First Night Blues
Author: seerargent
Title: First Night Blues
Rating: R (only for the language), Gen
Word Count: 4,754
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchester dolls for the purposes of general angst. Sorry about the holes!
A/N: Door 1 in my SPN Advent Calendar
This one’s for karenmiller who knows that “the play’s the thing.”
Setting: Southfold, N.H. December, 1998.
Summary: A little woad is a dangerous thing.
… The time is just before dawn.
A rooster crows.
ACT I
‘Sam? What the fuck?’
Sam choked on the pipe he’d just stuck back in his mouth. ‘Uh …’ He thought frantically as he spat it out onto the ground. There had to be something he could say to make this appear to be anything other than what it was. Trouble was he had - nothing. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have an entire lifetime (okay, fifteen years anyway) of practice at deception, and maybe a con or two, or a lot.
‘Nice hat,’ Dean said with a smirk as he yanked it down over Sam’s eyes.
‘Dean!’ Sam wrenched the hat off and tried to whack his attacker over the head with it. He was in the middle of a goddamn farm for heaven’s sake! How’d his big brother managed to sneak up on him?
‘Nuh uh. Never catch me,’ Dean sang as he dodged the pathetic felt weapon.
Sam ended up throwing the hat at Dean and stomping off across the frosty grass. Alone.
Dean, never one to take a hint, subtle or otherwise, ran ahead of him, and then began to jog in irritating backwards circles around him. ‘I’ve been watching you for the past hour. You’ve been wandering around this field waving your arms about like a madman.’ He grinned, swinging the forgotten pipe in front of Sam’s face. ‘So, exactly what have you been smoking, Sammy?’
Thankfully Dean would find even a nun suspicious, and had swiftly jumped to the wrong conclusion. But Sam could work with that. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t memorised everything already. ‘I don’t think he smokes no cigarettes, Mr Webb. Leastways not more’n two or three a year.’
‘Say what?’ Dean blurted out, understandably confused as he looked down at the battered pipe in his hand. You could see the wheels turning slowly inside his head. Cigarette? Webb?
Sam just smiled. At least he’d taken his brother’s mind off the rooster.
~~~
‘You’re a dork,’ Dean repeated for the third, and hopefully the final time as they wandered back through the eerie backwater quiet that was downtown Southfold at seven in the am.
If there was an exciting heart to New Hampshire, and Sam still thought that was debatable, the small town they were in was situated somewhere behind the state’s left knee. Everyone knew everyone else and their lives so well that they could probably tell you to the minute when their neighbours came downstairs to make breakfast and what they were having. Sam loved it, but he knew that kind of predictability made Dean twitch.
‘Because?’ He heard himself enquire before he could think.
‘Because, what?’ Dean asked as he dodged Duff, the elderly bearded collie cross sleeping in his usual spot in the middle of Main Street, and veered off to idly check out the hot sellers in the hardware store’s front window.
Sam hated that he couldn’t stop himself asking, ‘I’m a dork because?’
‘Many reasons,” Dean said as he followed his brother through town towards this month’s house. ‘Mostly because you were out in the middle of nowhere doing a good impression of Marcel MarSoSo.’
‘I wasn’t miming,’ Sam replied hotly. ‘I was rehearsing my …’ Oops. There he went again, forgetting Dean was - well, Dean. He knew better than even their father, not to underestimate his brother. Dean never forgot anything, and he could lull a saint into a false sense of security before moving in for the kill.
Sam shot a glance sideways. Yup. Dean was looking at him expectantly. That one damned eyebrow cocked, just waiting for little brother to ‘fess up everything. Well, shit. Knowing Dean, he’d probably been stalking him for days now, and knew his secret already. Talk about turning their childhood training games against your own family. Sam belatedly realised he’d come to a stop and was standing on the corner of their street staring at his brother while his mind went into discovery meltdown. He must look like a …
‘Sheep? Guppy?’ Dean proffered helpfully.
Guh. Who’d be a Winchester? There were no secrets, even in one’s own head. Ever.
‘Rehearsing,’ Dean prompted as he gave him a shove towards what never could be home, no matter how hard Sam tried to fit into the small community.
Sam winced. ‘My lines,’ he said in a much smaller voice than he’d meant to. Damn it.
‘Lines?’ Dean said, drawing it out. Making him suffer. Big brothers were hell.
‘My part,’ Sam muttered down into the neck of his hoodie.
‘Oh, your part. You know I’ll give you a buzz cut any time. Then you won’t have to worry about your hair any longer,’ Dean said, mocking him with his best insincere smile.
‘In the play!’ Sam choked out, hating his brother for making him spell it out.
‘The play. Would that be the high school’s exciting Christmas production of Our Town? Posters all over town? Copy of Thornton Wilder stuffed under your mattress for a month? Sneaking out of the house to practise in Mr Wallace’s back acre every day before school? That play?’ Dean’s voice oozed sarcasm.
Sam wondered if killing his brother would be a bad thing. After all it wasn’t like both Dean and their father hadn’t taught him a dozen ways …
‘Never take me in a million years, Sammy.’ Dean just grinned at him as he thumped him on the shoulder. ‘I must say I was hoping you were up to something a little naughtier. And as for highlighting your lines in pink?’ Dean shook his head sadly. ‘Not a good choice. You’re a moron.’
Sam meant to protest that the pens had been on sale but he knew Dean’s next remark would undoubtedly be something cutting about the global phenomena that is Barbie™.
