Fic: Down the Only Road I've Ever Known (1/7)
Fic: Down the Only Road I've Ever Known (1/7)
Summary: The Impala breaks down in the remote Appalacians, where folks keep to themselves and resent outside intrusion. Sam, Dean and Chloe discover how hard this makes hunting.
Author: pen37
Beta: Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: Pg (It's Supernatural, guys. Draw an X on the map and mark it Terror Incognita: here be monsters).
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Written for the Crossovers100 challenge. Prompt #50 Spade. The table is here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
As the meteor rocks fell from the sky, they sizzled with the heat of entry into Earth's atmosphere. Other than the sizzle, they approached in near silence. But there could be no doubt that they caused the sonic boom that followed closely behind. One struck the hood of the car and caused it to flip. She was thrown forward into the restraints of her car-seat with the impact, and then upward as the car flipped onto its roof. More startled than hurt, she let out a wail of terror as green dust filled the cab of the vehicle.
Chloe jerked awake with a startled oath. She looked around, and realized with relief that she was in the back of the Impala. She was a long way from the Smallville meteor shower, and she was safe.
In the front seat, she could see Dean glance at her through his rear-view mirror - which was permanently trained on her, not on the traffic behind them. Next to him, Sam glanced over his shoulder, a look of faint concern on his face. She waved off their concerned looks and reached for her great-grampy's annotated Yeats.
In the front seat, Sam and Dean went back to their conversation.
“You're kidding, right?” Dean asked. “Dude, the Impala could whip Bumblebee's Ass.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. They were talking 80's cartoons now.
“You are aware that the Impala can't transform into a giant robot, aren't you?” Sam asked.
“Don't listen to him, baby,” Dean said as he ran his hand lovingly over the dashboard.
“You listening to this, Chloe?” Sam grinned back at her.
“No comment,” Chloe said absently. She understood that the nightmares were part of the whole post-traumatic stress syndrome. And on some level, she asked for them by opening up the memory blocks that held back those particular memories. But they were still hard to get through.
“Come on, Chloe. He's anthropomorphizing the car. Doesn't that freak you out?”
Chloe shrugged. “Nope. Some things a woman just has to accept. Besides, if the Impala can deal with the fact that I'm the other woman, then I don't mind sharing.”
Sam frowned. “You guys are freaks. In an epic sense. Like freaky religions with multiple-wives freaks.”
“Then you fit right in, Miss Cleo,” Dean smirked at him.
“Don't lump me in with your harem, dude. I'm not touching that one with a twelve-foot pole.” Sam made a face. Then he looked back at Chloe. “So what are you reading? William Butler Yeats?”
“Nice segue,” she grinned at him. “It belonged to my great-grampy Sullivan. We found it a couple weeks back in my apartment, along with a ring.”
She held her hand out so that Sam could see the silver ring that now encircled her thumb. “Based on the notes in the margins, Dean thinks that my great-grampy might have been a hunter.”
She watched Sam run his fingers along the knotwork carvings. “This is protective, isn't it?”
“That's the theory,” Chloe nodded in agreement.
“Have you heard back from Zatanna yet?” Dean asked.
“No, but . . .” Chloe shrugged. “I'll give her a call in a day or two. We'll see if she's heard of anything.”
“You think your great-grandfather could have been a hunter, Chloe?” Sam asked.
“Who knows?” Chloe's lip twisted, and she raised her eyebrows. “From what I can tell by these books, folks in the auld country have kept closer to their traditions than we have here in the states. A lot of the things that hunters take care of here - folks getting led off into the woods by a will-o-wisp, fairee kidnappings, even that kelpie we put down - folks there treat it like one of those things that you just live with.”
“You're kidding, right?” Dean glanced back at her with an incredulous expression.
“Nope,” Chloe said. “They way they look a it - if you respect the boundaries that the supernatural creatures have set out - then you'll be fine. But if you ignore them - on your own head it be.”
“Huh,” Dean said. “Too bad demons don't respect boundaries.”
“Or shape shifters,” Sam put in. “Don't forget those.”
“Or --”
“Okay, guys. I get it. I didn't say that it was a good policy. I was just making an observation.”
Sam and Dean shot each other twin grins.
“Anyway, how about we stop for lunch?” Dean asked.
