SPN FIC - Tomorrow We Go to Oakland
Happy birthday,
innie_darling! The boys and I wish you many happy returns. Now, go hang out by the pool for a while.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the title comes from a phrase coined by the survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake: "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we go to Oakland." Oakland, presumably, not being a nifty place to be relocated to.
Characters: Dean and Sam
Pairings: none
Length: 3248 words
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through the season 2 finale
Disclaimer: Hey there, Mr. Kripke. Just playing with your toys.
Dean, like the king of some ridiculous imaginary country, was stretched out on a chaise lounge midway down the right side of the pool. The jeans, t-shirt and boots he’d been wearing the last time Sam saw him had all disappeared; now he was wearing a pair of dark blue swim trunks, matching flip-flops and designer sunglasses. He had a drink in his hand, in a frosty, pale-pinkish glass with a straw sticking out of it. On the tiled ground beside his chair lay the remains of what must have been enough lunch for six people. “Sammy!” he called out gleefully.
Tomorrow We Go to Oakland
By Carol Davis
“Sammy. Dude. Turn that frown upside down, wouldya? Make some lemonade.”
This phone is fragile, Sam told himself. This phone will break if you throw it against the wall. Or into the pool. Or run over it with the car.
For a fleeting moment he wondered if he could crush it in his fist, like Superman.
Anything to make Dean’s voice stop coming out of the damn thing.
He did have to admit that he’d called Dean, not the other way around; for at least the third time this week he’d needed to track down his brother, who, despite having exacted a promise from Sam not that long ago to never, ever leave Dean’s sight, had developed the infuriating habit of wandering off. Sometimes he was only gone for five or ten minutes. A couple of times he’d been gone for a couple of hours before he came drifting back wearing the lazy grin that said he’d gotten laid.
Again.
Again and again and again.
Dean Winchester: The Hedonism Tour, 2007-2008.
“Where are you?” Sam asked impatiently.
“Told you, man. By the pool.”
“I’m standing by the pool. You’re not here. Neither is anybody else.”
“Not that pool,” Dean groaned. “Thing smells like bleach.”
“Then -“
A muffled noise came through the phone: Dean was talking to someone with his hand over the mic. Someone female, no doubt.
One, Sam counted silently. Two. Three.
“You got shoes on?” Dean asked, unmuffled.
“Why?”
“Pavement’s hot.”
“Yeaaaaaah,” Sam said. His voice came out sounding like he was dragging it over a cheese grater. “Everything here is hot. It’s a hundred and fourteen degrees.”
“Is it?”
“Dean.”
“Look at the sign. For the motel. Off to the right, there’s kind of a driveway thing.”
Sam opened his mouth, but words refused to come out. Simply outright refused. Which was a good thing, because the words that had strung themselves together in his head might well have melted the phone.
“You still there?” Dean asked.
Sam could do nothing but grunt.
“Walk down it,” Dean went on, as chipper as Kelly Ripa on a caffeine high. “When you come out past the thing that looks like a storage shed, hang another right. Walk down about a hundred yards, till you get to a bunch of palm trees lined up along another driveway. There’s no sign, but there’s a bunch of those fancy lights in the ground with the metal caps on top. Come up the driveway and take your second…no, third left.”
“Dean,” Sam said.
“You’re wearin’ it out, man. Just do it. If you get all crazy-ass lost, call me back.”
“Dean, where the hell are you?”
“Could you just walk down the frickin’ road?” Dean sputtered. “You’re cutting into my R and R, here, Sam.”
“We’re not supposed to -“
A dial tone buzzed through the little speaker.
“God damn it,” Sam shrilled, sounding alarmingly girly even to himself.
He really had no choice but to follow Dean’s crazy directions. He could have gone back into the motel room and picked up his research where he’d left off; if Dean’s absences were good for anything, it was to allow plenty of Web surfing on subjects Dean would have put the kibosh on immediately. Being that Sam was supposed to do nothing - n-o-thing nothing - to screw up Dean’s deal with the Crossroads Demon.
Nothing, even if that meant Dean remained bound for Hell at the end of a year.
A year out of which five weeks had already slipped away.
With the phone biting into the fist he had clenched around it, Sam began to trudge down the “driveway thing.” Every step made his head ring like a bell being struck with a ten-pound mallet. Everything around him reminded him that he did not like the desert. Did not like excessive heat. And did not like Palm Springs. Why they’d agreed to come here in the first place, he couldn’t remember; a five-year-old girl with decent aim could have taken out the sprite that had been stealing bright-colored objects from people’s yards like some supernatural raccoon.
