SPN FIC - Lost and Found
Here 'tis: the answer to "does he or doesn't he?" 7-year-old Dean faces the aftermath of a storm; and 17-year-old Dean faces a storm of a different kind.
Characters: Wee Dean and Sam, John; Teen Dean and OCs
Pairings: none
Rating: R for language and adult situations
Length: 4145 words
Spoilers: none
Kleenex rating: 1 (of the Ohhhhh, Dean variety)
They’re alone, out back of the garage, in the spot that’s shady enough to keep Dean from baking like a cake while he works but bright enough for him to see what he’s doing. Laurie’s around front in the combination office/mini-mart, working the register. And Race - his name’s Steve Harlan, but everybody calls him Race - has gone off to give somebody a tow.
Leaving Dean alone with the idiot who’s got a handful of Dean’s ass cheek.
Oh, and never let it be said that I don't appreciate a little off-the-cuff beta-ing. The story's been tweaked a bit. Thanks, guys!
Lost and Found
By Carol Davis
It’s July, and Dean is seven.
Last night was the worst storm Dean can remember in his whole life. In a way he’s glad Mom wasn’t here, because it would have scared the crap out of her -- heck, it got Dad more wound up than he's been in a long time. He got Dean and Sammy to help him drag all the pillows and blankets off the beds and put them in the tub, then made them climb in there and burrow down.
Then he took the mattresses off the beds and leaned them up against the tub. Finally, he got in the tub too and told Sammy it was a fort. Dean didn't buy the "fort" thing; he'd been through a couple of tornado drills at school and knew when you didn't have a basement to run to, you were supposed to use the tub. But it was a good enough story, if what Dad was aiming for was to keep Sammy calm and quiet.
Too bad it didn't keep Dad calm. When Dean curled up against him, he could feel Dad’s heart beating so fast he thought Dad might be having a heart attack.
They stayed in the "fort" for like five hours.
This morning everything is a mess. There are broken windows all around the motel, and Dad won’t let Sammy come outside because there’s too many pieces of glass and metal and stuff in the parking lot.
There’s a lot of broken trees, too. Some big branches and lots of little ones and a million leaves. A car down at the end of the parking lot has a smashed windshield because a big branch fell on it. Good thing it wasn’t their car, Dean thinks. He’s pretty sure fixing a windshield would cost a lot of money, and right now they don’t have a lot of money.
Most times they don’t have a lot of money.
He put their stuff into the car like Dad asked him to. Now he’s waiting for Dad to finish trying to get Sam to go to the bathroom. Sam always does this, and it’s a huge pain: before they leave the motel, he’ll say he doesn’t have to go. But in half an hour, when they’re way down the road and not near anything with a bathroom, he’ll say he has to go right now.
Sam has to do pretty much everything right now. Dad’s been trying to teach him to be patient about stuff, but he doesn’t understand that waiting for something good can be fun. It’s their own fault, Dean thinks - his and Dad’s. They always give in to Sammy, and it’s turning Sammy into a little snot. He doesn’t understand that when they run out of something, Dad can’t just twitch his nose like on Bewitched on TV and make some more.
Or maybe he does understand, and he doesn’t care. But he’s only three. When he gets bigger, he’ll understand how things are, like Dean does. He’ll understand that you can’t just twitch your nose and get stuff.
Something thumps inside the motel room. That’s not a good sign. When Dad starts banging the doors and drawers it means he’s running out of patience.
Some days, Dean wishes Sammy would just give up and pee.
Because really, what’s the big deal?
With a small sigh he sits down on the curb close to the car. Now that he’s close he can see scratches in the Impala’s paint job. Mostly little ones, but a few big ones that look like somebody keyed the car. They didn’t, he’s pretty sure; it has to be from all the junk that was flying around in the air last night. Broken glass and gravel and chunks of wood and pieces of what looks like roof shingles.
He’d love to ask Dad if a tornado could really pick up a house and fly it around like in The Wizard of Oz, but Dad’s not in the mood for that kind of question.
Maybe it did pick up a house, because those sure look like roof shingles.
Frowning, Dean reaches out and carefully picks up one of the pieces.
And there’s money lying underneath it.
* * * * *
It’s July, and Dean is seventeen.
He’s had this job for almost two months now, and it’s going really well. He would have been doing the same kind of thing back home in Lawrence, if Mom hadn’t died: working summers at Dad’s garage, making spending money and putting some aside for a car of his own.
Not one like the freaking thing he’s had his hands on for more than an hour, one with the working parts all jammed in together so you have to be a contortionist to get at them.
No, the car he really wants, the one he dreams about, is Dad’s Impala. Now that’s a car. Big, solid, with some serious power under the hood. When all her little quirks have been taken care of, she purrs like a kitten.
This thing, on the other hand…
They haven’t invented words colorful enough to describe this annoying piece of shit.
“What do you think?”
They say people look like their dogs. Or their wives. Maybe their cars. This guy doesn’t look like his car, but he’s sure as hell just as annoying.
“Another hour,” Dean says without lifting his head.
The guy’s right there, close by, looming, so close Dean can feel his body heat. And more heat is one thing Dean doesn’t need. It’s July, and the humidity’s gone up to about a thousand percent. The air’s laying against his skin like a damp towel. “So…” the guy says. “Four o’clock?”
