Blue Skies From Rain Part 6 - Chapter 27

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Sam pulled into Albuquerque at about 10 o’clock, having driven from Moriarty after breakfast. The trail had started at Bentonville, Arkansas, of all places, had strung itself through the northern part of Oklahoma, dotted itself through eastern New Mexico, and had ended here with another article about an angel. If angels could be said to wear leather jackets and thick black boots. Which they did, as Sam knew, unless Dean had finally gotten hot enough to take the jacket off.

Sam’s favorite stop was the grandmother in Moriarty, Alice Bevin, who was as knowledgeable about Welsh legends as Sam, maybe even more. She’d lectured him about black dogs, and told him about pixies and brownies and Sam tried not to laugh when she warned him not to dance inside of a ring of mushrooms. She’d been reading the papers too, it sounded like. He wrote down everything she told him and thought it too bad that he couldn’t tell her the truth. But he liked hearing her description of Dean.

“That young man, he came right up my sidewalk and started talking to me through the screen door. Said he knew all about my troubles and could he help me. Straight talker too, not a mumbler. I can’t abide mumbling.”

“So what did he do, exactly?” Sam asked. Of course, he already knew what Dean had done.

“Well, I opened the screen door and told him I wasn’t ready for death to take me, dog or no dog, and then he looked at me. You know, he had this little smile, like he was laughing but I knew he wasn’t laughing at me. He believed me, unlike that shiftless son-in-law of mine that my daughter Denise insisted on marrying. Were I fifty years younger, I wouldn’t have minded marrying this young man, said his name was Nigel Tufnell, even though, I mean, Tufnell? What kind of last name is that? But he had these eyes, green, like a mine full of emeralds.”

Sam knew those eyes. Knew he shouldn’t be thinking about that. Should be concentrating on this hunt. This very important hunt. So he wrote then name Nigel Tufnell on his pad of paper, even though he already knew the name, because the name in the article had mentioned it clearly. Dean had told Alice and Alice had told the papers because, of course, everyone should know about how she’d found this nice young man to take care of her little black dog problem.

“So then what happened?”

“What happened?” She looked at him like he was being rude. “Why, he planted bits of iron on the edges of my lawn and sprinkled salt all over the place and the black dog was just gone. Just gone, like it never was.” Now she shook her head. “No one believed me then and they don’t now. But Nigel did. So I made him some bacon and eggs and with a side of French toast made out of Texas bread ‘cause that’s what he said he wanted. He wouldn’t take any money.”

Of course not.

So now, Albuquerque. Sam had the address of a Mrs. Clara, who lived south of the highway in the older part of Old Town, and Sam suspected, not the tourist part of town either. This was proven to be right as he drove through the wide flat streets, where the houses looked like adobe huts painted over white and pink and pale blue, and the street signs looked faded by years in the sun, and the heat seemed to sit very still on the tops of the creosote bushes that grew in the empty lots.

The heat was kind of nice actually, and the bright sun in a very blue sky was a nice change from the contestant rain and grey clouds of the mid-west. But he was starting to bake inside the Impala a little, so he stopped at a gas station along Central Avenue to fill her up (he’d started thinking of the car as her rather than it sometime after his encounter with Ralph), and let them both cool down, and bought some bottled water from the cooler.

He paid for the gas and the water with cash, and then went outside while the gas station attendant watched him and then looked at the car through the scratched windows. It kept surprising Sam how many people looked at the car. He guessed that when he was with Dean, he let Dean pay attention to that, and had ignored the whole thing. The car was Dean’s along with everything else that went with it. Sam wanted to give it back to him.

He stood in the shade of the awning to drink the cold water and look at the map and the address. He wanted to get to Dennison road, but it didn’t go through. While he chewed on his lower lip, the gas station guy came out to talk to a man while both men looked at Sam and stared. Then the gas station guy came over. His name tag said Bart.

“You lost, eh?” asked Bart.

