Fic: "Your Little House on Memory Lane" [PG-13 - Dean/Cas]
TITLE: "Your Little House on Memory Lane"
AUTHOR: nanoochka
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Dean/Castiel
SPOILERS: None
WARNINGS: Er, vagueness? Implied AU sometime in the future.
WORDCOUNT: 3,368
SUMMARY: Rex Kristofferson lives in a town where nobody knows his name.
DISCLAIMER: Supernatural and all associated content are the property of Eric Kripke and The CW. No infringement intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: So this might strike people as a bit weird, and I anticipate you might be going, "Bzuh?" for the first few paragraphs, but I hope you stick with it. All will hopefully become clear soon. Many thanks to cautionzombies for the beta, and to nyoka and fossarian for the hand-holding. And to the rest of you, there might be a sequel if you ask nicely. :)
"Your Little House on Memory Lane" by nanoochka
Rex Kristofferson lives in the kind of town where everyone knows your name. Literally. Garden City, Texas-about as inappropriately named as a town can get, owing to one major recording error-has a population of fewer than 400, so it’s easy enough to keep track. There is one grocery store, one café (not a Starbucks), one garage, one post office. One bar with three types of beer and no top shelf. It’s impossible to walk down the street without having to say hello to half a dozen people who all know his name, all know he’s been getting over a cold and, probably, what he ate for dinner last night or how long he spent jerking off in the shower. They ask after his dog, Laika, and set him up with their sisters and cousins, because an attractive man on the far side of forty, especially one with smarts and who knows his way around a ranch, shouldn’t live alone. It used to be that Rex didn’t live alone, didn’t settle long in one place, either. He had a car he looked after the way he now looks after the mutt back home, one he spoils with indulgent belly rubs and scraps from the dinner table. But this is his life now, seven years gone. He gets on okay and tries not to think about the time before.
Apart for the sky, everything in the west of Texas is dust, muted gold and persistent. It seems to have settled right into the pores of Rex’s skin and between the strands of his hair, until the whole of him could blend with the landscape except for his two green eyes peering out like chips of broken glass in the dirt. Even they seem to have taken on abundant flecks of champagne and brown, closer now to the mossy hazel of his brother’s eyes than ever before. If the objective is to blend into the backdrop and disappear like a sand lizard hiding itself in the dirt, then Rex has all but achieved that goal. He’s as bland and featureless as the land on which he lives, transparent and transient to memory. A ghost, but not one that can be killed with a pound of salt and half a bottle of lighter fluid. No, Rex is the kind of ghost the folks in Witness Protection maintain doesn’t exist, and it’s their job to keep it that way.
Within a day of relocating or, rather, being relocated and told to forget his name (the forged passports and credit cards were confiscated without comment), Rex got a job as a ranch hand on one of the local farms, a general labourer who occasionally dabbles in fixing tractors and has a small apartment in town. Courtesy of the FBI, of course. At first, the locals were reluctant to accept him, cast suspicious looks his way as he shopped for milk and eggs at the grocery store, skirted to the other side of the street when he was out for a walk. Agent Gregory warned him that might happen, even despite the connections and paperwork they doctored to secure his identity. Having visited a hundred such towns before, Rex didn’t need telling. Townsfolk didn’t trust him by virtue of his newness and something hard behind his smile, a lingering shadow that a practiced backstory and the determination to fit in couldn’t erase.
It was rough going at first, which for Rex is saying something. For a while he didn’t have any friends, nor much for company beyond the odd local slut who could be found at the bar any day of the week. A tired, sad existence, even for a man with no living family and no one he could contact without blowing his cover. Neither of these things had successfully bothered him before, so half the adjustment was to the foreign sense of loneliness. Seven years, though, is a long time, and it was bound to get better eventually. Since arriving in Garden City, Rex has become proficient in riding a horse and managing the Texas drawl, has woven himself into the fabric of everyday town life like he’s always been there. He works long hours stacking hay or mucking out stalls, fixes fences and broken tractors and rounds up the horses with the other ranch hands a couple times a day. Even when every ounce of him wants to drive off into the desert sun and never come back, Rex forces himself to socialize with the guys a few times a week the way he’s expected, the way that’s necessary to fit in. That stuff is simple, but not easy. Rex was always a quick learner.