Is that in an hour? Dean thinks shrilly. Then, yeah, dickweed, four o’clock. Now get off my…
Son of a bitch.
The guy’s hand is on his ass.
Dean sucks in a breath and tightens his grip on the wrench he’s holding. Not only is the guy’s - his customer, for God’s sake - hand on his ass, the guy’s feeling him up. For a moment, the surprise of that keeps Dean silent and still, although he’d give anything to swing around and clock the guy upside the head with the wrench.
They’re alone, out back of the garage, in the spot that’s shady enough to keep Dean from baking like a cake while he works but bright enough for him to see what he’s doing. Laurie’s around front in the combination office/mini-mart, working the register. And Race - his name’s Steve Harlan, but everybody calls him Race - has gone off to give somebody a tow.
Leaving Dean alone with the idiot who’s got a handful of Dean’s ass cheek.
“Uh…” Dean mutters.
The guy must think that’s some form of “God, dude, do it more,” because he moves in even closer and his hand starts sliding in toward home plate.
And that’s just enough.
Dean swings around, wrench in hand, and gapes at the guy.
Pressed khakis, dark blue polo shirt, neat haircut, white sneakers without a mark on them. The goddamn things look like they’d glow in the dark like something radioactive.
They glow about as much as the wedding ring on the guy’s left hand.
“What the fuck, man,” Dean says to him.
And the guy says back, “You’re beautiful. Do you know that?”
Yeah, Dean knows it. The life they lead doesn’t give him much time to worry about his looks - and Dad and Sam sure wouldn’t put up with it if he tried - but he gets immediate attention from women almost everywhere he goes, so he figures, yeah, he was in the right line when they passed out “good-looking.” Still, having a bunch of girls turn to watch him walk by at school and having this asshole grope him while he’s working are at two radically different points in the continuum.
But the thing is, he can’t make his mind work right now. He wants to tell the guy - and tell him right now - to get the fuck away from him if he wants to keep all those teeth in his head. But he’s working. And he likes this job. He’s good at it, he’s pulling down some decent money, and Race likes him and trusts him.
He doesn’t know Dean’s real name, but he trusts him.
And telling this guy where to shove things would probably send him running to Race: to put a spin on this, to turn things around so it’s Dean who touched him, or messed up his car, or stole something. Like the laptop computer that’s sitting on the Volvo’s front seat, for instance. Something that Sam would just die for a chance to play with.
The guy probably has a lawyer. He might be a lawyer, for all Dean knows. What’s for sure is that he can create an unholy big stink if he feels like it.
“Look -“ Dean says.
The guy glances at Dean’s crotch, then his own. He’s got wood growing under the khakis. And a big shit-eating grin growing on his face. His hand eases into his pocket. When it comes back out his fingers are curled and there’s a fifty-dollar bill tucked in his palm. He glances at it, then at Dean. The shit-eating grin fades quite a bit, turns into something he probably thinks is seductive.
Fifty bucks is a day’s pay. A whole day.
But…Jesus.
“No one’s here,” the guy says.
“You’re gonna get me fired,” Dean tells him, and it doesn’t sound nearly as convincing hanging out there in the air as it did in his head.
“Who’s going to know?”
“Come on, man.”
Race thinks Dean’s name is Mike. Michael is Dean’s middle name, and it was the first thing that popped into his head when he and Dad and Sam landed in this town and it was time to cook up a new set of fake identities. When the guy showed up a couple hours ago with sweat dribbling down from his temples and a car that wasn’t going to take him where he wanted to go without some serious attention, Race told him, “Mike’ll take care of it for you.”
Because Race trusts him. Even though he’s only seventeen.
Even though he’s only been in this town a couple months and he’s very evasive when Race asks him about his family, where he’s from, what his plans are.
Race is fifteen years older than Dean, but Race is his friend.
And Dean can see, hanging in the air, the disappointed look on Race’s face if this asshole goes to him and says Dean stole something out of his car.
Even though he deserves to have something stolen out of his car.
He deserves to lose that shiny laptop computer.
The guy’s gaze goes unfocused for a second. His hand - the one holding the fifty - twitches a little.
It’s July, three o’clock in the afternoon. In the sun, it’s over a hundred degrees; in the shade, close to ninety. Dean’s got big dark circles of sweat on his back, on his belly and under his arms, and there’s more sweat pooling at the back of his neck. If he wanted to fuck anybody right now, it’d be Laurie, but Laurie’s engaged. The most she’s ever done is touch him on the arm when she wants him to move out of the way. She looks at him, though, sometimes, like her mind is wandering to interesting places.
“Just let me do this,” Dean says, meaning the car.
“Let me see you,” the guy replied.
Naked. He means see you naked.
There’s a bathroom a few steps away. It’s locked, but Dean’s got a key to it on his keyring. Nobody’s here, nobody’s looking; Laurie’s probably reading or talking on the phone, out front in the office. She can’t see back here from where she is, and she went to the bathroom about half an hour ago, so she’s probably set for a while. The garage isn’t in a place where people pull in off the interstate needing to pee. Nobody’s gonna need this restroom for a while.