“Actually,” said Sam. “I’m trying to find-here,” he showed the map to Bart. “Here. I’m doing an interview-” He let his voice trail off. Sometimes people told reporters information that they wouldn’t tell the cops. Plus people loved to talk. “I’m going to interview Mrs. Clara. She said an angel paid her a visit, it’s a local human interest story for-”

“Mrs. Clara,” said Bart. It sounded like he knew her. “You take Old Coors, and then go right on Gonzales, and then left on 57. That’ll take you to Dennison. Mrs. Clara lives in a red house.”

“Hey, thanks.” Sam nodded a smile at Bart and then got back in the Impala. She started right up, appreciative of the rest, and he followed Bart’s instructions to the letter. There was the red house, a little one-level adobe house painted brick red with white trim. The lawn was bare but tidy, with a row of cactus and yucca along the edge of the sidewalk that looked like it had been planted on purpose. And on the sidewalk, in a dark blue house dress, was a dark-haired woman, sweeping the cement.

Sam parked the car along the street and got out. The neighborhood was still and quiet, and Mrs. Clara, as it probably was, stopped sweeping to look at him. When he got closer, she was still just watching him.

“Hello,” he said. “I’ve come from the Tulsa World to do an interview with you about your recent visitor. Who I understand you think was an angel, and so-”

“No habla ingles,” she said, and Sam recognized that much.

“You’re Mrs. Clara, right?” He said this a little loudly, and pointed at her.

She pointed at herself. “Si, Mrs. Clara.”

Shit. How the hell was he supposed to manage this? He didn’t speak Spanish, but the reporter who had originally interviewed her had. Otherwise, how would her story have gotten into the paper? And then, on the heels of that, he wondered how the hell had Dean talked to her, since Dean’s Spanish was just about as limited as Sam’s.

From behind him, Sam heard the screech of tires and a series of door slams and when he looked, a group of five young men were stepping out of a shiny low-rider car with those thin chrome rims on the wheels that spun even when the car was standing still. They were all wearing white t-shirts and bandanas arranged in creative ways around their heads. They were shaved bald, as well, with almost identical moustaches and goatees, and Sam realized in two seconds that every gun he owned was about fifty feet too far away. And locked in the trunk besides.

“You bothering Mrs. Clara?” asked the young man closest to him. “Bart at the gas station called us. You think you can just walk in here and start bothering old women?”

“No,” said Sam, staying calm. He’d not actually done anything, and if this was their turf, they were welcome to it. “I just-I’m a reporter following up on a story for the Tulsa World. It’s about Mrs. Clara and the angel she said came to visit her.”

The group of men shifted till they were in a half circle, blocking Sam all access to his car unless he went through them. The heat sparkled hard on the glints in the sidewalk. Sam hoped they couldn’t see him sweat.

Mrs. Clara spoke, fast, all in Spanish, and Sam kept his eyes on the guy who had asked him the question. Then the young man answered her, also keeping his eyes on Sam. It was a stalemate at the moment. But this was where the trail ended. If he couldn’t ask a few questions, then he’d have to wait till Dean left another breadcrumb, which would take days. He didn’t want it to take days.

Then Mrs. Clara said something else, and this made the guy shake his head. Then he nodded.

“She wants to know what you want,” he said to Sam now. “I told her you came about the angel. Do you want to hear about that?”

Sam nodded, wishing he spoke Spanish.

The young man spoke to Mrs. Clara, telling her this, taking a lot longer than seemed reasonable than to say, yes he does, Mrs. Clara. Then Mrs. Clara reached around Sam with the broom and whapped the guy in the side with it, delivering the blow with a startling string of Spanish.

Then the young man jerked his head at the other four, and Sam watched as they all piled back in the car. Then Mrs. Clara motioned for the two of them to follow her up the walk to her narrow front porch, which was wide enough to hold two folding chairs and not much else. But it was shade. Sam stood at the edges of it as Mrs. Clara sat down. The young man went into the house and brought her out a glass of water. He brought none for Sam, but Sam didn’t care.

