Heaven for Beginners, for jennytork
Title: Heaven for Beginners
Recipient:jennytork
Word count: 3000
Rating: PG just to be safe
Warnings: Brief mention of Hell
Author's Notes: A big thanks to reapertownusa for the encouragement and the speedy beta! This is my first SPN fic, so constructive criticism is welcome!
Summary: For the prompt: Slice of life fic with the brothers -- in between hunts, what is their life like? Before the Bunker, while living in the Bunker, either one.
Sam stood in front of the surface entrance and waited for his brother. Most of his body felt like a tenderized steak (which was hilarious in context), but none of his bones were broken and he was still on his feet.
The summer night air was cool against his skin and the steady thrum of the power plant was soothing.
He'd once read a pamphlet that recommended mental vacations as a method of alleviating stress. Pretending to be somewhere else had never ended well for him, but he could see the appeal.
All he'd have to do was close his eyes and pretend that the sounds from the power plant were the sounds of the ocean and that the duffel at his feet was filled with towels and sunscreen. As it was, he let himself enjoy the fresh air and the calm for as long as he had until his brother came back.
It was a few minutes until Dean returned. He picked up Sam's duffel easily and Sam handed him the master key.
“How’d it go?”
Dean nodded and opened the door effortlessly. “Parked it a mile up the road. Someone will call it in.”
“Good.” Sam followed his brother down the spiral stair case. The door shut behind them with a loud noise. “I don't like lifting cars.”
“Yeah, well I don't like risking Baby with murderous Mama Moo on the loose.”
Sam’s hand automatically went to his shoulder. Even cushioned by two layers of fabric, the touch still hurt.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I got tackled by a nine hundred pound cow. I'll live.”
“Yeah, I see another ice bag and a steady supply of Oxy in your future. Why don't you take your shirt off and let me have another look?”
Sam shook his head. “Thanks, but I just really need to get some sleep.”
A hurt look flashed over Dean's eyes, but then he shrugged and held out Sam's duffel bag. “Want me to carry this to your room, sweetheart?”
Sam rolled his eyes and took the bag with his good hand. “Goodnight, Dean. Don't stay up.”
When he reached the room he had claimed as his, he didn't bother with undressing. He kicked off his boots, turned the lights off and lay down on his good side as carefully as he could.
He slept heavily and without dreams. When Cas had lifted the Hell trauma from him even his nightmares about Hell had stopped. He still remembered his time in the Cage, he wasn't that lucky, but his brain seemed to be done processing those memories.
He woke up after exactly seven hours, as usual. He showered quickly and dressed in a loose fitting shirt and slacks.
The nearest diner was half a mile away and opened at five to cater to the early shift workers.
It usually took him six or seven minutes to get there on foot, but today he took his time.
The waitress smiled tiredly in recognition. “Good morning. Breakfast to go, as usual?”
He wondered what she thought of him. He wasn't dressed as a factory worker, and he obviously wasn't a nurse or doctor. He'd show up on average once a week, buy a seriously schizophrenic breakfast to go and then leave on foot. Maybe she thought he was some kind of management consultant, someone who flew in a couple of times a month to control output and report back to the main office. Someone who got other people fired.
He managed his warmest smile and ordered whole wheat pancakes with apple sauce and sausage with bacon on the side.
Fifteen minutes later he was standing in the library of the bunker.
Dean appeared around the corner wearing his bath robe and holding a mug. “Milk's gone bad.”
Sam set his bags down and scooted one over to his brother. “I hope you made coffee for me too.”
Dean nodded in the direction of the kitchen. “And get me some utensils. I keep cutting myself on those plastic ones. Aw, Sam, you're awesome.” He had found the milk package in his bag and ripped it open over his coffee mug.
“Yeah, I'm awesome alright.” Today Sam didn't feel very awesome. He felt like a guy who had almost ended up as dinner because it hadn't occurred to him that the carnivorous spirit would be possessing the livestock. He felt like a hunter who hadn't done his job.
A minute later he returned with a steaming mug of coffee (unlike his brother he preferred his black) and a disturbingly shiny knife and fork.
“Did you polish these?”
“It's real silverware. Of course I polished it!” Dean snatched the utensils from Sam's hand and started cutting up his breakfast. “Henry's gang didn't exactly spare any expense when they furnished this place. I'm just protecting their legacy as a modern day Man of Letters.”