Had to be Dean who’d set this all up. He’d been going on ad nauseam about Vegas for almost two weeks; maybe he figured Palm Springs was only a stone’s throw from there, and proximity increased his chances of persuading Sam to go.
The number of places Dean could wander off to in Vegas, and the number of ways he could get laid, made Sam shudder.
He turned right at the storage shed, which took him out onto a narrow street. He kept walking, grimacing at the feel of sweat tickling its way down into the small of his back. The last weather report he’d heard had pegged the temperature at 114, but for all he knew it’d gone up since then. And it wasn’t exactly the fabled “dry heat” of the desert: there were so many sprinkler systems running to keep lawns and golf courses green that the air was thick with humidity. The clammy heat made him walk so slowly that it took him the best part of twenty minutes to find the driveway with the metal-capped lights Dean had described.
How Dean had found it, he had no clue.
The driveway had to be part of a resort - the lawn on either side of it was carefully manicured and edged with rows of bright-colored (and remarkably perky) flowers, all of which had the look of maintenance by a business and not a private owner. But what resort remained a mystery. There were no signs of any kind.
There was, however, a pool.
It was screened from the driveway by a long, tall row of shrubbery so thick Sam could see nothing of what lay on the other side until he found a break in the bushes and a narrow path leading to a pool shaped like an enormous kidney bean. Beyond the pool area, at the far end of a wide stretch of perfect lawn, sat a trio of pale pinkish, two-story buildings - villas belonging to the resort, Sam assumed. Another building of the same odd color sat at the near side of the pool. Sam stopped walking alongside it and took a long, slow survey of his surroundings.
Not because he honestly cared what the place looked like.
Because he had started to wonder if it had been conjured up out of Dean’s libido, like a Star Trek holodeck program.
There were maybe two dozen people in and around the pool, and every last one of them was female.
Except for Sam. And Dean.
Dean, like the king of some ridiculous imaginary country, was stretched out on a chaise lounge midway down the right side of the pool. The jeans, t-shirt and boots he’d been wearing the last time Sam saw him had all disappeared; now he was wearing a pair of dark blue swim trunks, matching flip-flops and designer sunglasses. He had a drink in his hand, in a frosty, pale-pinkish glass with a straw sticking out of it. On the tiled ground beside his chair lay the remains of what must have been enough lunch for six people.
“Sammy!” he called out gleefully.
Fully expecting to be tackled by a security guard and dragged off the property, Sam made his way to Dean’s poolside throne. “Dean,” he said dryly.
Dean gestured with his frosty glass. “Beats hell outta the motel pool, huh?”
“Isn’t this private property?”
“Uh…I guess.”
“They usually prefer you to be a guest when you use the pool.”
Dean’s attention strayed to the end of the pool, where one of the swimmers, a brunette in a bikini that seemed to be constructed of three tea bags and some dental floss, had grasped the ladder to pull herself up out of the water.
“Nobody’s checking,” he said absently, still watching the brunette. “Been here a while, and the only time they ask is if you order food. Or buy something.”
Sam’s gaze dropped to the collection of mostly-empty dishes alongside Dean’s chair. “So you got all that, how?”
“Tracy,” Dean said, eyes on the brunette.
“Tracy?”
“There an echo here? Yeah. Tracy.”
“Who is -?“
With a pained sigh Dean dragged his attention back to his brother. “Tracy. Hasselblad. From Michigan. Or…Maine? Someplace with an ‘m.’ Writes travel books.” When that didn’t satisfy Sam, he reached down and plucked something from the collection of stuff on the ground: a plastic key card that he flashed at Sam.
“This Tracy girl - woman? - gave you her room key?” Sam frowned.
“Looks like it, doesn’t it?”
“Why?”
“We playing Twenty Million Questions, now? Crap, Sam, do you practice being a buzzkill? I didn’t ask her why. She said go ahead and get anything I needed. And I figured it’d be rude to turn down her generosity,” Dean said pointedly. “It ain’t like I bought a car. I got a burger and fries. And some nachos and stuff.”
Unswayed, Sam took a not terribly furtive look around the pool area. “Which one is she?”
“She’s not here. Went to a meeting or something. She’ll be back in a while.”