Still, there are parts of the act that come naturally to small-town natives that Rex sometimes forgets. For instance, if a stranger walks into Clooney’s roadhouse just after sundown, the door banging shut behind him like pure, classic Eastwood, it’s essential that everyone turn to stare. Going unnoticed isn’t an option when, so close after dinnertime, the bar is halfway deserted to begin with-there are no more than a few regulars holding court with Joey, the bartender, while the rest gaze off into space or at the muted ball game on TV. When that door opens and someone unexpected walks through it, normalcy stops dead in its tracks, six pairs of eyes swivelling toward the new face in a mix of inquisitiveness knee-jerk hostility.
Because Rex isn’t a true local, at first he doesn’t know to look. The Astros are in the second-to-last inning against KC on the bar’s single, blurry television, and Rex had been content to sit there and drink his beer and pretend like he didn’t secretly want the Royals to win. Forgetting, for a moment, the old lack of inquisitiveness that sets him apart from Garden natives-it’s hard to be curious about anything when Rex has seen everything-he doesn’t look away from the game until he notices everyone around him has turned. As soon as he does, he wishes he hadn’t.
Having several sets of eyes on him doesn’t disturb the newcomer, who takes a slow look around before settling upon Rex’s startled face. The gaze lingers a second longer than is polite. He’s of average height and scruffy, the thick muss of his dark hair fading into stubbled cheeks and a defined chin, a full, pink mouth meant for worship and made for sin. The whiplash sting of memory makes Rex want to flinch, tingles at the base of his tongue in a thousand forgotten tastes and smells and sights for sore eyes. He meets the furious blue of the stranger’s gaze and tries to school his expression into something normal and easy and uncaring, almost thinks he pulls it off as the other man nods once and sidles up to the bar a couple seats away.
Joey’s eyes flick over to Rex in a question, the same thing everyone else is wondering right about now--Who the hell is this? Rex shrugs imperceptibly, indicating he can’t guess at the stranger’s business any more than the next guy, and goes back to his baseball game even though the players are now a confusing, unimportant blur. “What’ll it be, mister?” asks Joey in monotone. “We don’t got much, so if you’re lookin’ for something fancy, you best go elsewhere.”
“What are you drinking?” the stranger asks Rex.
Smart trick-ordering as the locals do. “Ask for Shiner Bock and cheer for the Rangers like your mama’s just hit a homer,” had been Agent Gregory’s advice towards helping Rex assimilate. “Remember those two things and you’ll be just fine.”
Smiling to himself, Rex lifts his pint for the stranger to see the logo etched on the side. He hates the stuff, and feels justified in subjecting the uninitiated to the shallow, overly-sweet beer. “Shiner,” he says by way of explanation.
“Then I’ll have one of those,” says the man, still unfazed.
Attempting an apologetic face, Joey shrugs. “Clean out,” he says, despite the fresh pint sitting in front of Rex, and the fact that the state of Texas would probably run out of water long before it ran out of beer.
For fuck’s sake, thinks Rex. Next he’ll be pulling out the shotgun from behind the bar and announcing it needs cleaning. “Joe,” he sighs, and that’s all it takes, a quick flash of warning from his eyes to remind the cranky bartender that Rex has some stranger in him, too. Heedless of the subtle smirk upon the stranger’s lips, Joey snatches a pint glass from the shelf with a bit more force than is necessary, and makes sure to leave a bit of extra head on top as he fills it at the tap. If he expects a rise from the newcomer, he doesn’t get it.
A few minutes pass as Rex and the man sip their beers in silence, the latter sneaking sidelong looks every few seconds like he wants to place Rex’s face, but can’t. It should be annoying or creepy, or both, but Rex has been stared at so much in his lifetime he doesn’t bat an eye. He does, however, resist the urge to stare back, to drink in that striking profile in a way that tends to spell out “lynch mob” in this part of Texas.
Nevertheless, the man seems to pick up on the intent, and waits until Joe has moved on to a customer at the other end of the bar before he addresses Rex directly. “You look very familiar,” he says, voice achingly rough. It’s such a line that Rex could roll his eyes, were he not thinking the same thing. There’s no heat behind the words, besides, and in the man’s eyes is not the look of someone trying to determine if this is a case of mistaken identity, but rather, a sharp desperation that breaks Rex’s heart and makes his breath catch hard in his throat.