“Yeah well, if they had focused more on hunting with silver than eating with silver, maybe they would still be around.”
Sam dug into his own breakfast with the plastic utensils from his bag. The pancakes were still warm and the applesauce had real chunks of apple in it.
“Listen, Sammy, about last night....”
“Don't. I messed up. I should have seen it coming and I didn't. That's all there is to it.” He took a big sip of coffee. “I'll make sure it doesn't happen again.”
Dean didn’t look very impressed. “So what? You’re gonna stay holed up in here until you’ve read about every wacked out thing that has even a tiny possibility of happening to us?”
“If that's what it takes, yes.” Dean was right and Sam was usually on the other side of this argument, but right now he was too angry with himself to admit it. The best way to clear his head would be to find another job, and do that one right.
Dean shrugged. “Well, if it will keep you home this weekend, I’m all for it.”
“What about a job? Shouldn’t we…”
“Already checked the police scanner and the AP wire for the closest three states. There’s nothing.”
“What about -”
“Sam, we’re staying home and that’s that.” Dean shoved a forkful of bacon into his mouth.
“You can’t make that kind of decision for me.”
“No, but I can make it for me, and for my car. If you want to try to get a ride and go off on a hunt on your own, I can’t stop you.”
Sam let out a deep breath and finished the rest of his pancakes in silence. A satisfied grin appeared on Dean’s face.
“Okay, if you’re finished with your little guilt trip we gotta go on a supply run. Meet me in the garage in twenty minutes.”
So Dean wasn’t working a case, but he needed something they didn’t have in storage. That was weird. “Are you sure? I did the inventory two days ago.”
“Not those kinds of supplies, little brother.”
Sam wanted to pinch himself. This had got to be one of the weirdest dreams he had ever had and it involved his brother leaning down over the fresh meat counter.
“Strip steak or T-bone?” When Sam didn’t answer, Dean shrugged and put both packages in the shopping cart next to the toilet paper.
“We should have asked for some of Daisy. I bet they would’ve agreed; you saw how grateful they were.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Hey, meat is meat. Don’t look so down, Sam. Roland Orwell Bush is treating you to a nice dinner.”
Sam shook his head. “Sorry, I just… You look like you know your way around here.”
Dean started pushing the cart towards the dairy section. “Yeah? Where do you think I get our groceries, Sam?”
“Do we usually have groceries?”
“Yeah, milk, bread, coffee. You don’t think that comes from magical cabinets, do you?”
“No, I just figured you bought that at gas stations.”
Dean had stopped in front of a shelf stacked with egg cartons. “Yeah, well, I don’t. Do you want anything special tonight? Fruit salad or an algae shake?”
“No, I’m good. You don’t have to do anything special for me.”
“Alright.” Dean put down the eggs he’d been holding next to the steaks. “Let’s hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“Your stirring speech about how you don’t have a home and you don’t need one. I know it’s in there.”
Sam sighed heavily. “Look, Dean, if you want to play house, I’ll play. Just don’t expect it to mean the same to me as it does to you.”
Dean shrugged and pushed the cart onwards. “Oh, don’t worry. I stopped expecting that a long time ago.”
Half an hour later Sam grabbed a beer and headed for the library. He almost walked into Dean, who had stripped down to a T-shirt and was carrying a bucket of paint.
“Hey. The food’s in the fridge. Are one of the wards broken?”
Dean didn’t answer immediately. “I’m painting my room,” he said after a few seconds.
“You’re…. Oh! You mean you’re painting the walls. Right now?”
“Well, it’s like you said. I’m playing house. And right now I’m in a real playful mood.”
“Okay.” Sam knew his brother well enough to know that he wasn’t being challenged. “I’ll be in the library.”
Dean grinned and slapped him on the good shoulder. “Great! So when I don’t need help, I’ll know where to find you.”
Sam’s beer was drunk by the time he finished going through the card index. Three hours later he had a pile of books in front of him. Non-demonic possession was a much less exhausted topic than demonic possession, so he’d had to cobble his information together from the texts on individual spirits.
While there were several instances of spirits affecting inanimate objects, which he already knew from first-hand experience, none of the texts mentioned animal possession.