Ten minutes, Dean thinks. Maybe five, since the guy’s eyes are already pretty glassy.
Five minutes for fifty bucks.
And Sam needs shoes. Sam’s thirteen and he’s started to grow so crazy fast that he needs new stuff every few months. They’ve tried buying clothes and shoes too big so Sam can grow into them, but it makes Sam look like some shelter kid and Dean hates like holy bleeding hell to hear Sam getting laughed at over his clothes.
Dean stands there with the wrench dangling from his hand.
It’s not like he hasn’t done it before.
“Just let me fix your car,” he says, but his voice isn’t much above a whisper.
Then, like the sky has opened up and there’s reality raining down all over him, he hates his life. He hates being Mike and not Dean. Hates having a friend knowing it’ll only last a few months (if that). Hates having to hoard money because this job’s going to end too damn soon and who knows how long it’ll be before he has another one. Hates having to be the one to think about buying clothes for Sam when by rights Dad ought to have a steady job, one that brings in good money. They had money back in Lawrence - not a ton of it, but enough to live in a nice house and buy clothes without juggling payments like they were buying a goddamn yacht and not a pair of sneakers.
The blinking asshole in front of him probably has six or eight pairs of those spotless white sneakers lined up in his closet, along with a couple pairs of Italian loafers and some nice boots and whatever the hell else.
For a moment, Deans hates this son of a bitch, hates him with a blinding fury.
Wants to bury the wrench in his skull.
If he gets angry, if he speaks with anger in his voice, the guy will go to Race. Even if he fucks the guy, if he does it with the wrong attitude, the guy will go to Race. He’s not here, all fuzzy and unfocused, because he wants to do shit with whips and dog collars - or even have his arm twisted or get yelled at while his pants are down. He doesn’t want angry.
Dean hates himself because he knows that.
The guy’s plates are from another state. He doesn’t live here, he’s only passing through. He won’t drop by next week, or the week after, with more cash folded up in his palm. Or maybe he will. People like this can talk themselves into driving the whole damned night if they know they can get what they want. He might end up being like a stray dog, haunting Race’s garage looking for “Mike” until the Winchesters - the Farrells - have moved on and Race and Laurie are left behind to say, “Mike doesn’t work here any more.”
He could talk the guy out of that computer, Dean thinks.
Talk him out of it with promises of tomorrow, next week, next month.
He could take the computer and go home and give Dad a reason for them to hit the road now, tonight.
The guy would never find him. Never.
But Dad would spot that computer and there’d be hell to pay.
He knows what goes through Dad’s head: that Dad hates all the deception. That Dad isn’t a thief and doesn’t want him to be one either. Their lives are what they are, and they can’t get by without working the system a little - setting up fake credit cards, doing a little shoplifting, hustling at cards and pool - but it’s for food, for clothes, for shelter. There’s no way Dean can show up with a computer and have Dad accept it. Dad understands assholes, and he’s played a more than a few of them himself in a way that’s not strictly legal. But he’s got no idea, no clue on this earth - and he never will, if Dean can help it - that a handful of times, when he’s been off somewhere and left them short of what they need, his son traded services for goods.
And will do it again, when he needs to.
He turns away and stares at the engine of the guy’s piece of shit Volvo. The day’d been going all right, in spite of the heat; another couple hours and he could head for home - what passes for home - kick back and relax.
“I’m trying to fix your car,” he mutters.
The guy makes a small sound, an exhale, that makes Dean want to hurl all over the Volvo’s engine.
Go away, he thinks. Just go the fuck away.
“Does your wife know you do this?” he wants to ask - but he knows the answer.
The guy touches him again, fingering the lip of Dean’s back pocket. He’s pushing the fifty down in.
Fifty bucks.
Fifty.
For five minutes.
He wants to go around the side of the garage, where the trees and brush come up close to the building, and sit with his back against the wall, curled into a ball with his knees up against his chest, arms wrapped around his legs, head down. Just sit there until his whole life goes away. The wall is cool because the sun doesn’t hit it, and there’s usually a breeze right there if the air is moving at all. He sat there one day at lunchtime, resting his eyes for a few minutes, and when he opened them a squirrel was looking at him.
That’s what he wants to be right now: a squirrel. Hopefully one with enough brains not to run out into traffic.
Why did they come here, he wonders. Why did Dad pick this town?
Why can’t they…
He can feel the guy’s gaze moving up and down his body like fingers.
His hand is so tight around the wrench that it aches.
If it would just be this one time…just this once… But it won’t. The guy won’t go away. For all Dean knows, he’ll start sending people here. And wouldn’t that take the goddamn cake.
“Go away,” he says softly.
The guy doesn’t budge. There’s heat coming off of him like he’s a stove.
“I’m not what you think.”
But I am. And you know it. You son of a bitch.
“Please, man,” he chokes out. “Go away and let me fix your car.” He turns around, fishes the fifty out of his pocket, holds it out to the guy.
He knows what his face looks like and wishes he could peel it right the hell off.
The guy curls his hand around Dean’s, with the fifty buried at the core, and starts rubbing Dean’s skin with his thumb. His eyes are locked on Dean’s. He’s about seventy-five percent of the way there; he’s gonna come in his pants right there next to the Volvo.
