take to her office.
She was probably twice his age. But the morning light made her look younger.
You could have that, he thought.
And he imagined himself in Peter's place. Padding downstairs on a sunny summer morning to find her in the kitchen, hair pulled back into a ponytail, tendrils of it lying loose against her face and neck, still wearing the thin tank top and shorts she used as pajamas.
She'd greet him with a smile. Slide her arms around him.
Kiss him, the way she'd kissed Peter.
Yeah.
Maybe not the best thing to be doing, with her standing right there in the kitchen. Ducking his head in sheepish dismay he hoped she didn't see, he folded Peter's list and tucked it into the pocket of his shirt.
Someday…
She looked up then. Saw him standing in the driveway and waved. Knowing that she'd spotted him made his stomach lurch, made him glad his jeans were baggy, made him wave back with a spazzy jerk of his arm and then scuttle off toward the tool shed. Once he was there, out of sight of the kitchen windows, he shuddered, called himself an idiot in enough different ways that Dean would have been proud, and leaned against the shed's brown clapboard wall to keep himself from collapsing like a newborn calf.
Have a wife like that? Who the hell was he kidding?
~~~~~~~~~~
He saw her again later in the morning, coming out of one of the small restaurants that lined the town's main drag.
He hadn't figured on stopping; he'd intended to take the stuff from Lowe's straight back to the house, stow it in the tool shed for safekeeping, then get down to work laying the slate patio blocks that would form a path from the terrace on the ocean side of the house to the driveway, according to the instructions Peter had printed off the Internet and turned over to Sam a couple of days before. He'd already mapped out the rest of his morning and was looking forward to getting started with the slate when he noticed a familiar form coming out of McDonald's, coffee cup in one hand and breakfast sandwich in the other. Dean couldn't wave, exactly, but he gestured.
Sam certainly could have ignored him - but he'd hear about that later on. So he pulled into the McDonald's lot and joined his brother at one of the outdoor tables, where Dean was already unwrapping his Egg McMuffin.
"The hell time'd you get up?" Dean frowned as he took a huge bite.
"Early."
"Early enough to boost Dad's truck?"
"He offered."
Dean's left eyebrow crawled up toward his hairline. He pondered Sam's statement as he chewed, then said around the mouthful, "No shit?"
"Yeah," Sam said, not enjoying the reminder of his conversation with their father. "He wants me to ask the Hobbses about flickering lights."
"Well…yeah."
"Why is everything about the job?"
Dean stared at his coffee as if he thought the answer to Sam's question might suddenly appear in print on the outside of the paper cup. He went on chewing, but more slowly, and eventually swallowed the mouthful of egg and cheese and English muffin. "'Cause it is, Sam," he said quietly.
"It's not. People have normal lives, Dean."
And as if he had summoned Larkin Hobbs with that nameless reference, there she was, coming out of the little restaurant across the street, the skirt of her thin summer dress fluttering around her legs in the breeze. A man Sam didn't recognize followed her out and they stood on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, chatting in a way that indicated they knew each other really well.
A little too well, Sam thought.
Dean followed Sam's gaze across the street. "Damn," he said appreciatively. "I gotta tell you, Sammy, the scenery in this town never disappoints."
"That's…her," Sam muttered.
"Who, her?"
"Mrs. Hobbs." When Dean shook his head, Sam clarified, "The people I work for."
"I take it that's not Mr. Hobbs."
"No."
The two of them watched in silence, Dean continuing to work on his McMuffin and sipping at his coffee, as Larkin Hobbs and the stranger went on talking. The conversation lasted for several minutes, then Larkin and the man embraced, he kissed her lightly on the cheek, and they went their separate ways, he walking up the street toward a car parked at a meter, and she in the other direction, around the corner and out of sight.
"That's nothin'," Dean announced. "Could be a business thing. Or he's her uncle. Or he's married to some friend of hers."
"Or not."
"Dude. Who knows women better than I do?"