Mrs. Clara drank some of the water and rested the glass on her thigh. Then she started talking, looking at Sam. Telling her story. Sam knew it was a story because her voice held the cadence of it, even if he didn’t understand the words. The young man translated, and she nodded as he talked.

“He came two days ago, was just walking by. Mrs. Clara had been bringing home groceries and tripped on the sidewalk. It’s in very bad repair, she says, but the city won’t fix it. The young man, who was white, helped her up and then carried her groceries home for her. At first, she’d been worried, she isn’t as young as she used to be, but the young man was careful and kind and she felt she could trust him. She even let him in the house to get some bandages for her ankle-”

Sam looked down. Mrs. Clara had an ace bandage wrapped around her left ankle. All neat and tidy above the strap of her sandal and tucked in at the edges the way Dean would do it. Dean was close. So close.

“Then he put her groceries away, and then he fixed her sink and the back door screen, and even the air conditioner in her bedroom. She let him sleep on her couch, and then her friend Marta came over and he went to Marta’s house and fixed her toilet. And the ceiling fan. Marta called, and told Mrs. Clara this, that he slept at her house last night, and said she fed him migas and then he left this morning.”

“This morning?” asked Sam, his voice rising high. Dean had just been there, helping people. Getting them to trust him enough to give him a place to sleep for the night. Food in the morning.

The young man shrugged, because of course it was neither here nor there to him.

“That’s what she said. Marta lives there.” He pointed to the pale yellow adobe house across the street. “They’ve been friends forever, her and Mrs. Clara.”

“Can you ask her which way he went?” Sam asked now, his heart thumping.

The young man turned to Mrs. Clara and asked her. Then he nodded and turned back to Sam.

“She said he wanted the way to Route 66, so he could hitch a ride. That way.” The young man pointed back the way Sam had come and Sam realized, feeling somewhat light headed, that he’d just been there. Route 66 was the same as Central Avenue, which is where he’d been when he’d gotten gas in the Impala and asked for directions.

He reached out his hand and shook the young man’s hand. Then he bent towards Mrs. Clara, realizing how tall he must seem, looming at her in the shade. But she shook his hand anyway, and smiled at him, and said something in Spanish. A little lost, Sam turned to the young man.

“She says that he was very nice, and that he had a beautiful face. Like an angel. She wanted to kiss it.” The young man blushed a little at that, smiling at Mrs. Clara, and she back at him, and Sam knew he had to get going. He could catch up with Dean. If he hurried.

“Thank you,” said Sam. He started to hurry away. Down the bright sidewalk to the hot street, where the Impala sat waiting for him.

“Hey!”

Sam stopped and looked back.

The young man was standing just out of the shade of the porch, his hand above his eyes to block the sunlight.

“That your car?”

“No,” said Sam. “It’s my brother’s.”

“Nice wheels,” said the young man.

“I’ll tell him,” said Sam. And he would. Once he found him.

*

Central Avenue was made up of warehouses and gas stations and short little strip malls with pawn and gun shops baking in the sun. If Dean had about an hour head start, he might not have gotten far, or he could have hitched a ride and be long gone by now. Sam kept to the right hand lane and drove slowly, scanning the parking lots and the narrow sidewalks in front of the stores. It was slow going because the traffic was starting to build in the noon hour.

Then he got to the edge of town, where Central Avenue ran into I-40, where the town ended and the desert began. He pulled over to the side and scanned the horizon, looking into the glaring flatness ahead, and drummed his hands on the steering wheel. Like Dean would, like Dean had a thousand times, over and over, sometimes slipping his hand down so that his ring finger would clack against the plastic. Just to annoy Sam or maybe he never realized he was doing it.

It was getting down to it, and Sam knew he had to ask the question, the ratiocination one Dad had taught him that asked: If I were Dean, where would I be going? It was one thing to follow Dean’s trail by finding little articles about angels and black dogs in the paper. It was another to try and figure out why the trail went the way it did. Dean had been on this highway, walking, just about an hour before. Where was he headed? Into the desert? Sure. Possibly. But why?

