Requested post-Haystack timestamp.
without_me was the latest but not the only person to request a tag for "Under a Haystack." This...would finally be that epilogue. My love to innie_darling for her lightspeed beta and comments -- I hope y'all enjoy. Will not make much sense if you are unfamiliar with Under a Haystack.
Come Blow Your Horn
By Emily Brunson
©2008
Sometimes, when he looks at Dean, he sees a funny expression on his face. Almost confusion, except not quite that. Bemusement? Bewilderment? It doesn’t belong.
It’s days before Sam thinks, That’s a little-Dean look. That lost, looking-for-Dad look.
“Nothing,” Dean says when Sam asks what’s wrong.
“You just -- What’s that look?”
Dean blinks at him. Doesn’t even smirk, just shakes his head. “Thinking about the next job,” he says. He is a better liar as an adult than he had been as a child, but it’s child’s play to see he’s lying. At least for Sam.
“We don’t have another job yet,” Sam says gently.
“Will, though. Always do. Gift that keeps on giving.”
He’s right, of course. There’s a poltergeist in West Texas, and a nixie on the Maryland coast. Dean zigs when he should have zagged in Norman, Oklahoma, and the chupacabra they’re chasing almost relieves him of his throat before Sam’s bullet spoils its aim.
They’re beat up, tired, and Dean is - something else along with it when they reach their motel room. Over delivery pizza and cheap beer from the corner 7-Eleven Sam says, “Want to tell me now?”
Dean stuffs his mouth full of pizza and chews slowly. “Tell you what?” he asks indistinctly.
“What’s bugging you.”
“Nothin’ bugging me.”
Sam lets him eat, lets him stretch out and pretend he isn’t dozing while neither of them watches the second Terminator movie on cable.
It’s been a month and change since that day in northern California, sun on whitecaps and a red SUV, and Dean’s shredded jeans and flummoxed expression. They don’t talk much about it. Other than snarking a little bit about how it was pretty unfair and also Sam let him get almost-killed, Dean hardly acknowledges it happened.
You were yourself, Sam thinks, watching the tired lines on Dean’s sleeping face. Even at seven, you were so very you.
At seven Dean had slept with trustful abandon. Now he’s tense, expressions coming and going, mouth working as he dreams. It is painfully intimate, this witnessing, and Sam turns away and swallows the taste of formless grief.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Where we going?”
Dean’s been tired since they started driving, offering only a token protest when Sam picked up the keys. He’s slept for 150 miles, give or take, and looks blearily at the desert landscape around them.
“Nevada,” Sam says.
“Vegas? Dude.” Dean sits up, briefly scrubs his face with his hands. “Finally put those freaky mojo powers of yours to lucrative use?”
Sam shakes his head. “An errand. That’s all.”
“An errand?” Dean’s voice drips with sarcasm. “An errand. Okay, so - what errand?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Oh no. No no no. Dean Winchester doesn’t do surprises.”
“Bullshit. Remember my tenth birthday?”
“Dude, you knew all about that. That wasn’t a surprise. You told me you knew for days.”
Sam smiles slightly. “I lied.”
He catches Dean’s stare and shrugs. “I had no idea, okay? But you acted like you expected me to have figured it out, and I felt dumb, you know? So I told you I knew.”
Dean is still gazing at him, real astonishment morphing into pleasure. “You really didn’t know? Seriously?”
“You scared the crap out of me, screaming Happy Birthday. I nearly pissed my pants.”
“I KNEW you didn’t know!” Dean pounds his thigh for emphasis, barks a gleeful laugh. “Seriously. You had no idea?”
“None, man.”
“Aw, Sammy. That’s awesome.” Dean laughs again, and Sam thinks, There. There he is. There’s DEAN.
“Dude, what.”
Sam turns his eyes back to the road ahead. “Nothing. Just remembering.”
“That was a great party.”
“Yeah, until Dad got home.”
Dean snickers. “Worth it. Dude, you totally didn’t know. That’s awesome.”
Sam smiles and shakes his head.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Vegas is thataway.”
“We’re not going to Vegas.”
Dean looks around, chews his lower lip for a second. “Reno’s all right. Man, I haven’t been here in -- Long time.”
“Me, either. Stay here.” He puts the Impala in park.
“Where you going?”
His heart is beating faster. Ridiculous, but he wants to laugh, and possibly cry, and he can’t explain to Dean why. “Pick up the mail,” he says.
Dean’s face clears, and then he frowns. “The PO box?”