Scowling, Sam picked up one of the napkins that had accompanied Dean's meal and set about tearing it into shreds. Yeah, okay, a kiss on the cheek wasn't a sure-fire sign of anything sketchy, but there was something about the easy, familiar way she'd been talking to the man that bugged him - on Peter's behalf, he told himself. Peter had been so earnest the day before, talking about his plans for the little reading nook. And the way he'd kissed her that morning… Peter Hobbs loved his wife. He did. So it was just unacceptable for her to be out here with someone else, at a time when she was supposed to be at work.
"Trust me," Dean said.
"She shouldn't -" Sam sputtered. "That wasn't -"
"Seriously, man. What's your problem?"
The look on Dean's face prompted Sam to examine the shredded remains of the napkin. "It's just… I don't know what it is."
"You don't even know these people."
"I do." Sam sighed. "I kind of do."
"You're not gonna do something ass-brained and tell her husband, are you? Because it's none of your business. You're the freakin' gardener. You're not even the regular freakin' gardener. She had brunch. Or something. With some guy."
Sam shrugged. Watched some of the tattered napkin drift off the table in the breeze.
"You jealous?" Dean asked, but it was mild. A little sympathetic.
"No."
"Sammy. You jealous?"
Sam lifted his head a little and looked into his brother's eyes. Thought about that house, that fantastic view of the ocean. The nice cars and the ongoing landscaping and the home gym and the fancy kitchen.
And the kissing.
"No," he said.
Dean smiled at him, loose and easy, pure Dean, accepting that the conversation was over, ready to move on to the next thing, whatever that might be.
"Fair enough," he told Sam.
~~~~~~~~~~
Larkin loved roses.
True, it was the long-stemmed kind (arranged with babies' breath in vases or bowls or funky pottery) that she meant when she said she loved them - but there wasn't a lot of difference between those and the more natural kind, still attached to the bush. Particularly when the bush was part of a carefully laid-out arc surrounding what Peter had envisioned as a reading area. He'd chosen the spot only after hours of thought: protected from most of the wind off the Atlantic, so the plants wouldn't be battered by salt water, but with a nice, soul-soothing glimpse of the ocean and the house. Sam Winchester's diligent digging and lifting and dragging had done a lot to transform what had been ridiculously overgrown; now Peter could fine-tune. Turn this small spot into something Lark would like.
In jeans and a t-shirt that was soon drenched with sweat, he finished trimming and sculpting, following advice he'd found in a lengthy but easy-to-understand article online. It didn't take long for him to wish he'd asked Sam to stay a little later - or a lot later - but Sam had been nervous and edgy, without explanation, and Peter had readily agreed to let him finish his work on the slate pathway tomorrow.
Besides, there was something to be said for a labor of love, something he managed by himself, with his own hands. What he was doing might not win any landscaping awards (it was more likely to be laughed at, he thought), but maybe what he'd proposed to Sam was true, maybe Lark would enjoy the simple, pleasant surroundings enough to spend time here. Reading. Unwinding a little bit. Breathing some fresh air.
He'd chosen the house itself with that in mind, thinking he could lure her away from the pressures of the office, get her out in the air and away from the computer and the phone, but so far he'd had no real success. His wife was a hard-liner, determined to make partner before she hit 40, and you didn't do that by wasting a lot of time gazing wistfully out at the ocean.
Or making a home. Or having kids.
But you could wear away stone with water, Peter thought. One drop at a time. She had loosened up a little bit in the months they'd lived here, seemed genuinely regretful sometimes when she came home long after dark. He couldn't begrudge her the long hours, couldn't fault her for wanting to make a name for herself, but he was beyond grateful every time she showed up for dinner, or slept in a little bit later in the morning.
It was nearly dark by the time he finished trimming, so he carried over a small table from the terrace and set up a couple of battery-powered lanterns to provide enough light for him to keep working. Under their bright-white glow he marked the sites for the six holes he needed to dig for the rosebushes. The first two he managed easily; soft dirt, no interfering roots.
The third was more of a problem.
He chipped more than dug, with sweat streaming down his back. The blade of the shovel wouldn't cut in more than an inch or two, and yielded layer after layer of roots and stones ranging from small pebbles to rocks the size of potatoes. How that was possible only a couple of feet from soft, almost sandy soil, he couldn't figure out, but this was the coast, so who the hell knew what was underneath all this land.