Dean snaps his hand free and the fifty flutters to the ground.
“I’m not,” Dean says. “I’m not.”
He’s not sure what his voice sounds like or what it implies; either way, it’s a bucket of cold water. The guy’s vision clears, pretty much, and his mouth forms a hard line. He turns a little awkwardly, realizes something, turns back. His eyes are still on Dean’s as Dean bends down, retrieves the fifty and hands it to him along with the keyring that holds the key to the bathroom. “Fine,” he says to Dean. “Fix the car.”
Forty-five minutes later the car is finished and Race is back with the tow. Sweaty and clueless, Race does up the paperwork and sends the guy on his way. The guy’s been gone maybe five minutes when Race comes out back where Dean is staring a little vacantly at the car Race towed in.
“Something I should know about?” Race asks quietly.
Dean shakes his head.
“You do a good job here. Never hurts to keep saying that.”
“Thanks,” Dean murmurs.
“So you want to tell me?”
Dean pulls his gaze away from the car and looks at Race. There’s nothing but kindness on Race’s face - a desire to listen if there’s something to be said. When Dean says nothing, Race gives him a fleeting smile and hands over Dean’s keyring.
“You change your mind,” Race says, “we’ll go somewhere, grab a drink.”
Dean’s eyebrow lifts.
“Coke,” Race tells him. Then his hand dips into the breast pocket of his shirt and he hands over something else: Dean’s pay for the week. He matches Dean’s nod of acceptance before he turns to walk back to the office. “Your kid brother any good with cars?” he asks over his shoulder.
“No way.”
“What’s he good at?”
Dean has to stop to think. “Books. And being a pain in my ass.”
That makes Race laugh for a second. “Why don’t you take off early. Too damn hot out to think. I already told them” - he nods at the tow - “it wouldn’t be ready till tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
Race nods. “Long day. Go home.”
The sky breaks when Dean’s halfway there - rain that feels like it’s come out of nowhere. There’s no relief in it; the air is still heavy and warm and as Dean walks he feels like he’s in the shower. By the time he reaches the little block of apartments where Dad settled them back in March he’s soaking wet, water streaming off his hair, and his feet make squishing noises in his sneakers with every step he takes. Their parking slot is empty, so Dad’s not home, but Sam is, unless he’s at the library.
He stands at the end of the parking lot and looks up at the windows on the second floor of the building.
They’ve got one picture of the house back in Lawrence. It doesn’t look anything like this place. Here, they’ve got a living room that barely accommodates the couch Dad sleeps on. One bedroom. The kitchen isn’t even a real kitchen; it’s stove-sink-fridge lined up in a corner.
He’ll be eighteen in a few months. If Dad would let him, he could get a full-time job, maybe with Race. Pull in enough money to get them something a little nicer.
But they won’t be here at the end of January. The way things go, they’ll have been in three other places by then.
And fifty bucks won’t make any difference at all.
None at all.
* * * * *
It’s July, and Dean is seven.
He hears the door of the motel room open behind him, hears Dad come out, his boots crunching on the broken glass on the walkway in front of the door.
“Dean?” he says.
It means Did you look before you sat down?
Dean scrambles to his feet. Dad’s holding Sammy, keeping him up away from all the broken stuff.
“I’m okay,” Dean says.
And he lifts his hand, holds something out to his father.
Both of Dad’s eyebrows go up. Sammy turns his head to look. He’s only three, but he knows what money is. Dean’s been teaching him his numbers, and he knows a “5” and a “0,” but he’s never seen both of them together on money before. His small hand comes out, wanting to touch, to investigate.
“Where’d that come from?” Dad frowns.
Dean points to the gutter near the front wheels of the car. “It was there. Stuck in with all that junk.”
“Damn,” Dad breathes.
“We can keep it, right? Because there’s no way to tell who lost it. It came in the tornado.”
Dad reaches out and takes the bill from Dean, holding it outside of Sammy’s grasp. “Yeah,” he says after a minute. “Hell of a find, sport.”
“Can we buy ice cream?” Sammy demands.
“Gas.”
“No, Daddy. Ice cream.”
Sammy keeps going on about it as Dad opens the back door of the car and scoots him inside. The way Sammy is, he’ll keep talking about ice cream for hours. Or until Dad actually stops somewhere and buys him some.
“Maybe we should look around some more,” Dean suggests. “Maybe there’s more money in all this junk.”
“You think the tornado tore up a bank?”
“Maybe.”
Dad straightens up and chuckles softly. “I wish our luck ran that good, sport.”
“Fifty dollars is good.”
Dad nods, but there’s something sad about it. “Yeah. It’s good.”
“It’s a lot of gas.”
“It is. And” - Dad mouths the word, with a wink - “ice cream.”
“Yeah?”
“Not for breakfast. Go on, get in.”
The fifty goes into Dad’s pocket. Dean beams at him as he moves to climb in beside Sammy in the back seat. Before he can get that far, Dad snags him by the arm to stop him. He looks down at Dean for a second, then ruffles Dean’s hair.
“I wish I could find money all the time,” Dean tells him.
Dad doesn’t say anything, so Dean crawls into the back seat. He can’t see Dad’s face once he’s in there.