“She ‘loaned’ you her room key. So you can charge things to her room, that she’ll presumably be billed and will have to pay for.”
“What can I tell you, Sammy? She surrendered to the Winchester charm.”
Sam heaved a sigh that would have fit nicely into the soundtrack of The Young and the Restless. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what she said.”
Sam could have swallowed a hubcab with less effort than it took to hold back the response that popped into his head. To distract himself, he sank down onto the chair next to Dean’s and clasped his hands between his knees.
Clasping was good. It encouraged him not to smack Dean upside the head.
“Where’d you get the bathing suit?” he asked after a minute.
“Gift shop.”
“You do know there’s a name for what you’re doing. Assuming that there was sex involved in this arrangement.”
“Yeah, Sam. You know what? Big friggin’ deal. It was her idea.”
“Which doesn’t -“
Before Sam could finish the thought, Dean had sprung up out of the chair, aiming for the small building Sam had passed on his way into the pool area. From his perch on the lounge chair, Sam could see the setup inside, a combination snack bar and gift shop. Dean strode up to the counter, flip-flops slapping against the tile, and returned a minute later with another frosty pink glass that he held out to Sam.
“Drink this,” he announced. “It’ll give you something to do with your mouth.”
Sam peered into the glass. “What is it?”
“A delightful blend of fruit nectar. Sounds like” - Dean made a gagging noise - “but tastes pretty good. I kind of figure there’s some added ingredients.”
“Tracy’s paying for it, I assume?”
“You can either drink it or I can jam your head into the glass. Which one sounds like more fun?”
He was thirsty. And he had to admit he was being a serious pain in the ass, whether Dean had initiated all of this by wandering away from the motel or not.
Truth be told, this afternoon was just a continuation of the general theme of the last five weeks. Everything Dean had been before Cold Oak had been amplified times ten: loud, thoughtless, willing to let his dick lead him around. Whether it was out of denial, or a genuine need to cram decades of living - the Dean version of living, anyway - into a single year, or a combination of both, didn’t much matter. A couple of months ago Sam would have taken the first bus to anywhere to get away from a Dean who acted this way. Now it was a small price to pay in exchange for what Dean had done.
Dean had given him life. And the chance to undo this mess.
Not that that made Dean’s off-the-rails attitude easy to put up with.
With a small shrug of acquiescence Sam sat back in the chair and took a sip of the “delightful blend of fruit nectar.” Then another. Dean was right; it wasn’t bad. A little overly sweet, but with a subtle kick that did indeed hint of a little something extra.
Another of the resort’s collection of bikinied lovelies strolled past, murmuring, “Hi, Dean.”
Dean beamed at her and offered, “Hey. How’s it goin’?”
“It’s good.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “It’s all good.”
Both Winchesters watched her stretch out on a chair at the far end of the pool, one knee bent, head tipped back to drink in the sun.
“There’s some seriously hot women here,” Dean said.
“I noticed.”
“You noticed, or you noticed?”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m tellin’ you, Sammy. This is like the world capital of hot chicks. How come we never came here before?” Dean tugged his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose. “And…how ‘bout we stick around? Get the demons to come to us. It’s hot enough here - they’d feel right at home.”
“Doing what? Waiting around while you work on your tan?”
“Nah. Got sunscreen on.”
Sam hiked a brow. “You. Sunscreen.”
“Tracy helped out,” Dean conceded. “Didn’t want me to end up with a nasty burn. I got lotion on parts of me that haven’t seen sunlight since…huh. That time on the boat.”
“Boat?” Sam grimaced.
“Galveston. Few years ago. When you were away. Feels good, you know? Skinny-dipping in the ocean. The way the water kinda runs around your -“
“You really don’t understand the concept of ‘too much information,’ do you?”
“You ever try it? In the ocean?”
“Dean.”
“Nice warm water. Feels really good.” Dean stopped to mull something over and frowned. “’Cept for the jellyfish.”
Sam dropped his head onto the raised back of the chaise and stared up into the pale sky. Pondering the jellyfish - presumably in the Gulf of Mexico - had quieted Dean for the moment, and Sam basked in the silence as he sipped his drink. “You want to give me a rough estimate on how long your ‘R and R’ is going to last?” he asked after a minute.
“Why?”
“Job’s done. Time to move on.”
“Ah, Sammy.”
“No, Dean. We cannot live here. For one thing, it’s too damn hot.”
“There’s air conditioning.”