The next step would be to check a cross sample of the Men of Letters’ case files, and to read all the files on cases that had gone down in farming districts. The case files were organized chronologically, but the state and town were written on the front page. His knowledge of geography was pretty good, but if he ran across a name he didn’t recognize, he could look it up on the map he’d downloaded on his computer.
There was no reason to start with that tonight, though. If Dean was serious about holding him hostage for the weekend, he had two whole days to fill up with work.
He put the books and the card file back in their right place, and grabbed his empty bottle.
There was music coming from Dean’s room. Sam knocked twice, waited long enough for Dean to tell him not to come in, and pushed the door open. He was half-expecting to find his brother splayed out on the bed, bucket of paint forgotten in the corner. Maybe that was all this was; a display of rebelliousness. One late-in-the-game act of defiance against the destiny their father had chosen for them.
Dean was standing on a step ladder, using a small brush to paint the corner of the brick and concrete wall.
All his weapons and shelves had been taken down. The bed, desk and dresser had been pushed towards the middle of the room. The concrete walls were dark blue and Dean’s T-shirt didn’t have a speck of paint on it.
Sam whistled. “You weren’t kidding.”
“Pretty cool, huh?”
He knew that Dean had spent a year in suburbia, doing whatever it was people did in the suburbs. But to actually see him use his hands for something other than hunting or working on the car felt weird.
“It’s a good color.”
Dean nodded. “And this is only one coat. How about you? Did you finish reading your microfiche?”
Sam realized he was staring. “Uhm, yeah. There was no mention of any incident of a spirit or demon possessing an animal. The cognitive abilities of most mammals are pretty limited compared to humans, so it makes sense. As far as I know, ours was the first reported case.” He shrugged. “Or it will be once I’ve written up the report.”
Dean got down and wiped the brush with a rag. He seemed to be in a good mood.
“A report, huh? I look forward to it.”
“Really?”
“‘Cattle Calamity in Cottonwood Falls.’ Would be a shame if no one ever read it.”
Sam shifted and the cover paper creaked a little under his shoes. “Someone might read it. There’ll be other hunters here eventually.”
“You planning on starting up the Men of Letters? Do a little recruiting on the side?”
“I’m not planning anything. But I’m not going to let this place disappear off the radar again. Should anything happen to us…” he trailed off, not wanting to ruin Dean’s good mood. “It doesn’t hurt to continue their work.”
Dean stared at him for a few seconds and then he smiled, looking relaxed and carefree.
“Yeah, well. They can’t have my room.”
After a beer, Dean insisted on checking Sam’s shoulder again.
The area where the cow had run into him was swollen and already dark. He was going to have a vicious looking bruise for the next couple of days.
“You did take your pills, right?”
“I don’t need pills. The pain’s already a lot better, ah!”
Sam winced as a sharp pain flared up in his shoulder. When he seemed satisfied to have made his point, Dean removed his thumb. “Oh, I see you’re doing just fine.”
Sam’s eyes had watered, and when Dean turned his back, he wiped them quickly. “It’s really not that bad. You know I’ve had worse.”
“When someone’s been to Hell that really doesn’t say much. Here.” Dean shook out two pills in Sam’s hand and waited until he swallowed them. “Atta boy. You wanna tell me why you’re Marquis-de-Sading yourself?”
Sam carefully pulled the shirt back on. “I’m not.”
Dean looked unconvinced. “I’d have an easier time believing that if it didn’t come from the guy who was happy he could remember being roasted on a spit.”
Sam bit down the urge to explain that killing people in cold blood was something you were supposed to feel guilty about. “I don’t like the side effects. If something goes down, I won’t be much use if my reflexes are shot to hell.”
“So that’s what this is about. You’re still jonesing for the road. Well, that’s not going to happen.”
Dean screwed the lid back on the jar and put it in his pocket. “I’ll make sure you take these.”
Sam shrugged. “Okay.” He had to admit that a night without pain sounded pretty nice.
“So, how do you want your steak?”
Sam was ordered to make the salad. He found a cutting board in one of the drawers and put the chopped green leaves, scallions and bell peppers directly on the plates. Dean fried two nice cuts of beef and roasted potatoes in the oven, sipping his beer and making small talk the entire time. He talked to Sam about old hunts, his new gun, about how MasterChef Australia was the best program in the franchise. It was nice to be talked to like that, not having to bring any expertise to the table.
“So the Greek dude wears a cravat?”