But he can hear Dad say, very quietly, “I wish to hell you didn’t have to.”
Characters: Wee Dean and Sam, John; Teen Dean and OCs
Pairings: none
Rating: R for language and adult situations
Length: 4145 words
Spoilers: none
Kleenex rating: 1 (of the Ohhhhh, Dean variety)
They’re alone, out back of the garage, in the spot that’s shady enough to keep Dean from baking like a cake while he works but bright enough for him to see what he’s doing. Laurie’s around front in the combination office/mini-mart, working the register. And Race - his name’s Steve Harlan, but everybody calls him Race - has gone off to give somebody a tow.
Leaving Dean alone with the idiot who’s got a handful of Dean’s ass cheek.
Oh, and never let it be said that I don't appreciate a little off-the-cuff beta-ing. The story's been tweaked a bit. Thanks, guys!
Lost and Found
By Carol Davis
It’s July, and Dean is seven.
Last night was the worst storm Dean can remember in his whole life. In a way he’s glad Mom wasn’t here, because it would have scared the crap out of her -- heck, it got Dad more wound up than he's been in a long time. He got Dean and Sammy to help him drag all the pillows and blankets off the beds and put them in the tub, then made them climb in there and burrow down.
Then he took the mattresses off the beds and leaned them up against the tub. Finally, he got in the tub too and told Sammy it was a fort. Dean didn't buy the "fort" thing; he'd been through a couple of tornado drills at school and knew when you didn't have a basement to run to, you were supposed to use the tub. But it was a good enough story, if what Dad was aiming for was to keep Sammy calm and quiet.
Too bad it didn't keep Dad calm. When Dean curled up against him, he could feel Dad’s heart beating so fast he thought Dad might be having a heart attack.
They stayed in the "fort" for like five hours.
This morning everything is a mess. There are broken windows all around the motel, and Dad won’t let Sammy come outside because there’s too many pieces of glass and metal and stuff in the parking lot.
There’s a lot of broken trees, too. Some big branches and lots of little ones and a million leaves. A car down at the end of the parking lot has a smashed windshield because a big branch fell on it. Good thing it wasn’t their car, Dean thinks. He’s pretty sure fixing a windshield would cost a lot of money, and right now they don’t have a lot of money.
Most times they don’t have a lot of money.
He put their stuff into the car like Dad asked him to. Now he’s waiting for Dad to finish trying to get Sam to go to the bathroom. Sam always does this, and it’s a huge pain: before they leave the motel, he’ll say he doesn’t have to go. But in half an hour, when they’re way down the road and not near anything with a bathroom, he’ll say he has to go right now.
Sam has to do pretty much everything right now. Dad’s been trying to teach him to be patient about stuff, but he doesn’t understand that waiting for something good can be fun. It’s their own fault, Dean thinks - his and Dad’s. They always give in to Sammy, and it’s turning Sammy into a little snot. He doesn’t understand that when they run out of something, Dad can’t just twitch his nose like on Bewitched on TV and make some more.
Or maybe he does understand, and he doesn’t care. But he’s only three. When he gets bigger, he’ll understand how things are, like Dean does. He’ll understand that you can’t just twitch your nose and get stuff.
Something thumps inside the motel room. That’s not a good sign. When Dad starts banging the doors and drawers it means he’s running out of patience.
Some days, Dean wishes Sammy would just give up and pee.
Because really, what’s the big deal?
With a small sigh he sits down on the curb close to the car. Now that he’s close he can see scratches in the Impala’s paint job. Mostly little ones, but a few big ones that look like somebody keyed the car. They didn’t, he’s pretty sure; it has to be from all the junk that was flying around in the air last night. Broken glass and gravel and chunks of wood and pieces of what looks like roof shingles.
He’d love to ask Dad if a tornado could really pick up a house and fly it around like in The Wizard of Oz, but Dad’s not in the mood for that kind of question.
Maybe it did pick up a house, because those sure look like roof shingles.
Frowning, Dean reaches out and carefully picks up one of the pieces.
And there’s money lying underneath it.
* * * * *
It’s July, and Dean is seventeen.
He’s had this job for almost two months now, and it’s going really well. He would have been doing the same kind of thing back home in Lawrence, if Mom hadn’t died: working summers at Dad’s garage, making spending money and putting some aside for a car of his own.
Not one like the freaking thing he’s had his hands on for more than an hour, one with the working parts all jammed in together so you have to be a contortionist to get at them.
No, the car he really wants, the one he dreams about, is Dad’s Impala. Now that’s a car. Big, solid, with some serious power under the hood. When all her little quirks have been taken care of, she purrs like a kitten.
This thing, on the other hand…
They haven’t invented words colorful enough to describe this annoying piece of shit.
“What do you think?”
They say people look like their dogs. Or their wives. Maybe their cars. This guy doesn’t look like his car, but he’s sure as hell just as annoying.
“Another hour,” Dean says without lifting his head.
The guy’s right there, close by, looming, so close Dean can feel his body heat. And more heat is one thing Dean doesn’t need. It’s July, and the humidity’s gone up to about a thousand percent. The air’s laying against his skin like a damp towel. “So…” the guy says. “Four o’clock?”