The sun had long since disappeared when, for the hundredth time, the blade of his shovel thunked against something solid.
With a sigh that was well-seasoned with curses, Peter knelt on the ground and began to scrape into the dirt with the trowel he'd brought out from the tool shed. He'd never finish six holes tonight; if the remaining three were as tough as this, he'd be inspired to throw himself off the bluff into the Atlantic long before he finished planting the rosebushes.
And hell. Lark wouldn't notice, either way. She'd pull in late, as usual, go straight to bed, and would head out for the office in the morning without paying any attention at all to Peter's work, or Sam's.
"That's fine, honey," was all she'd said a week ago, when he told her he'd hired a local boy to keep up with mowing the grass while Mario recuperated from his injuries.
Fine. Yeah, fine.
Blood ran true, he supposed, and that was certainly noticeable in the two of them. Her family had things handed to them, both literally and figuratively. His? Hacked away at things with trowels. Gained an inch of ground at a time.
He ran a bare, scratched-up forearm across his forehead to get rid of the sweat but got some of it in both eyes for his troubles. Cursing at the burning - and at being out here in the dark in the first place - he went running for the garden hose, turned on the water, and doused his eyes until he could manage to keep them open without grimacing from pain. When he trudged back to what seemed more and more unlikely to become a little oasis for Lark or anyone else, only now noticing how big that third hole had gotten, he began to consider stopping.
The digging.
The rosebushes.
Everything.
She wouldn't notice. She'd never notice. Even if she did, she'd never stop to figure out how much work had gone into this project, and telling her how much sweat was involved just seemed petty. With a sigh that this time had no expletives laced into it, Peter sank down onto the ground and peered into the hole.
Keep going, something told him.
Keep going? The hole was already twice as deep as it needed to be to accommodate the root ball of the rosebush. Frowning, he reached for the trowel he'd dropped. He had to lean way over to reach the bottom of the hole, and braced himself with one hand to keep himself from tumbling over as he scraped at the dirt with the tip of the trowel. Almost immediately he connected with something solid, but from the feel of it, it wasn't a rock or a tree root. He didn't need any cheerleading from voices in his head to prod him onward from there; curiosity did the job just fine.
Whatever it was was pretty good-sized. He scraped and poked and dug, pulled one of the lanterns over closer so he could see. A box, he realized, maybe twelve inches by eighteen, delicately engraved on the curving lid. Releasing it from the earth in a way that wouldn't damage it took a long time; the moon had risen nearly to overhead by the time he lifted the box out of the hole. It was heavier than he'd expected, weighed as much as if it contained half a dozen bricks.
Or gold coins, he thought, and grinned at the craziness of that.
A thick brass padlock, tarnished with dirt and age, held the lid secure. Didn't matter if the box contained anything at all, Peter thought as he went to the tool shed for something that would break the lock apart. He could clean the box up, polish it, present it to Larkin as a jewelry box, or something to take pride of place on the coffee table in the living room. Much of its elaborate decoration was matted with dirt, which made him wonder at the fact that it hadn't rotted in the damp coastal soil.
Maybe it was worth some serious money. To a collector of that sort of thing.
A few minutes later, with the help of a big wrench and a screwdriver and some serious muscle - tempered by his desire not to gouge the wood - he'd broken the lock apart. He sat back on the chilly ground feeling like a kid, anxious to see what was inside and yet wanting to preserve the mystery of it, the wonder.
He was almost holding his breath as he lifted the lid.
And found nothing inside but a slowly rising coil of oily black smoke.
Part 3...
Summer 2000. John, the boys, and Bobby are in a small Connecticut coastal town investigating signs of demon activity. Or John and Bobby are, at least. Dean's delivering pizza (with a side order of Dean) and Sam has taken a job doing yard work for a young couple with a big, rambling house on a bluff overlooking the ocean. A nice way to spend the summer, right? Um ... not so much. The nice young couple has their secrets, and some digging for a rose garden unearths something that was long-buried for a very good reason.
CHARACTERS: Sam (age 17), Dean (age 21), John, Bobby, various OCs
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG for language and some pondering about sexin'
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: Remains to be seen; Prologue and 6 parts (this part is 4343 words)
THE BOX
By Carol Davis
Dean could have slept through the Battle of Gettysburg, Sam thought as he slid out of bed in the dim gray light of just-past-dawn.