Dean loosened the top of the pepper grinder and turned it a few times over the beef. “No, that’s Matt Preston, one of the best food critics in the world. George, who was Chef of the Year 2008, is the guy who gets excited and yells a lot.”
They ate at the small table in the kitchen, with the Men of Letters’ silver forks and their pocket knives. The food tasted great, as it always did when Dean had made it and Sam said as much.
Dean shrugged like he was shaking the compliment off. “Do you want to see something cool?”
Looking through the telescope was both totally different and very similar to looking at the sky with the naked eye. The constellations looked the same, only bigger, but other stars were clearer. There were the Big and Little Dippers with Draco between them. Below them Sam found the Northern Cross, and down in Sagittarius the thickness of the Milky Way appeared bright silver-white.
“It’s pretty good for being so old,” he admitted when he pulled away.
“Remember when we would drive out to some field so we could watch the stars away from the light pollution? The telescope kind of does that. It takes the location out of the equation and just serves up the sky.”
Sam nodded. “Listen, about what I said earlier…”
Dean’s wince was almost a grimace. “Come on, man, we’re having a nice moment here.”
“No, listen. About what I said, that this place, that it doesn’t mean the same to me as it does to you…”
“Yeah, you’ve got your whole wherever you may roam thing going on.”
“I think I said it wrong. Dean, if you really feel that this,” Sam indicated the war room spreading out ahead of them, “is your home that means a lot to me.”
Dean sighed. “Don’t patronize me.”
“You don’t get it. It means a lot to me personally. Look, even when I had a house with Amelia, it wasn’t home. It was a slightly cheaper place to live. But you’re my only family, and if this is your home, than maybe that’s as close to a home as I’ll ever get. And that’s okay.”
“How can that even be remotely okay?”
Sam didn’t really have an answer. “It just is. Look, I want you to keep doing this. Paint more of the walls, buy more furniture. Keep cooking me those delicious dinners. But Dean, that’s got to be enough for you. You can’t keep waiting for something I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to give.”
Dean regarded him carefully for a few seconds. “You’ll come around.” He sounded like he thought he could make it happen if he said it with enough certainty.
“Maybe,” Sam admitted. “And maybe not. But in the meantime, I’ll enjoy staying at my brother’s house.”
Recipient:jennytork
Word count: 3000
Rating: PG just to be safe
Warnings: Brief mention of Hell
Author's Notes: A big thanks to reapertownusa for the encouragement and the speedy beta! This is my first SPN fic, so constructive criticism is welcome!
Summary: For the prompt: Slice of life fic with the brothers -- in between hunts, what is their life like? Before the Bunker, while living in the Bunker, either one.
Sam stood in front of the surface entrance and waited for his brother. Most of his body felt like a tenderized steak (which was hilarious in context), but none of his bones were broken and he was still on his feet.
The summer night air was cool against his skin and the steady thrum of the power plant was soothing.
He'd once read a pamphlet that recommended mental vacations as a method of alleviating stress. Pretending to be somewhere else had never ended well for him, but he could see the appeal.
All he'd have to do was close his eyes and pretend that the sounds from the power plant were the sounds of the ocean and that the duffel at his feet was filled with towels and sunscreen. As it was, he let himself enjoy the fresh air and the calm for as long as he had until his brother came back.
It was a few minutes until Dean returned. He picked up Sam's duffel easily and Sam handed him the master key.
“How’d it go?”
Dean nodded and opened the door effortlessly. “Parked it a mile up the road. Someone will call it in.”
“Good.” Sam followed his brother down the spiral stair case. The door shut behind them with a loud noise. “I don't like lifting cars.”
“Yeah, well I don't like risking Baby with murderous Mama Moo on the loose.”
Sam’s hand automatically went to his shoulder. Even cushioned by two layers of fabric, the touch still hurt.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I got tackled by a nine hundred pound cow. I'll live.”
“Yeah, I see another ice bag and a steady supply of Oxy in your future. Why don't you take your shirt off and let me have another look?”
Sam shook his head. “Thanks, but I just really need to get some sleep.”
A hurt look flashed over Dean's eyes, but then he shrugged and held out Sam's duffel bag. “Want me to carry this to your room, sweetheart?”
Sam rolled his eyes and took the bag with his good hand. “Goodnight, Dean. Don't stay up.”