Is that in an hour? Dean thinks shrilly. Then, yeah, dickweed, four o’clock. Now get off my…
Son of a bitch.
The guy’s hand is on his ass.
Dean sucks in a breath and tightens his grip on the wrench he’s holding. Not only is the guy’s - his customer, for God’s sake - hand on his ass, the guy’s feeling him up. For a moment, the surprise of that keeps Dean silent and still, although he’d give anything to swing around and clock the guy upside the head with the wrench.
They’re alone, out back of the garage, in the spot that’s shady enough to keep Dean from baking like a cake while he works but bright enough for him to see what he’s doing. Laurie’s around front in the combination office/mini-mart, working the register. And Race - his name’s Steve Harlan, but everybody calls him Race - has gone off to give somebody a tow.
Leaving Dean alone with the idiot who’s got a handful of Dean’s ass cheek.
“Uh…” Dean mutters.
The guy must think that’s some form of “God, dude, do it more,” because he moves in even closer and his hand starts sliding in toward home plate.
And that’s just enough.
Dean swings around, wrench in hand, and gapes at the guy.
Pressed khakis, dark blue polo shirt, neat haircut, white sneakers without a mark on them. The goddamn things look like they’d glow in the dark like something radioactive.
They glow about as much as the wedding ring on the guy’s left hand.
“What the fuck, man,” Dean says to him.
And the guy says back, “You’re beautiful. Do you know that?”
Yeah, Dean knows it. The life they lead doesn’t give him much time to worry about his looks - and Dad and Sam sure wouldn’t put up with it if he tried - but he gets immediate attention from women almost everywhere he goes, so he figures, yeah, he was in the right line when they passed out “good-looking.” Still, having a bunch of girls turn to watch him walk by at school and having this asshole grope him while he’s working are at two radically different points in the continuum.
But the thing is, he can’t make his mind work right now. He wants to tell the guy - and tell him right now - to get the fuck away from him if he wants to keep all those teeth in his head. But he’s working. And he likes this job. He’s good at it, he’s pulling down some decent money, and Race likes him and trusts him.
He doesn’t know Dean’s real name, but he trusts him.
And telling this guy where to shove things would probably send him running to Race: to put a spin on this, to turn things around so it’s Dean who touched him, or messed up his car, or stole something. Like the laptop computer that’s sitting on the Volvo’s front seat, for instance. Something that Sam would just die for a chance to play with.
The guy probably has a lawyer. He might be a lawyer, for all Dean knows. What’s for sure is that he can create an unholy big stink if he feels like it.
“Look -“ Dean says.
The guy glances at Dean’s crotch, then his own. He’s got wood growing under the khakis. And a big shit-eating grin growing on his face. His hand eases into his pocket. When it comes back out his fingers are curled and there’s a fifty-dollar bill tucked in his palm. He glances at it, then at Dean. The shit-eating grin fades quite a bit, turns into something he probably thinks is seductive.
Fifty bucks is a day’s pay. A whole day.
But…Jesus.
“No one’s here,” the guy says.
“You’re gonna get me fired,” Dean tells him, and it doesn’t sound nearly as convincing hanging out there in the air as it did in his head.
“Who’s going to know?”
“Come on, man.”
Race thinks Dean’s name is Mike. Michael is Dean’s middle name, and it was the first thing that popped into his head when he and Dad and Sam landed in this town and it was time to cook up a new set of fake identities. When the guy showed up a couple hours ago with sweat dribbling down from his temples and a car that wasn’t going to take him where he wanted to go without some serious attention, Race told him, “Mike’ll take care of it for you.”
Because Race trusts him. Even though he’s only seventeen.
Even though he’s only been in this town a couple months and he’s very evasive when Race asks him about his family, where he’s from, what his plans are.
Race is fifteen years older than Dean, but Race is his friend.
And Dean can see, hanging in the air, the disappointed look on Race’s face if this asshole goes to him and says Dean stole something out of his car.
Even though he deserves to have something stolen out of his car.
He deserves to lose that shiny laptop computer.
The guy’s gaze goes unfocused for a second. His hand - the one holding the fifty - twitches a little.
It’s July, three o’clock in the afternoon. In the sun, it’s over a hundred degrees; in the shade, close to ninety. Dean’s got big dark circles of sweat on his back, on his belly and under his arms, and there’s more sweat pooling at the back of his neck. If he wanted to fuck anybody right now, it’d be Laurie, but Laurie’s engaged. The most she’s ever done is touch him on the arm when she wants him to move out of the way. She looks at him, though, sometimes, like her mind is wandering to interesting places.
“Just let me do this,” Dean says, meaning the car.
“Let me see you,” the guy replied.
Naked. He means see you naked.
There’s a bathroom a few steps away. It’s locked, but Dean’s got a key to it on his keyring. Nobody’s here, nobody’s looking; Laurie’s probably reading or talking on the phone, out front in the office. She can’t see back here from where she is, and she went to the bathroom about half an hour ago, so she’s probably set for a while. The garage isn’t in a place where people pull in off the interstate needing to pee. Nobody’s gonna need this restroom for a while.
Ten minutes, Dean thinks. Maybe five, since the guy’s eyes are already pretty glassy.
Five minutes for fifty bucks.