The explosion of Mt. St. Helen's.
The launch of Apollo 13.
It'd been that way forever. Whenever the two of them were alone, when Dean was fulfilling his Dad-imposed duties as Sam's protector, he coasted just beneath the surface of sleep and the small sound of Sam rolling over in bed was enough to wake him. But these past few nights, with Dad and Bobby nearby, available (and able) to act as the first line of defense, Dean had given in to the need for some quality Z's and was so deeply unconscious that Sam could have set off a grenade with no more response from Dean than a brief twitch of puzzlement, or maybe a snuffly snort.
The whole thing was stupid, anyway - Dean denying himself a good night's sleep so he could protect Sam. At seventeen, Sam was as tall as his older brother and only a few pounds lighter.
He needed Dean to protect him?
From what?
Shaking his head, Sam groped for the jeans he'd thrown onto the chair in the corner next to the closet door, stepped into them and fastened them. The two shirts he'd worn the day before had gone into the laundry hamper (though it was anybody's guess when they'd see the inside of a washing machine) so he reached into the closet for replacements, rejecting one that didn't pass the sniff test and pulling on a tee and button-down that did. The bedsprings creaked when he sat down to pull on socks and sneakers, but as he'd expected, Dean didn't stir.
The house was small enough to spit from one end of it to the other, which made any noise he might produce easily audible from all three of its tiny bedrooms. Sam figured any extra time his father and Bobby could spend sleeping was time they weren't arguing or threatening each other, so he crept as silently as possible into the kitchen, eased open the cupboard and the fridge for cereal and milk, lifted a bowl and spoon out of the dish drainer in the sink, and sat down to eat a quick, solitary breakfast.
Weird kind of friendship, he thought, where every conversation involved at least one threat to kick the other person's ass. That made him wonder if his father had ever had the kind of friendship with someone that involved going to ball games, attending a cookout at the other person's house, enjoying a companionable beer or two and talking about the weather or the price of gas or the situation in the Middle East. Dad presumably had been friends with Mike Guenther, the guy who'd co-owned the garage in Lawrence, but what that had involved, Sam had no real idea; he'd never asked, and Dad volunteered damn little about his life before.
So Sam was left with this: Dad and Bobby tolerating each other so they could work a job.
Hell of a way to live, he thought as he quietly ate his Cap'n Crunch.
When he finished, he ran just enough water to rinse out the bowl, returned the milk carton and the cereal box to their proper places, shoved the last of the power bars into the pocket of his jeans and gently opened the back door.
"Kinda early," his father commented as he stepped out onto the stoop.
It was enough of a surprise that Sam let out a thin squeak, like a startled hamster. His heart pattered wildly for a moment, and he had to stand there on the stoop, hands clenched, not looking at his father sitting in a battered, rusty lawn chair a couple yards away, until he calmed down and could think of responding with something other than What the FUCK, Dad.
His father blinked a couple of times in a way that made him look like an owl.
"It's supposed to get hot," Sam muttered. "I figured I'd get the heavy stuff done while it's still cool."
"Heavy stuff?"
"Patio blocks."
"Thought you were just mowing the grass."
There were days when simply being within shouting distance of his father raised Sam's hackles. This was shaping up to be one of them. "Their regular guy's still in the hospital. He won't be back on his feet for a while."
"They paying you for the extra work?"
"No," Sam said. "I figured I'd do it as a public service."
One of Dad's eyebrows lifted a little but the rest of his face remained impassive. "They say how long?"
Sam looked away from him, down the rutted dirt path that served as a driveway, the connector between their borrowed, weather- and time-worn little house and the smooth asphalt of the main road. Dean would be able to stand here and answer Dad's questions, he thought: could do a back-and-forth with Dad, no real emotion involved, just an exchange of information. And really - he wanted to do that too. Wanted to do what Dean would do, just answer the questions. Talk with his father for a few minutes as the sky grew slowly but steadily brighter, make up for spending the rest of the day apart. Dad hadn't asked him anything unreasonable, after all. He wanted to make sure Sam wasn't being taken advantage of. Wanted to make sure Sam hadn't been sweet-talked into agreeing to something that wasn't fair.