“I had some things forwarded. Only PO box number I could remember.”
Dean will fill in the blanks for himself, he thinks, climbing out from behind the wheel. Dean’s good at that. It’s what he’s counted on.
Their box is in the second-to-last row, one of the larger boxes. The old kind, and there’s a matching key on Dean’s keyring. Been there since before Stanford, before Sam left, only it was on Dad’s keyring back then.
The box is full, crammed with letters and flyers and crap. Dad’s box, not Dean’s, not really. Sam flips rapidly through the contents, sets aside credit-card applications and sees a postcard with his father’s name on it. From Father Jim, and Sam fights down a surge of hot, bleak sadness and puts it with the apps.
It’s there, sandwiched between a guaranteed loan application and a Land’s End catalog. How’d Dad get on THAT mailing list, he thinks, and slides the little package in his jacket pocket.
Dean’s dozing when he gets back to the car. It’s hot, bright, and Sam squints while he gets in, tosses the pile of apps in Dean’s lap.
“Man,” Dean says groggily. “Are you embracing our life of crime, dude?”
Sam shrugs and turns the key in the ignition.
Dean doesn’t ask what else he’s gotten. Doesn’t want to know, maybe; thinks it’s Stanford stuff, the personal things that keep Dean on edge, afraid someone will lure Sam back to that perfect life. He doesn’t bother to say there was nothing else personal there. Nothing for him, and nothing for Dean. He sees the postcard in Dean’s hands, and looks away so that he doesn’t see Dean’s expression.
A few miles outside Reno there’s a roadside park. As dry as the rest of the state, hot with the smell of dust and creosote, but the tables have concrete awnings overhead. Sam parks the Impala and doesn’t wait for Dean’s reaction. Walks over to one of the tables and sits, feeling the embrace of hot concrete on his ass.
Boots crunch in gravel. “Ain’t much of a view,” Dean says, curiosity in his voice.
“Sit down.”
Dean slings himself on the concrete bench on the other side of the table. He looks pinched, anxious. “What.”
Sam nods once, then slides the package out of his pocket. “Here.” He holds it out.
Dean takes it like he suspects it’s filled with C4. “What’s this?”
Sam smiles. “Just look.”
“These yours?” Dean’s mouth twists in a puzzled smirk; the package looks small in his fingers, bright yellow.
Dust curls around the bases of the other tables, a tumbleweed, Russian thistle, caught between a bench and the concrete ground. The seeds shat out by the animals people brought from other places, Sam thinks, not a desert native at all, an import, like the people. During the worst of the Dust Bowl years people had eaten Russian thistle, ground it into a kind of flour or boiled it over fires made from cow shit. What did it taste like? Dust, probably. Everything would have tasted like dust.
“Sam?” Dean sounds strangled.
“We were in Roswell,” Sam says, watching dust curling around, chasing itself. “We went to the UFO Museum.”
There’s silence, and then Dean says, “This is us?”
“A few days before you changed back.”
When he looks, Dean is staring raptly at the photos, one at a time, slow and careful as he is not, usually, with anything not sanctified for the hunt, or dedicated to the Impala. He handles them delicately, no fingerprints on the emulsion. His mouth is slightly open.
“It was real, Dean,” Sam says quietly. “It really happened.”
Dean looks up, slow wonder in his wide green eyes. “I - remember,” he whispers. “I think. A little.”
Sam nods. “What do you remember?”
Dean looks down at the photos, and says, “A book. A book about a rabbit. It’s - I dunno, and a dog. A yellow dog.” He swallows, and wets his lips. “Fire. It’s all fucked up. None of it makes sense.”
“Can I?”
Dean pauses, then hands him the photographs.
The first is Dean, laughing while he drapes an arm around the shoulders of the stuffed alien in the museum lobby. His nose is sunburned, and his hair is shockingly blond.
He makes a sound, not a word, and Dean says rustily, “I had fun.”
Sam looks up, meets Dean’s eyes and smiles. “You did. You thought it was really cool.”
“It was.”
“What else do you remember?” Sam whispers.
Dean looks down. “That’s all.”
It is a lie, but what does it matter? “Here,” Sam says, and holds out one of the pictures. “I knew this would be a good one.”
Dean’s face crumples, and he gives a jerky nod. “Got somebody -“ He clears his throat. “Got somebody to take it.”
“Yeah. Me and you.”
“I was - kinda skinny.”
Sam grins. “Yeah. Nearly broke my nose at first.”
Dean stares at the photo, a smile coming and going, quicksilver-bright. “I don’t remember that.”