Sam leaned over to grab the map out of the back seat, and he spread it out across the passenger seat, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the neck of his t-shirt. For good measure he leaned over and rolled down the passenger side window all the way. Better. Now he could concentrate.

New Mexico. Land of enchantment. Also, land of the missing Dean. Sam looked at the map, unable to figure out where Dean would go next and why. A stray wind flipped the corners of the map, and Sam held them down, smudging the edges with sweaty fingers. Including a smudge in the upper left corner, where he saw the dot next to the word Shiprock, which started him to thinking. There was that highway, the one in all the movies, in Arizona maybe.

One night, when he and Dean had been socked in by snow somewhere in New YorkState, Dean had made him watch the Western marathon on cable. He’d sweetened the deal by providing the beer and pretzels and Jagermeister, going drunkenly on and on about the road and the rocks and John Wayne. He’d even looked it up on the internet, grabbing the laptop from Sam’s duffle bag without so much as a by your leave. The pictures had been stark, the rocks all shades of red against the blue. But pure, with white clouds and one black streak of road cutting right through the middle. Sam could see why that would appeal to Dean. But that road was in Arizona.

Sam turned to the state map at the front of the atlas, tracing the red lines with his finger. Yes, it was very likely that Dean was headed there. To the spot on the map surrounded by plain white paper and thin red lines with the unassuming tagline of MonumentValley. Which meant that if Dean was going there, and couldn’t be seen on the highway here, at the southwest edge of town, then he’d probably started walking north. Back through Albuquerque, where he would probably head up to 550 and go northwest through the mountains and over the flats.

Sam didn’t let himself think. Instead, he turned the car around and headed back up Central Avenue, and kept driving till he was close to OldTown. He looked at the streets, thinking about someone walking and which road they would choose. Which road Dean would choose. Finally, he took a left at Rio Grande Boulevard, which lined by a mix of homes and shops and schools as it stretched off into the north. It looked unassuming, and busy enough but not too busy. Besides, it felt right.

Five minutes later and there he was. Sam’s mouth went dry as he recognized the backpack first, set on the ground in the shade, and then the leather jacket that was slung through the shoulder straps. Then he saw the dusty jeans and the boots, and finally the set of those shoulders as he drove by almost running a red light. Dean had been standing in a dirt parking lot next to a silver trailer with a faded, striped awning swung out. The sign read “Fresh Tacos and Indian Fry Bread,” and of course Dean would stop. Even if it were his last dollar, he was a sucker for fresh Mexican food. Sam turned around at the next intersection, wondering if he’d missed it. But no, there was the silver trailer, and Dean, lounging against the painted side of the adobe building that said Little Shops, half in the shade, leaning against it like he owned it. And maybe, in his mind, for that moment, he did. His little piece of heaven.

This made him mad, him looking for Dean all this time while his brother sauntered across the country, not a care in the world. Leaving Sam behind asking questions without answers, making him worry. His chest felt like it was on fire, and the entrance to the parking lot behind the trailer came up fast and Sam had to turn hard, wheels spinning in the dust as the engine growled, sending up a cloud. He slammed on the brake, and turned off the engine and flew out of the car. He could already see that Dean had spotted him, eyes wide, throwing down the remains of his meal and taking off along the back of the building, disappearing around the corner and into the maze of adobe houses and alleys and shops. All simmering in the heat, a warren for Dean to hide in.

*

As Dean walked along the street, he saw the shine of a trailer and could see the large, hand-painted white sign. Even without being able to read it he knew that it was either tourist crap or real home-made Mexican food. He kept walking, feeling the dust and heat stirring around him with every step, and when he got close enough to read the sign, he let out a whoop. Indian fry bread and Mexican tacos. Cold beer. He could eat his fill and then walk out into the desert to die, and what a fitting end that would be. Only he knew that he wouldn’t. He would order a nice meal, have one cold beer and keep walking. Hitching when he could. There where he was headed and what he would do once he got there was beyond him.