Chloe looked out the window at the rolling Appalachian Mountains. Fall had snuck up on them like a cat on silent paws, sprawled across the landscape as if wanted to nap in the sunlight, and wrapped itself in mottled calico browns and golds.
As they passed picture-postcard communities, smoke from fireside hearths, yards of raked leaves and a thousand homecoming bonfires climbed to touch the sun before settling, as if exhausted, to recline in the hollows between the mountains.
The interstate wound like a ribbon of grey, over streams, and past sleepy little towns before shooting through hollowed-out mountain tunnels as if it had been threaded.
“You got some place in mind?” she asked wryly.
Dean shrugged. “One town is as good as the next. They make awesome pumpkin pie up here.”
“You and your pie,” Sam rolled his eyes.
“There's one: Matoaka. Sounds homey.”
“Homey?”
“Or, you know. Friendly-like,” Dean said. “Sounds nice.”
“So did that place in Illinois where they were sacrificing folks to a scarecrow god.”
Dean just shrugged as he pulled the Impala into the next exit. Chloe noticed that Dean liked to bypass those cookie-cutter chain restaurants in favor of mom and pop eateries with that quality that the travel editor at the Daily Planet liked to call local color.
Which usually meant home-grown grease, as opposed to homogenized, shipped-from-a-factory-in-California grease like she would get at MacDonalds.
As she was climbing out of the Impala, the sound of a distant bell reached her ears. Chloe turned toward the sound, and in the distance, she could see an old-fashioned, white church with a steeple. She glanced at her watch, and noted that the time was 12:15.
She made a mental note of it as she followed the boys into the diner.
The place was homey, with vinyl red-checkered table-cloths and plastic sunflowers on every table. The walls were white and trimmed in rough cedar. Pictures of children were framed in the same style and hung on the walls.
Chloe stopped the waitress as she dropped off their menus.
“Excuse me, why is the church bell ringing?”
The waitress gave her a flat, unfriendly look. “Don't you pay that no nevermind, hon.” She waved Chloe's question away. “We do that 'round here when someone dies.”
Chloe shot a questioning look at Sam. The younger Winchester brother raised his eyebrows in response.
Chloe shrugged her shoulders, and slid into the booth next to Dean. “Thanks.” She said, her own voice dripping in confusion.
“Something wrong, Chloe?” Dean asked as he put his arm around her and pulled her close.
“That was definitely one of the most unfriendly answers that I've ever gotten. And trust me - I've got a history of unfriendly answers.”
“Don't worry about it,” Dean said. “A lot of these small towns don't cotton to outsiders.”
“I get that - but it was a casual question, and she was completely hostile.”
“Which is pretty normal, all things considered,” Dean said. “I've lost track of the number of times I've been escorted out of city limits, and then had to sneak back in to finish a job.”
They placed their orders, and then Dean pinned her with a look that told her that they were going to finish working their way through the telling of her senior year. Chloe sighed. Over the past couple of days, Dean had been slowly pulling the story of her high school years out of her.
In retrospect, there were a few embarrassing points in those awkward years that she would have rather not shared - like the level of hero worship she'd carried for Clark, and some of the bad relationships that she'd gotten into out of spite, or some misguided attempt to make herself un-love him.
And Dean's borderline-obsessive jealousy didn't help. She knew going into the relationship that he had a possessive streak. But as far as she was concerned, getting jealous of old crushes whom she'd moved on from was talking things way too far. She noticed that Dean hadn't been all that bothered by taking her to Memphis to meet Jo. Some small part of her was disturbed by that, as well. In respect to old flames, did he think so little of them both?
“So we worked our way through the meteor rock love-Gatorade, the slutty French witches, and you finding out that Clark was meta,” Dean ticked off points on his fingers while Chloe nodded.
Sam rolled his eyes. “No wonder we could discuss killer trucks and you never even blinked,” he muttered.
Chloe shrugged. “You kind of get used to the weird. It's a little like the Scoobies living in Sunnydale. By the time I met the vampire sorority chicks, I didn't even blink.”
“Wait a minute -- “ Dean cut in. He raised his eyebrow and gave her a half smile. “You holding out on me? What's this about vampire sorority chicks? And was there Jell-o involved?”