When he reached the room he had claimed as his, he didn't bother with undressing. He kicked off his boots, turned the lights off and lay down on his good side as carefully as he could.
He slept heavily and without dreams. When Cas had lifted the Hell trauma from him even his nightmares about Hell had stopped. He still remembered his time in the Cage, he wasn't that lucky, but his brain seemed to be done processing those memories.
He woke up after exactly seven hours, as usual. He showered quickly and dressed in a loose fitting shirt and slacks.
The nearest diner was half a mile away and opened at five to cater to the early shift workers.
It usually took him six or seven minutes to get there on foot, but today he took his time.
The waitress smiled tiredly in recognition. “Good morning. Breakfast to go, as usual?”
He wondered what she thought of him. He wasn't dressed as a factory worker, and he obviously wasn't a nurse or doctor. He'd show up on average once a week, buy a seriously schizophrenic breakfast to go and then leave on foot. Maybe she thought he was some kind of management consultant, someone who flew in a couple of times a month to control output and report back to the main office. Someone who got other people fired.
He managed his warmest smile and ordered whole wheat pancakes with apple sauce and sausage with bacon on the side.
Fifteen minutes later he was standing in the library of the bunker.
Dean appeared around the corner wearing his bath robe and holding a mug. “Milk's gone bad.”
Sam set his bags down and scooted one over to his brother. “I hope you made coffee for me too.”
Dean nodded in the direction of the kitchen. “And get me some utensils. I keep cutting myself on those plastic ones. Aw, Sam, you're awesome.” He had found the milk package in his bag and ripped it open over his coffee mug.
“Yeah, I'm awesome alright.” Today Sam didn't feel very awesome. He felt like a guy who had almost ended up as dinner because it hadn't occurred to him that the carnivorous spirit would be possessing the livestock. He felt like a hunter who hadn't done his job.
A minute later he returned with a steaming mug of coffee (unlike his brother he preferred his black) and a disturbingly shiny knife and fork.
“Did you polish these?”
“It's real silverware. Of course I polished it!” Dean snatched the utensils from Sam's hand and started cutting up his breakfast. “Henry's gang didn't exactly spare any expense when they furnished this place. I'm just protecting their legacy as a modern day Man of Letters.”
“Yeah well, if they had focused more on hunting with silver than eating with silver, maybe they would still be around.”
Sam dug into his own breakfast with the plastic utensils from his bag. The pancakes were still warm and the applesauce had real chunks of apple in it.
“Listen, Sammy, about last night....”
“Don't. I messed up. I should have seen it coming and I didn't. That's all there is to it.” He took a big sip of coffee. “I'll make sure it doesn't happen again.”
Dean didn’t look very impressed. “So what? You’re gonna stay holed up in here until you’ve read about every wacked out thing that has even a tiny possibility of happening to us?”
“If that's what it takes, yes.” Dean was right and Sam was usually on the other side of this argument, but right now he was too angry with himself to admit it. The best way to clear his head would be to find another job, and do that one right.
Dean shrugged. “Well, if it will keep you home this weekend, I’m all for it.”
“What about a job? Shouldn’t we…”
“Already checked the police scanner and the AP wire for the closest three states. There’s nothing.”
“What about -”
“Sam, we’re staying home and that’s that.” Dean shoved a forkful of bacon into his mouth.
“You can’t make that kind of decision for me.”
“No, but I can make it for me, and for my car. If you want to try to get a ride and go off on a hunt on your own, I can’t stop you.”
Sam let out a deep breath and finished the rest of his pancakes in silence. A satisfied grin appeared on Dean’s face.
“Okay, if you’re finished with your little guilt trip we gotta go on a supply run. Meet me in the garage in twenty minutes.”
So Dean wasn’t working a case, but he needed something they didn’t have in storage. That was weird. “Are you sure? I did the inventory two days ago.”
“Not those kinds of supplies, little brother.”
Sam wanted to pinch himself. This had got to be one of the weirdest dreams he had ever had and it involved his brother leaning down over the fresh meat counter.
“Strip steak or T-bone?” When Sam didn’t answer, Dean shrugged and put both packages in the shopping cart next to the toilet paper.
“We should have asked for some of Daisy. I bet they would’ve agreed; you saw how grateful they were.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Hey, meat is meat. Don’t look so down, Sam. Roland Orwell Bush is treating you to a nice dinner.”