“I get that a lot,” he answers smoothly, after he’s paused to take a drink of his Shiner and order his heart back to normal, since it’s all but slipped into tachycardia in the last three minutes. “Guess I have one of those faces.”
“Maybe you do.” The man cocks his head thoughtfully, and Rex very nearly lets his eyes drift shut at the sight, swallowing heavily. Instead he ends up fluttering his eyelashes in a way that might border on flirtatious, earning himself a quirk of a smile that’s too indulgent and affectionate, too intimate, for people who have just met. Some folks are just socially ignorant in that way, Rex supposes, like people with no concept of personal space. A hand is extended towards him. “I’m Jimmy Novak,” says the stranger, and Rex absolutely does not lift an eyebrow at the name.
Returning the handshake, he tries, as subtly as possible, to nod in indication of the other men in the bar. “Nice to meet you, Jimmy,” he answers. “Round here, they call me Rex. Rex Kristofferson.”
“That’s quite the moniker,” says Jimmy.
Rex laughs. “It is at that. But most people don’t tend to forget it, you know? They’d never think to call me anything else.” If he leans too heavily on this last bit, Jimmy gives no sign of concern. He just nods, and plays with the condensation on his pint glass with his free hand, letting the handshake linger for as long as he can manage without attracting undue attention. Which is to say, too long. Rex feels the sweat break out across the back of his neck and pulls away.
“What brings you to Garden City?” he asks, clearing his throat.
Jimmy shrugs. “Work. I travel around a lot.” Before Rex can satisfy his curiosity and ask just what kind of work Jimmy does, the other man helpfully supplies, “But right now I’m actually looking for someone.”
Hiding his flinch, Rex stares blindly at the television set and doesn’t know whether he wants Jimmy to keep talking, or walk away and never look back. Kind of the way Rex did almost a decade ago. “You find him yet?”
Pausing to consider, Jimmy eventually says, “Don’t know yet. Maybe you might be able to help. Fellow goes by the name Dean Winchester-old colleague of mine. He’d be about your age now.”
“Name don’t ring a bell,” says Rex thickly. “I know most of the folks in this area, so I’d tell you if it did. Been here a while now, over seven years.”
“Not a local, then. Otherwise you wouldn’t be talking to me,” Jimmy concludes. “You sound like one of them, but you’re not.”
“No.”
“Neither is Dean Winchester. ”
Rex ignores the digging, needs to make himself clear before Joey or one of the others starts paying more attention to this discussion than is safe. He needs someone stirring up shit on his old life like he needs a kick to the nuts. “Maybe, but I’m good as one now, though. No plans to leave. Maybe this guy you’re lookin’ for has already moved on.”
Mouth tight, Jimmy shrugs one shoulder in a way that is impossibly sullen, for such a small gesture. Rex notices there’s some grey that’s crept into the hair at his temples, but he still looks young, vibrant, barely older than thirty-five. He wants to ask, What’s your secret? because Rex suddenly feels every damn one of his forty-three years.
Silence crawls by for another few agonizing moments, until Jimmy says suddenly, “You ever think there’s people who miss you elsewhere? From before you came here?”
Rex turns his gaze to meet Jimmy’s head on, fights back the sour twist of his stomach and the flood of memories which accompanies it. He can count sadness in each of the fine lines around Jimmy’s eyes, but doesn’t think a single one of them is from laughter. “I don’t. Or at least I never thought so. It’s been a long time, like I said.”
“Seven years. You said.” Much to Rex’s surprise, Jimmy is the first to look away. “But you never know. Take it from me-even when you try your damndest to disappear, there’s usually always someone left out there who still thinks about where you are, or whether or not you’re okay.”
Before he can think better of it, Rex asks, “Who’s out there that you think about?”
“This guy bothering you, Rex?” Whatever Jimmy might have responded with is cut off by Joe’s brusque voice and his unsmiling face, which appears a scant few inches away from the end of Jimmy’s nose. To Jimmy, he says, “Listen, mister, you got as much right to drink here as any other mook off the street, but I won’t be tolerating anyone who goes harrassin’ my regulars, got it? So if that’s the plan, I suggest you finish your beer and get the hell out.”