“Hello Dean's downstairs brain,” Chloe snarked. “I hadn't heard from you in five minutes. I was wondering if you'd fallen asleep.”
“Cute,” Dean said with a roll of his eyes.
“Anyway - we're getting ahead of ourselves. The vampires were in October. And before then, I was possessed at Senior prom, and barely missed the Smallville Meteor Shower version two-point-oh by accidentally teleporting to Superman's ice fortress above the arctic circle, helped to narrowly avert a nuclear holocaust - oh, and we met A.C.”
“A.C.?” Dean prompted.
“Aquaman.”
“This was while you were enrolled in college, right?” Sam asked.
“And working on getting my foot in the door at The Daily Planet.” She nodded in confirmation.
“Just so we're clear on this . . . you did actually go to class once in a while, didn't you?”
She chuckled at Sam's expression. “On occasion.”
“Just checking,” Sam leaned back and pinned her with an inquisitive stare. “So how did you end up as a prom queen? You don't strike me as the type to buy into the whole social hierarchy.”
“I ran an editorial speaking out against institutionalized social hierarchies like the prom queen elections. So naturally - Clark threw my name in the hat. Crown. Whatever.”
“Where did the ghost come in?” Dean asked.
“Dawn was my opposition. Until she died in a car wreck. You guys know the whole disgruntled ghost drill. She died with unfinished business - in the form of a cheap rhinestone tiara, and came back pissed. Then she jumped from body to body like a two-dollar hooker. Which is pretty much what she would have done on prom night if she'd lived.”
“Catty much?” Sam grinned at her.
“She possessed me and nearly made me burn down the school. Plus, she made me sound like a total bitch during my acceptance speech. I've earned the right to be catty.”
“So your prom pretty much sucked, didn't it?” Dean commiserated.
“I'll put it this way: the prom queen sat alone in the corner while Clark and Lana danced all night. Although it did kind of end Lana's psycho, mommy-dearest relationship with Jason. Which, considering he was crazy, was kind of a good thing.”
“You know,” Dean . “I really don't know whether to hit your cousin Clark, or thank him.”
Chloe gave him a confused look.
“He's obviously an idiot for overlooking you all those years,” Dean said. “So - my gain there. But he really did a number on your self esteem - didn't he?”
Chloe looked out across the diner and shrugged.
“Hey,” Dean caught her by the chin and gently turned her face toward him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sam turn his attention to his food in an attempt to give them a private moment. “I get that you're trying to fix me with this no-touchy thing you have going on in our relationship. But did you ever stop to think that maybe - if I'm still with you despite that - maybe I think that you're someone special? And maybe you're worth all that hassle?”
She gave him a tiny half-smile.
“Because I'm still here, Chloe. And I'm not going anywhere. You want to get rid of me? You're going to have to out-stubborn me. And that ain't happening.”
“For what it's worth,” Chloe said quietly. “I was already kind of cracked when I met Clark. I was just really good at letting him get in there and force those cracks open.”
“So why are you still friends with him?” Sam rejoined the conversation with an inquisitive expression. “I get that you two were part of some kind of mutual life-saving society. But seriously, Chloe. You don't owe him anything.”
“Because he's still a good guy, despite being a big dumb a ---ss. He didn't ask for me to fall for him. And he didn't lead me on, either. He's always been up front with his obsessions - and the fact that I wasn't on that list. Most of it was my fault.” Chloe pinned him with a patient look. “I learned how to fix myself. And then I learned to stop letting him break me. After that - we could be friends.”
“Still,” Sam looked like he wanted to argue the point.
“Let it go, guys. Please.” Chloe gave them both a pleading look. “I appreciate that you're getting mad on my behalf, but it's not worth it. Especially over things I forgave and forgot years ago.”
“Maybe part of the problem is that you've never had anyone to be indignant on your behalf,” Sam said.
“Thanks, Sam.” Chloe gave him her Mona Lisa smile. “But Clark is family. He married my cousin. So - getting mad at him at this point just creates a lot of tension around the table over the holidays. And who needs that?”
Dean and Sam looked at each other, frowned, and looked down.
“We should hit the road again,” Dean said with a sigh.
“You need me to get the bill?” Sam asked as he reached for his wallet.
“Nah,” Dean as he slid out of the booth and patted his shirt pocket. “Our old buddy Ferris Bueller has it covered.”