“Dean.”
“Couple days?”
“A couple… Never mind. You figure on staying with this Tracy person?”
“Maybe.”
“Does she know that?”
“I don’t figure she’ll object too much.”
“Being that you’re so incredibly you.”
Dean finished his drink, slyly making the empty-straw sucking sound that signaled an empty glass until Sam scowled at him.
It wasn’t much of a scowl, because…well. The juice had that added ingredient. The sun didn’t seem as brutal as it had a little while ago, and the murmured conversations going on around the pool, accompanied by the whisper of lawn sprinklers Sam couldn’t see, blended into what was almost a lullaby.
Maybe Palm Springs wasn’t that bad.
Sam’s eyes had been shut for a while when something tapped his arm. A peek told him it was Dean, bearing a fresh drink for himself and one for Sam. Sam didn’t remember finishing the first one, but that glass was nowhere to be seen. He nodded a thank you and took the glass, taking a sip as Dean settled back into his chair. This one seemed to be a slightly different blend of juices, but with that same interesting bite.
“Bed’s got these sheets,” Dean commented after a while. “Real soft. Tracy says it’s the thread count.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. Feels good when you’re -“
“Naked. I get it.”
“And no jellyfish.”
“I’d be surprised if there were.”
“Tub’s big enough for like four people. Got Jacuzzi jets in it. And the shower? One of those big shower heads that’s like the size of a plate. Feels like standing in the rain. I tell you, Sammy, this place ain’t half bad.”
“Especially when you’re not paying for it.”
They sat there by the pool, mostly silent, as the sun inched its way across the sky. When they’d finished their drinks, Dean went back to the snack bar for a third round accompanied by twin plates of nachos. By the time the food was gone, the sun had started its slow descent toward the horizon.
“Gettin’ kinda chilly,” Dean observed.
Sam nodded. “Must be down to a hundred and eight. Should’ve brought a coat.”
“You know something, Sam?”
“Hmm,” Sam said, shaking his head.
“People do this all the time. Hang around here for a couple weeks, or a month. Sit around the pool, or play golf.”
“I guess.”
“I’d go out of my freakin’ mind.”
Sam grinned at that. “I would too. And - can you imagine Dad sitting around a pool all day long?”
“He sat by the pool one time.”
“Once?”
“There was some kinda thing in it. Came up through the drain.”
There were still a dozen or more people around and in the pool, all of them still female. Sam watched one of them do slow, languid laps from one end to the other, pushing at the water with long, slim, pale arms and legs.
“What time’s Tracy coming back?” he asked Dean.
“Don’t know. She didn’t say.”
“Look, man, I -“
Dean took his sunglasses off and set them down on the tile. “Year’s a long time, Sammy. You can fit a whole lot into a year.”
“Not enough,” Sam said.
“Meant what I said. Don’t mess this up. We got a year.”
Dean was looking at him so earnestly that Sam had to look away. After a moment he set down his empty plate and glass and got up from the chair. He’d been lying there for so long that his legs wobbled a little when he stood.
Maybe the nectar had something to do with that.
“I’ll be back at the motel,” he told Dean. “Just call me when you’re ready to -“
Frowning, Dean looked off toward the trio of villas. There seemed to be visions of Jacuzzi tubs and high thread count sheets drifting through his head, along with a variety of game plans for an evening with the mysterious Tracy. Just as Sam was ready to step away, to head back to the motel, Dean got up from his chair and stretched his shoulders like a cat easing out of a nap.
“Ready now,” he said.
“What about Tracy?” Sam asked, puzzled.
Dean looked at his brother for a moment, then shrugged. “Just some random chick, Sam. There’s demons out there.”
“They’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Could be one less of ‘em tomorrow.”
“True.”
“Gimme a minute.” Without waiting for a response, Dean scooped up Tracy’s key card, trotted off toward the nearest of the villas and climbed the steps to the second floor. He was back five minutes later wearing his jeans, t-shirt and boots.
Sam asked him mildly, “You sure about this?”
“I ever do anything I’m not sure about?”
“If you did, you wouldn’t tell me.”
“You got that right.” Smiling, Dean set off down the path to the driveway, nodding absently when Sam felt into step beside him. “Crap on a stick, it’s hot here, you know that?” he said as they walked.
“I noticed.”
“What’d we come here for, anyway?”
“Beats me, man,” Sam said with a small smile. “I got no idea.”