“For fuck’s sake, Joe,” snaps Rex. “We’re in the middle of a conversation.” It comes out a tad more forceful than he’d intended, especially since Jimmy probably doesn’t need help defending himself. He had the balls to walk in here alone, after all, and is handling the July heat with far more equanimity than most of the people who were born here, both of which add up to suggest he can be a bit of a bad-ass motherfucker when he wants to be. Not that Rex needs telling-from the look in Jimmy’s eye alone, Rex knew the second they met Jimmy could make him regret being born. Again, were he so inclined. If Joe can’t figure that out his damn self, then he deserves whatever’s coming to him.
“It’s okay,” Jimmy interjects, and Rex wants to punch Joey right in his smug face. Sadly, he’s too damn thick and caught up in Southern territorial bullshit to realize how close he just came to real danger-a compelling argument, in fact, for why some strangers aren’t to be trusted in the first place, though Rex thinks that ought to give people the sense not to piss them off, either. “I’m not from around here. This doesn’t seem like the kind of place that gets many tourists, so it’s natural to be suspicious of people just passing through.” This is directed as much at Rex as Joey, but with his eyes steady and unafraid, Jimmy looks straight at the bartender and gives a sharp-edged smile. “But I’m here for a reason, so you should get used to seeing me around until my business is settled.”
Throwing a five-dollar bill down on the bar-certainly a more generous tip than Joey deserves-Jimmy gets up off his stool without finishing his beer, and wipes his hands off on the legs of his jeans. He’s only wearing a thin t-shirt, soft and fitted to the slim lines of his body; it’s sweltering hot even in the bar, but for some reason Rex is surprised to see him sweating slightly, moisture glistening against the light tan of his skin. Jimmy hasn’t yet begun to blend into the dust.
“I better get going, anyway,” he says in a flat voice. He looks at Rex and stares, a long, hard, agonizing stare, and Rex barely catches the minute slump that pricks at the corners of Jimmy’s mouth and tugs gently downwards. “It’ll be dark soon, and it’s a bit of a trek back to my lodgings in Midland. Are you familiar with the-” he pulls an old-fashioned set of motel keys from the front pocket of his jeans and glances at the keychain before showing it to Rex, the number ‘209’ in chipped gold lettering just beneath the name, “-West Texas Inn?”
Rex doesn’t need to hear the name twice, shrugs like he couldn’t care less, like he isn’t already thinking that’s almost an hour’s drive northwest up the 158 from his house, how Laika will stick her head out the window of his truck and howl into the wind the whole way. It’s a nice night; she’d sing her little heart out like a siren trying to call those far-off mountains to her door. “Might have passed it once or twice on my way into town,” he says. “I know Midland a little bit.”
Jimmy nods, and stuffs the keys back in his pocket. Before he makes for the door, though, he steps in half a foot closer, nothing these repressed drunkards would find untoward, but enough that Rex gets the feeling behind it. A quiet reluctance undiminished by his show of bravado to Joey and the rest of the bar, like he feels he’s somehow failed in pulling Rex away from this place he doesn’t belong. But that’s just the thing-Rex does belong here now, even if he doesn’t always act like it, and for once staying is easier than going.
“It was nice meeting you, Rex,” Jimmy says awkwardly. He doesn’t offer a parting handshake, which is just fine; Rex doesn’t want it, or doesn’t think he could let go-whatever. He’s walked away before, no point getting sentimental over complete strangers now.
“You too, man,” he answers affably, and lifts his beer in a farewell salute as he would any other passing acquaintance in a bar, right before he goes back to his ball game and, later, the rest of his life. Only he doesn’t look back at the television, nor does he turn his body away from Jimmy’s gradually withdrawing figure. “Hope you find your friend.”
The smile that touches Jimmy’s lips before he exits the bar is drier than the desert outside and more fleeting than a sandstorm. Though gone in a flash, its sharpness lingers, gritty residue settling thick and invisible over Rex’s skin. That smile is like a stone beneath a fresh coat of paint, he thinks, impossible to cover up, impossible to remove, impossible to look away from. And yet, not a flaw he’s desperate to fix. It took him half a lifetime to figure out it’s what makes him who he is, what gives him character. Even if it’s character nobody sees, a town where nobody knows his name.
Fin