Dad not trusting him to have the common sense to work the thing out for himself had nothing to do with it.
"I don't know," Sam muttered. "I told them we might not be here for long. Told him. Mr. Hobbs. He said that was okay."
Dad mulled that over for a minute, gazing off into the trees. Then he said, "Take the truck."
"What?"
"Gonna ride with Bobby today. Nobody's using the truck."
"I -" Sam said, and frowned at his father, who had fished his keyring out of his pocket and was offering it to Sam on the palm of his hand. Dad's expression had turned mild, about as non-judgmental as Sam ever saw it. "Thanks," Sam murmured as he took the keys.
"Should be enough gas in it. Wouldn't argue if you put some more in, though."
"Yeah. Okay."
Then Dad asked, "They having any trouble?"
"With what?"
"Flickering lights. Trouble with the phone."
"I don't know."
"They haven't said anything?"
"We don't exactly sit around and shoot the shit, Dad."
"Need you to do the job, Sam."
Sam stood there, eyes shifting between his father's face and the keyring now lying on the flat of his own palm.
"I'm doing my job," he said after a moment.
"Do both."
"Dad -"
"Not asking you to toss their house, son. Just ask a few questions. Drop it into the conversation. You can do that."
Dean could do it, Sam thought bitterly. "Yeah," he bit off. "All right."
Slowly, Dad lifted his hand and pinched the skin between his eyebrows. "You figure I'm asking for too much?" he said as he kneaded the skin with his fingertips.
"I just -" Sam sputtered. "I just want to do what they're paying me to do. Why can't I do that? Why does everything have to be part of the job?"
"We're trying to help people, here, Sam."
"I - yeah. Whatever."
Maybe it was the early hour. Maybe it was the idea that somebody nearby was trying to sleep. Maybe it was that Dad was too freaking tired to yell. Whatever the explanation was, he didn't let things escalate. Didn't push them into escalating. All he did was sit there and blink for a minute - blink in a way that said his eyes were dry and heavy-lidded and wanted to stay shut. Wanted to provide the curtain that would help him pretend there wasn't a world outside of him.
He didn't yell.
Just said quietly, "Do what you need to do."
Then he stood up from the creaking lawn chair, hesitated for a second as if he wasn't sure his legs would support him, and went on into the house, holding on to the screen door long enough to keep it from slamming behind him.
In a way, that was worse than if he'd yelled.
~~~~~~~~~~
Most days, Sam got his instructions from a note Peter Hobbs left tacked to the door of the tool shed, because the Hobbses had already left for work by the time he arrived. This morning he was early enough to pull into the driveway as Peter was backing out of the garage in his gleaming black Beamer. He stopped the truck half on the gravel of the driveway and half on the grass alongside it to ensure that Peter had enough room to get past, but rather than continuing on his way Peter stopped the car and got out, clearly pleased at the arrival of the truck.
"It's my dad's," Sam explained as he stepped down from the driver's seat.
"He mind if you do a run to Lowe's?"
"I guess not."
"Hang on a second."
Peter ran back into the house, and a minute later Sam could see him in the kitchen, apparently searching for something. A call for help that was silent to Sam brought Larkin into the kitchen; he watched as she looked around a little, then produced a sheet of paper that seemed to be what Peter had been looking for.
Peter was happy enough to have it that he balled a hand under his wife's chin and kissed her softly.
The kissing went on for a while.
When Peter finally came back out, he was a little flushed, smiling, distracted. "Here," he said to Sam, and held out the sheet of paper Larkin had located. "I ordered a bunch of stuff yesterday. They were gonna deliver it tomorrow, but if you can pick it up, I'll call them from the car and tell them you're coming."
"Yeah, okay," Sam said. "Sure."
"Excellent. Any problems, just call my cell."
The little Beamer zipped down the driveway with Peter driving one-handed, using the thumb of his other hand to punch a number into his phone. He hit the car horn lightly as a goodbye, though whether it was meant for Sam or Larkin, Sam couldn't tell.