Money in hand, he stepped up to stand at the counter beneath the little cloth awning, and sighed. “Two tacos, one fry bread, and a beer.”

“Si,” said the man. “Seven dollars.”

When Dean gave him the money, he started making up Dean’s order. Dean watched as he listened to the cars pass by on the road behind him. When he got his food, he took off his backpack and leaned against the building, just about in the shade, and bit into the first taco. It was so good, dripping with juice from the meat and the sting of spices hot on his tongue, he finished it in three bites. The second one, he would make last longer, but just as he was unfolding the paper, he saw a flash of a black car go by. The flash felt familiar, but then, there were lots of black cars on the road, and he’d been looking for the Impala for so long, every black car made his head go up, his eyes scanning each length of black metal.

He turned back to the taco, and was halfway through chewing his first bite, had just taken a sip of beer, when the same black flash pulled into the parking lot behind the trailer, kicking up dust and burning rubber to break. Glinting black and chrome in the sun.

It was the Impala. It was Sam. For all the heat, Dean went cold, like someone had bathed him in ice water, bringing back sudden chill memories of the water in the institution that never quite got hot enough. And in the middle of that, his heart shot upward in his throat. How had Sam found him? And what did he remember? He didn’t want to ask outright, maybe Sam was still the Sam that he’d known, maybe he wasn’t.

He couldn’t bear to find out. So he ran. He didn’t even snatch up his backpack first, he needed to get out and away. But when he got around the building, the street didn’t open up, it got narrow, went west to some warehouses and east to a school. Dean picked the warehouse, there was another warehouse behind that and-

But Sam was right behind him, slamming into him so hard that Dean slipped on the uneven ground, and they both crashed down onto the cement sidewalk. His left knee twisted, and was on fire, and he felt the sear of gravel against his skin, but it was Sam, all sweat and furious above him, holding him down. Hair in his eyes. Both hands on Dean’s shoulders, pressing, fingers digging in. The weight of Sam was suddenly there, his jeans were hot where they straddled Dean’s thighs. The smell, hot and sweet and Sam, his Sam, soaking into him all around, and he wanted to lean into it, to tell Sam, I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry, please-

Then Sam shook him, banging Dean’s head against the pavement. Sam was right there, in his face, heat pouring off of him, his eyes reflecting every memory, recognizing every part of Dean. Sam knew him, and Dean felt his breath squeak out of his lungs. Sam was going to kill him, the muscles in his arms bare in the heat, brown from the sun, quivering. Mouth a straight, white-lipped line, eyes blazing and furious.

Then Sam opened his mouth, and said, “Before I was big, I was little.”

Dean’s heart sank. That Sam, the one in the institution, had said that, as a poem, a prayer, a way of remembering the brother that he loved. The brother who he now knew had used him terribly. Had enjoyed it.

“When did you remember?’ asked Dean, trying to move his neck from the grit in the street. But Sam held him still.

“When I woke up and found your note, it was like a slap in the face and-”

Sam’s voice sounded like it had been cut by blades, and it made Dean’s heart ache. But there were several cars slowing down to look, and a group of kids on the sidewalk, standing stock still, watching two men try to kill each other right outside their playground. This wasn’t right. It was a nice neighborhood. Someone was going to call the police.

“Sam, we need to get out of here. You can kill me, okay? But we gotta-”

Sam lunged to his feet and with a fist, hauled Dean up to stand right next to him. Mouth in Dean’s ear, hissing. “You fucking take off again and I’ll break both legs, you got that?”

Definitely Sam. Dean wanted to laugh a little, here was the old Sam, his Sam, the real one. Full of piss and vinegar, all legs and strut, knowing what he thought and what he felt and how to open his mouth and express it. But mad now, at Dean, killing mad, furious enough to make threats that he wouldn’t carry out, but that he would say that-

“Sam,” he said, reaching up to make Sam loosen his hold.