Summary: The Impala breaks down in the remote Appalacians, where folks keep to themselves and resent outside intrusion. Sam, Dean and Chloe discover how hard this makes hunting.
Author: pen37
Beta: Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: Pg (It's Supernatural, guys. Draw an X on the map and mark it Terror Incognita: here be monsters).
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Written for the Crossovers100 challenge. Prompt #50 Spade. The table is here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
As the meteor rocks fell from the sky, they sizzled with the heat of entry into Earth's atmosphere. Other than the sizzle, they approached in near silence. But there could be no doubt that they caused the sonic boom that followed closely behind. One struck the hood of the car and caused it to flip. She was thrown forward into the restraints of her car-seat with the impact, and then upward as the car flipped onto its roof. More startled than hurt, she let out a wail of terror as green dust filled the cab of the vehicle.
Chloe jerked awake with a startled oath. She looked around, and realized with relief that she was in the back of the Impala. She was a long way from the Smallville meteor shower, and she was safe.
In the front seat, she could see Dean glance at her through his rear-view mirror - which was permanently trained on her, not on the traffic behind them. Next to him, Sam glanced over his shoulder, a look of faint concern on his face. She waved off their concerned looks and reached for her great-grampy's annotated Yeats.
In the front seat, Sam and Dean went back to their conversation.
“You're kidding, right?” Dean asked. “Dude, the Impala could whip Bumblebee's Ass.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. They were talking 80's cartoons now.
“You are aware that the Impala can't transform into a giant robot, aren't you?” Sam asked.
“Don't listen to him, baby,” Dean said as he ran his hand lovingly over the dashboard.
“You listening to this, Chloe?” Sam grinned back at her.
“No comment,” Chloe said absently. She understood that the nightmares were part of the whole post-traumatic stress syndrome. And on some level, she asked for them by opening up the memory blocks that held back those particular memories. But they were still hard to get through.
“Come on, Chloe. He's anthropomorphizing the car. Doesn't that freak you out?”
Chloe shrugged. “Nope. Some things a woman just has to accept. Besides, if the Impala can deal with the fact that I'm the other woman, then I don't mind sharing.”
Sam frowned. “You guys are freaks. In an epic sense. Like freaky religions with multiple-wives freaks.”
“Then you fit right in, Miss Cleo,” Dean smirked at him.
“Don't lump me in with your harem, dude. I'm not touching that one with a twelve-foot pole.” Sam made a face. Then he looked back at Chloe. “So what are you reading? William Butler Yeats?”
“Nice segue,” she grinned at him. “It belonged to my great-grampy Sullivan. We found it a couple weeks back in my apartment, along with a ring.”
She held her hand out so that Sam could see the silver ring that now encircled her thumb. “Based on the notes in the margins, Dean thinks that my great-grampy might have been a hunter.”
She watched Sam run his fingers along the knotwork carvings. “This is protective, isn't it?”
“That's the theory,” Chloe nodded in agreement.
“Have you heard back from Zatanna yet?” Dean asked.
“No, but . . .” Chloe shrugged. “I'll give her a call in a day or two. We'll see if she's heard of anything.”
“You think your great-grandfather could have been a hunter, Chloe?” Sam asked.
“Who knows?” Chloe's lip twisted, and she raised her eyebrows. “From what I can tell by these books, folks in the auld country have kept closer to their traditions than we have here in the states. A lot of the things that hunters take care of here - folks getting led off into the woods by a will-o-wisp, fairee kidnappings, even that kelpie we put down - folks there treat it like one of those things that you just live with.”
“You're kidding, right?” Dean glanced back at her with an incredulous expression.
“Nope,” Chloe said. “They way they look a it - if you respect the boundaries that the supernatural creatures have set out - then you'll be fine. But if you ignore them - on your own head it be.”
“Huh,” Dean said. “Too bad demons don't respect boundaries.”
“Or shape shifters,” Sam put in. “Don't forget those.”
“Or --”
“Okay, guys. I get it. I didn't say that it was a good policy. I was just making an observation.”
Sam and Dean shot each other twin grins.
“Anyway, how about we stop for lunch?” Dean asked.