Sam looked at the list of Peter's purchases: a dozen small rosebushes, two chairs and a table, some decorative items. They were for the little area where the blackberry brambles had been, he figured, components of the reading area Peter planned to set up for his wife - impossible to move by Beamer, but easily transportable in the truck. There was a problem with the request, though: if the reading area was meant to be a surprise, and Larkin was going to be home all morning, Sam would have to sneak Peter's purchases into the tool shed without her seeing. On the other hand, she'd seen the list, so maybe she knew all about Peter's plans.
Or maybe she'd handed over the paper without reading the details.
Frowning, Sam looked over at the kitchen window. Larkin was still visible there, puttering around, maybe putting together a lunch to take to her office.
She was probably twice his age. But the morning light made her look younger.
You could have that, he thought.
And he imagined himself in Peter's place. Padding downstairs on a sunny summer morning to find her in the kitchen, hair pulled back into a ponytail, tendrils of it lying loose against her face and neck, still wearing the thin tank top and shorts she used as pajamas.
She'd greet him with a smile. Slide her arms around him.
Kiss him, the way she'd kissed Peter.
Yeah.
Maybe not the best thing to be doing, with her standing right there in the kitchen. Ducking his head in sheepish dismay he hoped she didn't see, he folded Peter's list and tucked it into the pocket of his shirt.
Someday…
She looked up then. Saw him standing in the driveway and waved. Knowing that she'd spotted him made his stomach lurch, made him glad his jeans were baggy, made him wave back with a spazzy jerk of his arm and then scuttle off toward the tool shed. Once he was there, out of sight of the kitchen windows, he shuddered, called himself an idiot in enough different ways that Dean would have been proud, and leaned against the shed's brown clapboard wall to keep himself from collapsing like a newborn calf.
Have a wife like that? Who the hell was he kidding?
~~~~~~~~~~
He saw her again later in the morning, coming out of one of the small restaurants that lined the town's main drag.
He hadn't figured on stopping; he'd intended to take the stuff from Lowe's straight back to the house, stow it in the tool shed for safekeeping, then get down to work laying the slate patio blocks that would form a path from the terrace on the ocean side of the house to the driveway, according to the instructions Peter had printed off the Internet and turned over to Sam a couple of days before. He'd already mapped out the rest of his morning and was looking forward to getting started with the slate when he noticed a familiar form coming out of McDonald's, coffee cup in one hand and breakfast sandwich in the other. Dean couldn't wave, exactly, but he gestured.
Sam certainly could have ignored him - but he'd hear about that later on. So he pulled into the McDonald's lot and joined his brother at one of the outdoor tables, where Dean was already unwrapping his Egg McMuffin.
"The hell time'd you get up?" Dean frowned as he took a huge bite.
"Early."
"Early enough to boost Dad's truck?"
"He offered."
Dean's left eyebrow crawled up toward his hairline. He pondered Sam's statement as he chewed, then said around the mouthful, "No shit?"
"Yeah," Sam said, not enjoying the reminder of his conversation with their father. "He wants me to ask the Hobbses about flickering lights."
"Well…yeah."
"Why is everything about the job?"
Dean stared at his coffee as if he thought the answer to Sam's question might suddenly appear in print on the outside of the paper cup. He went on chewing, but more slowly, and eventually swallowed the mouthful of egg and cheese and English muffin. "'Cause it is, Sam," he said quietly.
"It's not. People have normal lives, Dean."
And as if he had summoned Larkin Hobbs with that nameless reference, there she was, coming out of the little restaurant across the street, the skirt of her thin summer dress fluttering around her legs in the breeze. A man Sam didn't recognize followed her out and they stood on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, chatting in a way that indicated they knew each other really well.
A little too well, Sam thought.
Dean followed Sam's gaze across the street. "Damn," he said appreciatively. "I gotta tell you, Sammy, the scenery in this town never disappoints."
"That's…her," Sam muttered.
"Who, her?"
"Mrs. Hobbs." When Dean shook his head, Sam clarified, "The people I work for."
"I take it that's not Mr. Hobbs."
"No."