Sam knocked his hand away, flushed, breathless. “We are going back to the car, and you are getting in, and not giving me any crap, you got that?”

Dean got that. Shutting up was the better part of valor at the moment, but he took a step, his knee screamed at him, and he stumbled, the shirt in Sam’s fist tearing.

Sam’s brows lowered and the cars honked for them to get back on the sidewalk. He dragged Dean there, stumbling. “You-”

“It’s just my knee, Sam,” Dean said. “We-” But he didn’t want to go on about it, that he’d been some dumb girl who couldn’t roll when he fell to avoid wrenching his knee. Thank God it’d not been his ankle, that would have been just too girly.

His mind danced away from the real issue, Sam holding his shirt, the torn cotton flapping away, where the bruises from the zombie were clear and dark. Sam’s fingers, so long and fine, Sam who could make it better. He shouldn’t be thinking about that.

“What the fuck, Dean?” asked Sam. Then, not waiting for an answer, he looped his arm around Dean’s ribs and started hobbling him back to the parking lot. Where the Impala was and his backpack and no chance to walk off into the desert and die. Sam wasn’t going to have any of it, he knew this even before he might try to open his mouth.

When they got back to the car, Dean could see in a glance that it had been washed and waxed recently. Under the film of dust, the chrome was shiny and someone had put new wipers on. Even the tires looked deep black, like they’d been armoralled.

“What the fuck, Sam?” said Dean, much the way Sam just had.

Sam gave him a shove towards the car, reaching down to grab the backpack, flinging dust as he picked it up. “Just get in, we got to get out of here.”

He threw the backpack into the open window of the back seat, and gave Dean another push, his hand large and warm in the center of Dean’s back.

Dean slid into the passenger seat, his knee screaming at him, his arm flecked with grit and blood. His head ached from where it had thumped into the ground. Sam slammed the door behind him, pressing down the lock with a fist, even though, yeah, Dean could undo that in a hot second, it was the principle of the thing; Sam was making a point. And making another point by not handing over the keys to Dean. No, he got in the driver’s side and started up the engine, gentle on the ignition and waiting a few seconds before setting her out of park and into reverse, just like he was supposed to, the way Dean had been lecturing at him to do for years.

Sam headed up Rio Grande, the same way Dean had been going, like it didn’t matter to Sam where they went, because Dean had already decided their direction. But he was still mad, his mouth in that thin line, turned downward to scowl at the road, the traffic. Looking at anything but Dean.

Dean’s heart fell. He’d handled everything so badly, from the moment he came to awareness in the hospital, to taking care of Sam. To leaving him. To this moment right here. He knew he was going to screw it up even before he began.

Sam drove north, through suburbs and more shops, driving through the flat streets like he’d studied the map and knew exactly where he was. Which he probably did. He took a left off Rio Grande when it ended, following the two lane blacktop through rural side streets, and then at the next big intersection, where 550 sped off into the desert, Sam took a left.

“Where are we going?” he asked, looking over at Sam. Sam wasn’t looking at him.

“Where you wanted to go,” said Sam. Terse. He reached down next to Dean’s legs, and picked up the atlas to throw it at him. The spine was broken and the pages dog-eared, and it opened up sideways by itself in Dean’s lap. The smudges told him that Sam had been tracing the roads with his fingers, like he did, even though he knew it pissed Dean off. The marks traced their way up to the northwest corner of the outlines of New Mexico, and then Dean knew that Sam knew. How did he know? Like he always did. Knowing what was inside of Dean, even when it was ugly. Or beautiful, like the shining, distant horizon of faraway places, sparkling in the sun.

Dean folded the map carefully between his two hands and placed it back on the floor next to his feet. They might be going where Dean wanted to go, but it would be Sam’s way. And Sam was pissed as hell.
Chapter 27 cont.

Blue Skies From Rain Master Fic Post