Chloe looked out the window at the rolling Appalachian Mountains. Fall had snuck up on them like a cat on silent paws, sprawled across the landscape as if wanted to nap in the sunlight, and wrapped itself in mottled calico browns and golds.
As they passed picture-postcard communities, smoke from fireside hearths, yards of raked leaves and a thousand homecoming bonfires climbed to touch the sun before settling, as if exhausted, to recline in the hollows between the mountains.
The interstate wound like a ribbon of grey, over streams, and past sleepy little towns before shooting through hollowed-out mountain tunnels as if it had been threaded.
“You got some place in mind?” she asked wryly.
Dean shrugged. “One town is as good as the next. They make awesome pumpkin pie up here.”
“You and your pie,” Sam rolled his eyes.
“There's one: Matoaka. Sounds homey.”
“Homey?”
“Or, you know. Friendly-like,” Dean said. “Sounds nice.”
“So did that place in Illinois where they were sacrificing folks to a scarecrow god.”
Dean just shrugged as he pulled the Impala into the next exit. Chloe noticed that Dean liked to bypass those cookie-cutter chain restaurants in favor of mom and pop eateries with that quality that the travel editor at the Daily Planet liked to call local color.
Which usually meant home-grown grease, as opposed to homogenized, shipped-from-a-factory-in-California grease like she would get at MacDonalds.
As she was climbing out of the Impala, the sound of a distant bell reached her ears. Chloe turned toward the sound, and in the distance, she could see an old-fashioned, white church with a steeple. She glanced at her watch, and noted that the time was 12:15.
She made a mental note of it as she followed the boys into the diner.
The place was homey, with vinyl red-checkered table-cloths and plastic sunflowers on every table. The walls were white and trimmed in rough cedar. Pictures of children were framed in the same style and hung on the walls.
Chloe stopped the waitress as she dropped off their menus.
“Excuse me, why is the church bell ringing?”
The waitress gave her a flat, unfriendly look. “Don't you pay that no nevermind, hon.” She waved Chloe's question away. “We do that 'round here when someone dies.”
Chloe shot a questioning look at Sam. The younger Winchester brother raised his eyebrows in response.
Chloe shrugged her shoulders, and slid into the booth next to Dean. “Thanks.” She said, her own voice dripping in confusion.
“Something wrong, Chloe?” Dean asked as he put his arm around her and pulled her close.
“That was definitely one of the most unfriendly answers that I've ever gotten. And trust me - I've got a history of unfriendly answers.”
“Don't worry about it,” Dean said. “A lot of these small towns don't cotton to outsiders.”
“I get that - but it was a casual question, and she was completely hostile.”
“Which is pretty normal, all things considered,” Dean said. “I've lost track of the number of times I've been escorted out of city limits, and then had to sneak back in to finish a job.”
They placed their orders, and then Dean pinned her with a look that told her that they were going to finish working their way through the telling of her senior year. Chloe sighed. Over the past couple of days, Dean had been slowly pulling the story of her high school years out of her.
In retrospect, there were a few embarrassing points in those awkward years that she would have rather not shared - like the level of hero worship she'd carried for Clark, and some of the bad relationships that she'd gotten into out of spite, or some misguided attempt to make herself un-love him.
And Dean's borderline-obsessive jealousy didn't help. She knew going into the relationship that he had a possessive streak. But as far as she was concerned, getting jealous of old crushes whom she'd moved on from was talking things way too far. She noticed that Dean hadn't been all that bothered by taking her to Memphis to meet Jo. Some small part of her was disturbed by that, as well. In respect to old flames, did he think so little of them both?
“So we worked our way through the meteor rock love-Gatorade, the slutty French witches, and you finding out that Clark was meta,” Dean ticked off points on his fingers while Chloe nodded.
Sam rolled his eyes. “No wonder we could discuss killer trucks and you never even blinked,” he muttered.
Chloe shrugged. “You kind of get used to the weird. It's a little like the Scoobies living in Sunnydale. By the time I met the vampire sorority chicks, I didn't even blink.”
“Wait a minute -- “ Dean cut in. He raised his eyebrow and gave her a half smile. “You holding out on me? What's this about vampire sorority chicks? And was there Jell-o involved?”
“Hello Dean's downstairs brain,” Chloe snarked. “I hadn't heard from you in five minutes. I was wondering if you'd fallen asleep.”