The two of them watched in silence, Dean continuing to work on his McMuffin and sipping at his coffee, as Larkin Hobbs and the stranger went on talking. The conversation lasted for several minutes, then Larkin and the man embraced, he kissed her lightly on the cheek, and they went their separate ways, he walking up the street toward a car parked at a meter, and she in the other direction, around the corner and out of sight.
"That's nothin'," Dean announced. "Could be a business thing. Or he's her uncle. Or he's married to some friend of hers."
"Or not."
"Dude. Who knows women better than I do?"
Scowling, Sam picked up one of the napkins that had accompanied Dean's meal and set about tearing it into shreds. Yeah, okay, a kiss on the cheek wasn't a sure-fire sign of anything sketchy, but there was something about the easy, familiar way she'd been talking to the man that bugged him - on Peter's behalf, he told himself. Peter had been so earnest the day before, talking about his plans for the little reading nook. And the way he'd kissed her that morning… Peter Hobbs loved his wife. He did. So it was just unacceptable for her to be out here with someone else, at a time when she was supposed to be at work.
"Trust me," Dean said.
"She shouldn't -" Sam sputtered. "That wasn't -"
"Seriously, man. What's your problem?"
The look on Dean's face prompted Sam to examine the shredded remains of the napkin. "It's just… I don't know what it is."
"You don't even know these people."
"I do." Sam sighed. "I kind of do."
"You're not gonna do something ass-brained and tell her husband, are you? Because it's none of your business. You're the freakin' gardener. You're not even the regular freakin' gardener. She had brunch. Or something. With some guy."
Sam shrugged. Watched some of the tattered napkin drift off the table in the breeze.
"You jealous?" Dean asked, but it was mild. A little sympathetic.
"No."
"Sammy. You jealous?"
Sam lifted his head a little and looked into his brother's eyes. Thought about that house, that fantastic view of the ocean. The nice cars and the ongoing landscaping and the home gym and the fancy kitchen.
And the kissing.
"No," he said.
Dean smiled at him, loose and easy, pure Dean, accepting that the conversation was over, ready to move on to the next thing, whatever that might be.
"Fair enough," he told Sam.
~~~~~~~~~~
Larkin loved roses.
True, it was the long-stemmed kind (arranged with babies' breath in vases or bowls or funky pottery) that she meant when she said she loved them - but there wasn't a lot of difference between those and the more natural kind, still attached to the bush. Particularly when the bush was part of a carefully laid-out arc surrounding what Peter had envisioned as a reading area. He'd chosen the spot only after hours of thought: protected from most of the wind off the Atlantic, so the plants wouldn't be battered by salt water, but with a nice, soul-soothing glimpse of the ocean and the house. Sam Winchester's diligent digging and lifting and dragging had done a lot to transform what had been ridiculously overgrown; now Peter could fine-tune. Turn this small spot into something Lark would like.
In jeans and a t-shirt that was soon drenched with sweat, he finished trimming and sculpting, following advice he'd found in a lengthy but easy-to-understand article online. It didn't take long for him to wish he'd asked Sam to stay a little later - or a lot later - but Sam had been nervous and edgy, without explanation, and Peter had readily agreed to let him finish his work on the slate pathway tomorrow.
Besides, there was something to be said for a labor of love, something he managed by himself, with his own hands. What he was doing might not win any landscaping awards (it was more likely to be laughed at, he thought), but maybe what he'd proposed to Sam was true, maybe Lark would enjoy the simple, pleasant surroundings enough to spend time here. Reading. Unwinding a little bit. Breathing some fresh air.
He'd chosen the house itself with that in mind, thinking he could lure her away from the pressures of the office, get her out in the air and away from the computer and the phone, but so far he'd had no real success. His wife was a hard-liner, determined to make partner before she hit 40, and you didn't do that by wasting a lot of time gazing wistfully out at the ocean.
Or making a home. Or having kids.
But you could wear away stone with water, Peter thought. One drop at a time. She had loosened up a little bit in the months they'd lived here, seemed genuinely regretful sometimes when she came home long after dark. He couldn't begrudge her the long hours, couldn't fault her for wanting to make a name for herself, but he was beyond grateful every time she showed up for dinner, or slept in a little bit later in the morning.