“You thought I stole Dad’s car.”
Dean looks at him. “Tell me more?”
Sam nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
END
Come Blow Your Horn
By Emily Brunson
©2008
Sometimes, when he looks at Dean, he sees a funny expression on his face. Almost confusion, except not quite that. Bemusement? Bewilderment? It doesn’t belong.
It’s days before Sam thinks, That’s a little-Dean look. That lost, looking-for-Dad look.
“Nothing,” Dean says when Sam asks what’s wrong.
“You just -- What’s that look?”
Dean blinks at him. Doesn’t even smirk, just shakes his head. “Thinking about the next job,” he says. He is a better liar as an adult than he had been as a child, but it’s child’s play to see he’s lying. At least for Sam.
“We don’t have another job yet,” Sam says gently.
“Will, though. Always do. Gift that keeps on giving.”
He’s right, of course. There’s a poltergeist in West Texas, and a nixie on the Maryland coast. Dean zigs when he should have zagged in Norman, Oklahoma, and the chupacabra they’re chasing almost relieves him of his throat before Sam’s bullet spoils its aim.
They’re beat up, tired, and Dean is - something else along with it when they reach their motel room. Over delivery pizza and cheap beer from the corner 7-Eleven Sam says, “Want to tell me now?”
Dean stuffs his mouth full of pizza and chews slowly. “Tell you what?” he asks indistinctly.
“What’s bugging you.”
“Nothin’ bugging me.”
Sam lets him eat, lets him stretch out and pretend he isn’t dozing while neither of them watches the second Terminator movie on cable.
It’s been a month and change since that day in northern California, sun on whitecaps and a red SUV, and Dean’s shredded jeans and flummoxed expression. They don’t talk much about it. Other than snarking a little bit about how it was pretty unfair and also Sam let him get almost-killed, Dean hardly acknowledges it happened.
You were yourself, Sam thinks, watching the tired lines on Dean’s sleeping face. Even at seven, you were so very you.
At seven Dean had slept with trustful abandon. Now he’s tense, expressions coming and going, mouth working as he dreams. It is painfully intimate, this witnessing, and Sam turns away and swallows the taste of formless grief.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Where we going?”
Dean’s been tired since they started driving, offering only a token protest when Sam picked up the keys. He’s slept for 150 miles, give or take, and looks blearily at the desert landscape around them.
“Nevada,” Sam says.
“Vegas? Dude.” Dean sits up, briefly scrubs his face with his hands. “Finally put those freaky mojo powers of yours to lucrative use?”
Sam shakes his head. “An errand. That’s all.”
“An errand?” Dean’s voice drips with sarcasm. “An errand. Okay, so - what errand?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Oh no. No no no. Dean Winchester doesn’t do surprises.”
“Bullshit. Remember my tenth birthday?”
“Dude, you knew all about that. That wasn’t a surprise. You told me you knew for days.”
Sam smiles slightly. “I lied.”
He catches Dean’s stare and shrugs. “I had no idea, okay? But you acted like you expected me to have figured it out, and I felt dumb, you know? So I told you I knew.”
Dean is still gazing at him, real astonishment morphing into pleasure. “You really didn’t know? Seriously?”
“You scared the crap out of me, screaming Happy Birthday. I nearly pissed my pants.”
“I KNEW you didn’t know!” Dean pounds his thigh for emphasis, barks a gleeful laugh. “Seriously. You had no idea?”
“None, man.”
“Aw, Sammy. That’s awesome.” Dean laughs again, and Sam thinks, There. There he is. There’s DEAN.
“Dude, what.”
Sam turns his eyes back to the road ahead. “Nothing. Just remembering.”
“That was a great party.”
“Yeah, until Dad got home.”
Dean snickers. “Worth it. Dude, you totally didn’t know. That’s awesome.”
Sam smiles and shakes his head.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Vegas is thataway.”
“We’re not going to Vegas.”
Dean looks around, chews his lower lip for a second. “Reno’s all right. Man, I haven’t been here in -- Long time.”
“Me, either. Stay here.” He puts the Impala in park.
“Where you going?”
His heart is beating faster. Ridiculous, but he wants to laugh, and possibly cry, and he can’t explain to Dean why. “Pick up the mail,” he says.
Dean’s face clears, and then he frowns. “The PO box?”
“I had some things forwarded. Only PO box number I could remember.”
Dean will fill in the blanks for himself, he thinks, climbing out from behind the wheel. Dean’s good at that. It’s what he’s counted on.