Sam shook his head. “Sorry, I just… You look like you know your way around here.”
Dean started pushing the cart towards the dairy section. “Yeah? Where do you think I get our groceries, Sam?”
“Do we usually have groceries?”
“Yeah, milk, bread, coffee. You don’t think that comes from magical cabinets, do you?”
“No, I just figured you bought that at gas stations.”
Dean had stopped in front of a shelf stacked with egg cartons. “Yeah, well, I don’t. Do you want anything special tonight? Fruit salad or an algae shake?”
“No, I’m good. You don’t have to do anything special for me.”
“Alright.” Dean put down the eggs he’d been holding next to the steaks. “Let’s hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“Your stirring speech about how you don’t have a home and you don’t need one. I know it’s in there.”
Sam sighed heavily. “Look, Dean, if you want to play house, I’ll play. Just don’t expect it to mean the same to me as it does to you.”
Dean shrugged and pushed the cart onwards. “Oh, don’t worry. I stopped expecting that a long time ago.”
Half an hour later Sam grabbed a beer and headed for the library. He almost walked into Dean, who had stripped down to a T-shirt and was carrying a bucket of paint.
“Hey. The food’s in the fridge. Are one of the wards broken?”
Dean didn’t answer immediately. “I’m painting my room,” he said after a few seconds.
“You’re…. Oh! You mean you’re painting the walls. Right now?”
“Well, it’s like you said. I’m playing house. And right now I’m in a real playful mood.”
“Okay.” Sam knew his brother well enough to know that he wasn’t being challenged. “I’ll be in the library.”
Dean grinned and slapped him on the good shoulder. “Great! So when I don’t need help, I’ll know where to find you.”
Sam’s beer was drunk by the time he finished going through the card index. Three hours later he had a pile of books in front of him. Non-demonic possession was a much less exhausted topic than demonic possession, so he’d had to cobble his information together from the texts on individual spirits.
While there were several instances of spirits affecting inanimate objects, which he already knew from first-hand experience, none of the texts mentioned animal possession.
The next step would be to check a cross sample of the Men of Letters’ case files, and to read all the files on cases that had gone down in farming districts. The case files were organized chronologically, but the state and town were written on the front page. His knowledge of geography was pretty good, but if he ran across a name he didn’t recognize, he could look it up on the map he’d downloaded on his computer.
There was no reason to start with that tonight, though. If Dean was serious about holding him hostage for the weekend, he had two whole days to fill up with work.
He put the books and the card file back in their right place, and grabbed his empty bottle.
There was music coming from Dean’s room. Sam knocked twice, waited long enough for Dean to tell him not to come in, and pushed the door open. He was half-expecting to find his brother splayed out on the bed, bucket of paint forgotten in the corner. Maybe that was all this was; a display of rebelliousness. One late-in-the-game act of defiance against the destiny their father had chosen for them.
Dean was standing on a step ladder, using a small brush to paint the corner of the brick and concrete wall.
All his weapons and shelves had been taken down. The bed, desk and dresser had been pushed towards the middle of the room. The concrete walls were dark blue and Dean’s T-shirt didn’t have a speck of paint on it.
Sam whistled. “You weren’t kidding.”
“Pretty cool, huh?”
He knew that Dean had spent a year in suburbia, doing whatever it was people did in the suburbs. But to actually see him use his hands for something other than hunting or working on the car felt weird.
“It’s a good color.”
Dean nodded. “And this is only one coat. How about you? Did you finish reading your microfiche?”
Sam realized he was staring. “Uhm, yeah. There was no mention of any incident of a spirit or demon possessing an animal. The cognitive abilities of most mammals are pretty limited compared to humans, so it makes sense. As far as I know, ours was the first reported case.” He shrugged. “Or it will be once I’ve written up the report.”
Dean got down and wiped the brush with a rag. He seemed to be in a good mood.
“A report, huh? I look forward to it.”
“Really?”
“‘Cattle Calamity in Cottonwood Falls.’ Would be a shame if no one ever read it.”
Sam shifted and the cover paper creaked a little under his shoes. “Someone might read it. There’ll be other hunters here eventually.”
“You planning on starting up the Men of Letters? Do a little recruiting on the side?”
“I’m not planning anything. But I’m not going to let this place disappear off the radar again. Should anything happen to us…” he trailed off, not wanting to ruin Dean’s good mood. “It doesn’t hurt to continue their work.”