“Cute,” Dean said with a roll of his eyes.
“Anyway - we're getting ahead of ourselves. The vampires were in October. And before then, I was possessed at Senior prom, and barely missed the Smallville Meteor Shower version two-point-oh by accidentally teleporting to Superman's ice fortress above the arctic circle, helped to narrowly avert a nuclear holocaust - oh, and we met A.C.”
“A.C.?” Dean prompted.
“Aquaman.”
“This was while you were enrolled in college, right?” Sam asked.
“And working on getting my foot in the door at The Daily Planet.” She nodded in confirmation.
“Just so we're clear on this . . . you did actually go to class once in a while, didn't you?”
She chuckled at Sam's expression. “On occasion.”
“Just checking,” Sam leaned back and pinned her with an inquisitive stare. “So how did you end up as a prom queen? You don't strike me as the type to buy into the whole social hierarchy.”
“I ran an editorial speaking out against institutionalized social hierarchies like the prom queen elections. So naturally - Clark threw my name in the hat. Crown. Whatever.”
“Where did the ghost come in?” Dean asked.
“Dawn was my opposition. Until she died in a car wreck. You guys know the whole disgruntled ghost drill. She died with unfinished business - in the form of a cheap rhinestone tiara, and came back pissed. Then she jumped from body to body like a two-dollar hooker. Which is pretty much what she would have done on prom night if she'd lived.”
“Catty much?” Sam grinned at her.
“She possessed me and nearly made me burn down the school. Plus, she made me sound like a total bitch during my acceptance speech. I've earned the right to be catty.”
“So your prom pretty much sucked, didn't it?” Dean commiserated.
“I'll put it this way: the prom queen sat alone in the corner while Clark and Lana danced all night. Although it did kind of end Lana's psycho, mommy-dearest relationship with Jason. Which, considering he was crazy, was kind of a good thing.”
“You know,” Dean . “I really don't know whether to hit your cousin Clark, or thank him.”
Chloe gave him a confused look.
“He's obviously an idiot for overlooking you all those years,” Dean said. “So - my gain there. But he really did a number on your self esteem - didn't he?”
Chloe looked out across the diner and shrugged.
“Hey,” Dean caught her by the chin and gently turned her face toward him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sam turn his attention to his food in an attempt to give them a private moment. “I get that you're trying to fix me with this no-touchy thing you have going on in our relationship. But did you ever stop to think that maybe - if I'm still with you despite that - maybe I think that you're someone special? And maybe you're worth all that hassle?”
She gave him a tiny half-smile.
“Because I'm still here, Chloe. And I'm not going anywhere. You want to get rid of me? You're going to have to out-stubborn me. And that ain't happening.”
“For what it's worth,” Chloe said quietly. “I was already kind of cracked when I met Clark. I was just really good at letting him get in there and force those cracks open.”
“So why are you still friends with him?” Sam rejoined the conversation with an inquisitive expression. “I get that you two were part of some kind of mutual life-saving society. But seriously, Chloe. You don't owe him anything.”
“Because he's still a good guy, despite being a big dumb a ---ss. He didn't ask for me to fall for him. And he didn't lead me on, either. He's always been up front with his obsessions - and the fact that I wasn't on that list. Most of it was my fault.” Chloe pinned him with a patient look. “I learned how to fix myself. And then I learned to stop letting him break me. After that - we could be friends.”
“Still,” Sam looked like he wanted to argue the point.
“Let it go, guys. Please.” Chloe gave them both a pleading look. “I appreciate that you're getting mad on my behalf, but it's not worth it. Especially over things I forgave and forgot years ago.”
“Maybe part of the problem is that you've never had anyone to be indignant on your behalf,” Sam said.
“Thanks, Sam.” Chloe gave him her Mona Lisa smile. “But Clark is family. He married my cousin. So - getting mad at him at this point just creates a lot of tension around the table over the holidays. And who needs that?”
Dean and Sam looked at each other, frowned, and looked down.
“We should hit the road again,” Dean said with a sigh.
“You need me to get the bill?” Sam asked as he reached for his wallet.
“Nah,” Dean as he slid out of the booth and patted his shirt pocket. “Our old buddy Ferris Bueller has it covered.”