And Sam needs shoes. Sam’s thirteen and he’s started to grow so crazy fast that he needs new stuff every few months. They’ve tried buying clothes and shoes too big so Sam can grow into them, but it makes Sam look like some shelter kid and Dean hates like holy bleeding hell to hear Sam getting laughed at over his clothes.
Dean stands there with the wrench dangling from his hand.
It’s not like he hasn’t done it before.
“Just let me fix your car,” he says, but his voice isn’t much above a whisper.
Then, like the sky has opened up and there’s reality raining down all over him, he hates his life. He hates being Mike and not Dean. Hates having a friend knowing it’ll only last a few months (if that). Hates having to hoard money because this job’s going to end too damn soon and who knows how long it’ll be before he has another one. Hates having to be the one to think about buying clothes for Sam when by rights Dad ought to have a steady job, one that brings in good money. They had money back in Lawrence - not a ton of it, but enough to live in a nice house and buy clothes without juggling payments like they were buying a goddamn yacht and not a pair of sneakers.
The blinking asshole in front of him probably has six or eight pairs of those spotless white sneakers lined up in his closet, along with a couple pairs of Italian loafers and some nice boots and whatever the hell else.
For a moment, Deans hates this son of a bitch, hates him with a blinding fury.
Wants to bury the wrench in his skull.
If he gets angry, if he speaks with anger in his voice, the guy will go to Race. Even if he fucks the guy, if he does it with the wrong attitude, the guy will go to Race. He’s not here, all fuzzy and unfocused, because he wants to do shit with whips and dog collars - or even have his arm twisted or get yelled at while his pants are down. He doesn’t want angry.
Dean hates himself because he knows that.
The guy’s plates are from another state. He doesn’t live here, he’s only passing through. He won’t drop by next week, or the week after, with more cash folded up in his palm. Or maybe he will. People like this can talk themselves into driving the whole damned night if they know they can get what they want. He might end up being like a stray dog, haunting Race’s garage looking for “Mike” until the Winchesters - the Farrells - have moved on and Race and Laurie are left behind to say, “Mike doesn’t work here any more.”
He could talk the guy out of that computer, Dean thinks.
Talk him out of it with promises of tomorrow, next week, next month.
He could take the computer and go home and give Dad a reason for them to hit the road now, tonight.
The guy would never find him. Never.
But Dad would spot that computer and there’d be hell to pay.
He knows what goes through Dad’s head: that Dad hates all the deception. That Dad isn’t a thief and doesn’t want him to be one either. Their lives are what they are, and they can’t get by without working the system a little - setting up fake credit cards, doing a little shoplifting, hustling at cards and pool - but it’s for food, for clothes, for shelter. There’s no way Dean can show up with a computer and have Dad accept it. Dad understands assholes, and he’s played a more than a few of them himself in a way that’s not strictly legal. But he’s got no idea, no clue on this earth - and he never will, if Dean can help it - that a handful of times, when he’s been off somewhere and left them short of what they need, his son traded services for goods.
And will do it again, when he needs to.
He turns away and stares at the engine of the guy’s piece of shit Volvo. The day’d been going all right, in spite of the heat; another couple hours and he could head for home - what passes for home - kick back and relax.
“I’m trying to fix your car,” he mutters.
The guy makes a small sound, an exhale, that makes Dean want to hurl all over the Volvo’s engine.
Go away, he thinks. Just go the fuck away.
“Does your wife know you do this?” he wants to ask - but he knows the answer.
The guy touches him again, fingering the lip of Dean’s back pocket. He’s pushing the fifty down in.
Fifty bucks.
Fifty.
For five minutes.
He wants to go around the side of the garage, where the trees and brush come up close to the building, and sit with his back against the wall, curled into a ball with his knees up against his chest, arms wrapped around his legs, head down. Just sit there until his whole life goes away. The wall is cool because the sun doesn’t hit it, and there’s usually a breeze right there if the air is moving at all. He sat there one day at lunchtime, resting his eyes for a few minutes, and when he opened them a squirrel was looking at him.
That’s what he wants to be right now: a squirrel. Hopefully one with enough brains not to run out into traffic.
Why did they come here, he wonders. Why did Dad pick this town?
Why can’t they…
He can feel the guy’s gaze moving up and down his body like fingers.
His hand is so tight around the wrench that it aches.
If it would just be this one time…just this once… But it won’t. The guy won’t go away. For all Dean knows, he’ll start sending people here. And wouldn’t that take the goddamn cake.
“Go away,” he says softly.
The guy doesn’t budge. There’s heat coming off of him like he’s a stove.
“I’m not what you think.”
But I am. And you know it. You son of a bitch.
“Please, man,” he chokes out. “Go away and let me fix your car.” He turns around, fishes the fifty out of his pocket, holds it out to the guy.
He knows what his face looks like and wishes he could peel it right the hell off.
The guy curls his hand around Dean’s, with the fifty buried at the core, and starts rubbing Dean’s skin with his thumb. His eyes are locked on Dean’s. He’s about seventy-five percent of the way there; he’s gonna come in his pants right there next to the Volvo.
Dean snaps his hand free and the fifty flutters to the ground.
“I’m not,” Dean says. “I’m not.”