Dean stared at him for a few seconds and then he smiled, looking relaxed and carefree.
“Yeah, well. They can’t have my room.”
After a beer, Dean insisted on checking Sam’s shoulder again.
The area where the cow had run into him was swollen and already dark. He was going to have a vicious looking bruise for the next couple of days.
“You did take your pills, right?”
“I don’t need pills. The pain’s already a lot better, ah!”
Sam winced as a sharp pain flared up in his shoulder. When he seemed satisfied to have made his point, Dean removed his thumb. “Oh, I see you’re doing just fine.”
Sam’s eyes had watered, and when Dean turned his back, he wiped them quickly. “It’s really not that bad. You know I’ve had worse.”
“When someone’s been to Hell that really doesn’t say much. Here.” Dean shook out two pills in Sam’s hand and waited until he swallowed them. “Atta boy. You wanna tell me why you’re Marquis-de-Sading yourself?”
Sam carefully pulled the shirt back on. “I’m not.”
Dean looked unconvinced. “I’d have an easier time believing that if it didn’t come from the guy who was happy he could remember being roasted on a spit.”
Sam bit down the urge to explain that killing people in cold blood was something you were supposed to feel guilty about. “I don’t like the side effects. If something goes down, I won’t be much use if my reflexes are shot to hell.”
“So that’s what this is about. You’re still jonesing for the road. Well, that’s not going to happen.”
Dean screwed the lid back on the jar and put it in his pocket. “I’ll make sure you take these.”
Sam shrugged. “Okay.” He had to admit that a night without pain sounded pretty nice.
“So, how do you want your steak?”
Sam was ordered to make the salad. He found a cutting board in one of the drawers and put the chopped green leaves, scallions and bell peppers directly on the plates. Dean fried two nice cuts of beef and roasted potatoes in the oven, sipping his beer and making small talk the entire time. He talked to Sam about old hunts, his new gun, about how MasterChef Australia was the best program in the franchise. It was nice to be talked to like that, not having to bring any expertise to the table.
“So the Greek dude wears a cravat?”
Dean loosened the top of the pepper grinder and turned it a few times over the beef. “No, that’s Matt Preston, one of the best food critics in the world. George, who was Chef of the Year 2008, is the guy who gets excited and yells a lot.”
They ate at the small table in the kitchen, with the Men of Letters’ silver forks and their pocket knives. The food tasted great, as it always did when Dean had made it and Sam said as much.
Dean shrugged like he was shaking the compliment off. “Do you want to see something cool?”
Looking through the telescope was both totally different and very similar to looking at the sky with the naked eye. The constellations looked the same, only bigger, but other stars were clearer. There were the Big and Little Dippers with Draco between them. Below them Sam found the Northern Cross, and down in Sagittarius the thickness of the Milky Way appeared bright silver-white.
“It’s pretty good for being so old,” he admitted when he pulled away.
“Remember when we would drive out to some field so we could watch the stars away from the light pollution? The telescope kind of does that. It takes the location out of the equation and just serves up the sky.”
Sam nodded. “Listen, about what I said earlier…”
Dean’s wince was almost a grimace. “Come on, man, we’re having a nice moment here.”
“No, listen. About what I said, that this place, that it doesn’t mean the same to me as it does to you…”
“Yeah, you’ve got your whole wherever you may roam thing going on.”
“I think I said it wrong. Dean, if you really feel that this,” Sam indicated the war room spreading out ahead of them, “is your home that means a lot to me.”
Dean sighed. “Don’t patronize me.”
“You don’t get it. It means a lot to me personally. Look, even when I had a house with Amelia, it wasn’t home. It was a slightly cheaper place to live. But you’re my only family, and if this is your home, than maybe that’s as close to a home as I’ll ever get. And that’s okay.”
“How can that even be remotely okay?”
Sam didn’t really have an answer. “It just is. Look, I want you to keep doing this. Paint more of the walls, buy more furniture. Keep cooking me those delicious dinners. But Dean, that’s got to be enough for you. You can’t keep waiting for something I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to give.”
Dean regarded him carefully for a few seconds. “You’ll come around.” He sounded like he thought he could make it happen if he said it with enough certainty.
“Maybe,” Sam admitted. “And maybe not. But in the meantime, I’ll enjoy staying at my brother’s house.”