Their box is in the second-to-last row, one of the larger boxes. The old kind, and there’s a matching key on Dean’s keyring. Been there since before Stanford, before Sam left, only it was on Dad’s keyring back then.
The box is full, crammed with letters and flyers and crap. Dad’s box, not Dean’s, not really. Sam flips rapidly through the contents, sets aside credit-card applications and sees a postcard with his father’s name on it. From Father Jim, and Sam fights down a surge of hot, bleak sadness and puts it with the apps.
It’s there, sandwiched between a guaranteed loan application and a Land’s End catalog. How’d Dad get on THAT mailing list, he thinks, and slides the little package in his jacket pocket.
Dean’s dozing when he gets back to the car. It’s hot, bright, and Sam squints while he gets in, tosses the pile of apps in Dean’s lap.
“Man,” Dean says groggily. “Are you embracing our life of crime, dude?”
Sam shrugs and turns the key in the ignition.
Dean doesn’t ask what else he’s gotten. Doesn’t want to know, maybe; thinks it’s Stanford stuff, the personal things that keep Dean on edge, afraid someone will lure Sam back to that perfect life. He doesn’t bother to say there was nothing else personal there. Nothing for him, and nothing for Dean. He sees the postcard in Dean’s hands, and looks away so that he doesn’t see Dean’s expression.
A few miles outside Reno there’s a roadside park. As dry as the rest of the state, hot with the smell of dust and creosote, but the tables have concrete awnings overhead. Sam parks the Impala and doesn’t wait for Dean’s reaction. Walks over to one of the tables and sits, feeling the embrace of hot concrete on his ass.
Boots crunch in gravel. “Ain’t much of a view,” Dean says, curiosity in his voice.
“Sit down.”
Dean slings himself on the concrete bench on the other side of the table. He looks pinched, anxious. “What.”
Sam nods once, then slides the package out of his pocket. “Here.” He holds it out.
Dean takes it like he suspects it’s filled with C4. “What’s this?”
Sam smiles. “Just look.”
“These yours?” Dean’s mouth twists in a puzzled smirk; the package looks small in his fingers, bright yellow.
Dust curls around the bases of the other tables, a tumbleweed, Russian thistle, caught between a bench and the concrete ground. The seeds shat out by the animals people brought from other places, Sam thinks, not a desert native at all, an import, like the people. During the worst of the Dust Bowl years people had eaten Russian thistle, ground it into a kind of flour or boiled it over fires made from cow shit. What did it taste like? Dust, probably. Everything would have tasted like dust.
“Sam?” Dean sounds strangled.
“We were in Roswell,” Sam says, watching dust curling around, chasing itself. “We went to the UFO Museum.”
There’s silence, and then Dean says, “This is us?”
“A few days before you changed back.”
When he looks, Dean is staring raptly at the photos, one at a time, slow and careful as he is not, usually, with anything not sanctified for the hunt, or dedicated to the Impala. He handles them delicately, no fingerprints on the emulsion. His mouth is slightly open.
“It was real, Dean,” Sam says quietly. “It really happened.”
Dean looks up, slow wonder in his wide green eyes. “I - remember,” he whispers. “I think. A little.”
Sam nods. “What do you remember?”
Dean looks down at the photos, and says, “A book. A book about a rabbit. It’s - I dunno, and a dog. A yellow dog.” He swallows, and wets his lips. “Fire. It’s all fucked up. None of it makes sense.”
“Can I?”
Dean pauses, then hands him the photographs.
The first is Dean, laughing while he drapes an arm around the shoulders of the stuffed alien in the museum lobby. His nose is sunburned, and his hair is shockingly blond.
He makes a sound, not a word, and Dean says rustily, “I had fun.”
Sam looks up, meets Dean’s eyes and smiles. “You did. You thought it was really cool.”
“It was.”
“What else do you remember?” Sam whispers.
Dean looks down. “That’s all.”
It is a lie, but what does it matter? “Here,” Sam says, and holds out one of the pictures. “I knew this would be a good one.”
Dean’s face crumples, and he gives a jerky nod. “Got somebody -“ He clears his throat. “Got somebody to take it.”
“Yeah. Me and you.”
“I was - kinda skinny.”
Sam grins. “Yeah. Nearly broke my nose at first.”
Dean stares at the photo, a smile coming and going, quicksilver-bright. “I don’t remember that.”
“You thought I stole Dad’s car.”
Dean looks at him. “Tell me more?”
Sam nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
END