He’s not sure what his voice sounds like or what it implies; either way, it’s a bucket of cold water. The guy’s vision clears, pretty much, and his mouth forms a hard line. He turns a little awkwardly, realizes something, turns back. His eyes are still on Dean’s as Dean bends down, retrieves the fifty and hands it to him along with the keyring that holds the key to the bathroom. “Fine,” he says to Dean. “Fix the car.”
Forty-five minutes later the car is finished and Race is back with the tow. Sweaty and clueless, Race does up the paperwork and sends the guy on his way. The guy’s been gone maybe five minutes when Race comes out back where Dean is staring a little vacantly at the car Race towed in.
“Something I should know about?” Race asks quietly.
Dean shakes his head.
“You do a good job here. Never hurts to keep saying that.”
“Thanks,” Dean murmurs.
“So you want to tell me?”
Dean pulls his gaze away from the car and looks at Race. There’s nothing but kindness on Race’s face - a desire to listen if there’s something to be said. When Dean says nothing, Race gives him a fleeting smile and hands over Dean’s keyring.
“You change your mind,” Race says, “we’ll go somewhere, grab a drink.”
Dean’s eyebrow lifts.
“Coke,” Race tells him. Then his hand dips into the breast pocket of his shirt and he hands over something else: Dean’s pay for the week. He matches Dean’s nod of acceptance before he turns to walk back to the office. “Your kid brother any good with cars?” he asks over his shoulder.
“No way.”
“What’s he good at?”
Dean has to stop to think. “Books. And being a pain in my ass.”
That makes Race laugh for a second. “Why don’t you take off early. Too damn hot out to think. I already told them” - he nods at the tow - “it wouldn’t be ready till tomorrow.”
“You sure?”
Race nods. “Long day. Go home.”
The sky breaks when Dean’s halfway there - rain that feels like it’s come out of nowhere. There’s no relief in it; the air is still heavy and warm and as Dean walks he feels like he’s in the shower. By the time he reaches the little block of apartments where Dad settled them back in March he’s soaking wet, water streaming off his hair, and his feet make squishing noises in his sneakers with every step he takes. Their parking slot is empty, so Dad’s not home, but Sam is, unless he’s at the library.
He stands at the end of the parking lot and looks up at the windows on the second floor of the building.
They’ve got one picture of the house back in Lawrence. It doesn’t look anything like this place. Here, they’ve got a living room that barely accommodates the couch Dad sleeps on. One bedroom. The kitchen isn’t even a real kitchen; it’s stove-sink-fridge lined up in a corner.
He’ll be eighteen in a few months. If Dad would let him, he could get a full-time job, maybe with Race. Pull in enough money to get them something a little nicer.
But they won’t be here at the end of January. The way things go, they’ll have been in three other places by then.
And fifty bucks won’t make any difference at all.
None at all.
* * * * *
It’s July, and Dean is seven.
He hears the door of the motel room open behind him, hears Dad come out, his boots crunching on the broken glass on the walkway in front of the door.
“Dean?” he says.
It means Did you look before you sat down?
Dean scrambles to his feet. Dad’s holding Sammy, keeping him up away from all the broken stuff.
“I’m okay,” Dean says.
And he lifts his hand, holds something out to his father.
Both of Dad’s eyebrows go up. Sammy turns his head to look. He’s only three, but he knows what money is. Dean’s been teaching him his numbers, and he knows a “5” and a “0,” but he’s never seen both of them together on money before. His small hand comes out, wanting to touch, to investigate.
“Where’d that come from?” Dad frowns.
Dean points to the gutter near the front wheels of the car. “It was there. Stuck in with all that junk.”
“Damn,” Dad breathes.
“We can keep it, right? Because there’s no way to tell who lost it. It came in the tornado.”
Dad reaches out and takes the bill from Dean, holding it outside of Sammy’s grasp. “Yeah,” he says after a minute. “Hell of a find, sport.”
“Can we buy ice cream?” Sammy demands.
“Gas.”
“No, Daddy. Ice cream.”
Sammy keeps going on about it as Dad opens the back door of the car and scoots him inside. The way Sammy is, he’ll keep talking about ice cream for hours. Or until Dad actually stops somewhere and buys him some.
“Maybe we should look around some more,” Dean suggests. “Maybe there’s more money in all this junk.”
“You think the tornado tore up a bank?”
“Maybe.”
Dad straightens up and chuckles softly. “I wish our luck ran that good, sport.”
“Fifty dollars is good.”
Dad nods, but there’s something sad about it. “Yeah. It’s good.”
“It’s a lot of gas.”
“It is. And” - Dad mouths the word, with a wink - “ice cream.”
“Yeah?”
“Not for breakfast. Go on, get in.”
The fifty goes into Dad’s pocket. Dean beams at him as he moves to climb in beside Sammy in the back seat. Before he can get that far, Dad snags him by the arm to stop him. He looks down at Dean for a second, then ruffles Dean’s hair.
“I wish I could find money all the time,” Dean tells him.
Dad doesn’t say anything, so Dean crawls into the back seat. He can’t see Dad’s face once he’s in there.
But he can hear Dad say, very quietly, “I wish to hell you didn’t have to.”