It was nearly dark by the time he finished trimming, so he carried over a small table from the terrace and set up a couple of battery-powered lanterns to provide enough light for him to keep working. Under their bright-white glow he marked the sites for the six holes he needed to dig for the rosebushes. The first two he managed easily; soft dirt, no interfering roots.
The third was more of a problem.
He chipped more than dug, with sweat streaming down his back. The blade of the shovel wouldn't cut in more than an inch or two, and yielded layer after layer of roots and stones ranging from small pebbles to rocks the size of potatoes. How that was possible only a couple of feet from soft, almost sandy soil, he couldn't figure out, but this was the coast, so who the hell knew what was underneath all this land.
The sun had long since disappeared when, for the hundredth time, the blade of his shovel thunked against something solid.
With a sigh that was well-seasoned with curses, Peter knelt on the ground and began to scrape into the dirt with the trowel he'd brought out from the tool shed. He'd never finish six holes tonight; if the remaining three were as tough as this, he'd be inspired to throw himself off the bluff into the Atlantic long before he finished planting the rosebushes.
And hell. Lark wouldn't notice, either way. She'd pull in late, as usual, go straight to bed, and would head out for the office in the morning without paying any attention at all to Peter's work, or Sam's.
"That's fine, honey," was all she'd said a week ago, when he told her he'd hired a local boy to keep up with mowing the grass while Mario recuperated from his injuries.
Fine. Yeah, fine.
Blood ran true, he supposed, and that was certainly noticeable in the two of them. Her family had things handed to them, both literally and figuratively. His? Hacked away at things with trowels. Gained an inch of ground at a time.
He ran a bare, scratched-up forearm across his forehead to get rid of the sweat but got some of it in both eyes for his troubles. Cursing at the burning - and at being out here in the dark in the first place - he went running for the garden hose, turned on the water, and doused his eyes until he could manage to keep them open without grimacing from pain. When he trudged back to what seemed more and more unlikely to become a little oasis for Lark or anyone else, only now noticing how big that third hole had gotten, he began to consider stopping.
The digging.
The rosebushes.
Everything.
She wouldn't notice. She'd never notice. Even if she did, she'd never stop to figure out how much work had gone into this project, and telling her how much sweat was involved just seemed petty. With a sigh that this time had no expletives laced into it, Peter sank down onto the ground and peered into the hole.
Keep going, something told him.
Keep going? The hole was already twice as deep as it needed to be to accommodate the root ball of the rosebush. Frowning, he reached for the trowel he'd dropped. He had to lean way over to reach the bottom of the hole, and braced himself with one hand to keep himself from tumbling over as he scraped at the dirt with the tip of the trowel. Almost immediately he connected with something solid, but from the feel of it, it wasn't a rock or a tree root. He didn't need any cheerleading from voices in his head to prod him onward from there; curiosity did the job just fine.
Whatever it was was pretty good-sized. He scraped and poked and dug, pulled one of the lanterns over closer so he could see. A box, he realized, maybe twelve inches by eighteen, delicately engraved on the curving lid. Releasing it from the earth in a way that wouldn't damage it took a long time; the moon had risen nearly to overhead by the time he lifted the box out of the hole. It was heavier than he'd expected, weighed as much as if it contained half a dozen bricks.
Or gold coins, he thought, and grinned at the craziness of that.
A thick brass padlock, tarnished with dirt and age, held the lid secure. Didn't matter if the box contained anything at all, Peter thought as he went to the tool shed for something that would break the lock apart. He could clean the box up, polish it, present it to Larkin as a jewelry box, or something to take pride of place on the coffee table in the living room. Much of its elaborate decoration was matted with dirt, which made him wonder at the fact that it hadn't rotted in the damp coastal soil.
Maybe it was worth some serious money. To a collector of that sort of thing.
A few minutes later, with the help of a big wrench and a screwdriver and some serious muscle - tempered by his desire not to gouge the wood - he'd broken the lock apart. He sat back on the chilly ground feeling like a kid, anxious to see what was inside and yet wanting to preserve the mystery of it, the wonder.
He was almost holding his breath as he lifted the lid.
And found nothing inside but a slowly rising coil of oily black smoke.
Part 3...