‘I thought I was a dork?’ Sam found himself saying instead. It was right about then that he decided that killing himself was the better option. It had to be easier in the long run.
Dean snickered for a minute. ‘You’re a clever dork, you can multi-task can’t you?’ Then he sighed, and looked particularly distressed. ‘But next time can you please use a damned blue marker? We need to have some standards.’
~~~
Mr Willard had somehow managed to spend a whole hour droning on about how the Appalachian range’s Pleistocene granite was crossed with Devonian basalt, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Sam was dutifully underlining the relevant parts in his textbook (except for the bit about the pear tree because he was fairly sure that wasn’t going to be in any test), while he tried not to think about tomorrow’s rehearsal. He got kind of distracted, however, by the swathes of colour bleeding across the pages. Fuschia? Magenta? Violet? Cerise? Roseus? Even translating it into Latin didn’t help. There was no getting around it; his geology book was a sea of pink. Sam hunched over the desk doing his best to hide the evidence from view of his classmates. Fuck. No wonder he’d been getting some strange looks lately. Two months in a new school, trying to fit in as usual, joining up for absolutely everything, and what was probably standing out the most to his fellow students? His pink highlighter, and the fact that he was now a certifiable drama dork. Way to go, Sam.
He grabbed his thankfully blue biro and started jotting down additional notes inside the front cover while making a promise to himself to buy another highlighter that afternoon before his life as he knew it ceased to exist. It was only then he noticed that a certain someone had added, in large sprawling pink writing, the words “Drama Central, Southfold, New Hampshire, The United States of America, Western Hemisphere, the Earth, the Solar System, the Universe” below his own neatly printed name. It was about then he decided that he really hated his brother.
~~~
Sam made a brief, but necessary, detour to the stationery store before stomping home. He deliberately ignored the trellises, covered with vines that surely bloomed with pink flowers in spring, kicked the rolled up Sentinel out of the way before slamming through the back door yelling ‘Dean!’
‘You got a problem, Sam?’ his father remarked much too quietly from his seat at the kitchen table. He put the safety back on the pistol before placing it down next to the large pot of black coffee in front of him.
Sam dropped his heavy knapsack and came to immediate an uneasy parade rest. ‘No, Sir.’
His father just sat there looking at him for a long moment before Dean eased into the kitchen.
Both of them knew better than to say anything under that critical stare. Well, for a while anyway.
‘Dad, he wrote in my book! In pink!’ Sam burst out finally, knowing he sounded like he was still in grade school.
‘It was his pen,’ Dean retorted defensively, scuffing his boots on the checked linoleum.
‘You defaced my textbook!’
‘I just wrote your address.’
‘In pink!’ Sam wailed again.
‘Should have got another pen, Stage boy.’
That was all it took for Sam to snap and jump his brother. They’d been wrestling for about ten minutes, each alternately gaining the upper hand before the other pulled a better move. Sam was nearly convinced that his newfound and much envied greater reach was going to win out over his brother’s strength and knowledge of dirty tricks before their fight was abruptly ended by a bucket of water.
They pulled each other up to stand dripping before their father again. By the time he’d critiqued every move and outlined an increased training schedule Sam was over the whole pink argument. Okay, partly over it.
~~~
Dean dangled himself dangerously from the highest rung on the extendable ladder they’d propped up against the guttering. ‘My kingdom for a pink marker,’ he yelled out into the night.
‘Shit, Dean!’ Sam flung his torch and script onto the roof and grabbed the back of Dean’s belt with one hand, the other hanging grimly onto the jagged edge.
‘Heh,’ Dean chortled happily, still swinging upside down. ‘Live a little, Sammy. Don’t be such a wuss.’
‘m not a wuss. I just don’t want to be the one to explain to Dad why your head split apart like an overripe watermelon after you bounce to a stop on the pavers. Though on second thoughts he might not notice the difference.’
‘Bitch,’ Dean said, slapping Sam’s hand aside before curling easily back up to lever himself onto the roof again.
Sam swiped his bloody hand absentmindedly on his jeans and nobly refrained from making his usual come back. ‘Quiet, Dean. You’ll wake Dad.’ He made a careful mental note to do more abdominal crunches.
‘He’s been on a hunt for a week. I don’t think we could wake him if we tried. Leastways, not with noise. If we tried to sneak around, that would be another story. He’d be up and aiming in a second.’
Sam didn’t even bother to justify that with a response. Dean was, as usual, totally on the money about their father.
Dean grabbed the script off him, and unerringly found a pertinent line. ‘Don’t make a noise. Your father’s been out all night and needs his sleep. I washed and ironed the blue gingham for you special.’
Sam ignored his sing-song voice as they settled back into the play. He mightn’t like to admit it but Dean had been known to wield an iron once or twice on his behalf. Generally only once a year on Prize Night. He bitched like a princess about it, but he’d never, ever, let Sam get on stage without making sure he looked exactly like all the other kids, and cooler if he had anything to do with it.
~~~
Sam winced as he manoeuvred a table onto the stage as the school orchestra ground out a loud and syrupy rendition of “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds.” The rusty guttering had sliced much too easily through his palm. Dean hadn’t said anything when he’d given him a tetanus booster and patched up the wound the previous evening. He’d joked that Sam should just tell his teachers that he cut his hand while he was eating an apple. But he had cooked French toast for their breakfast, grumbling ‘Shut up,’ when Sam smiled at him. Sam hadn’t even wanted to suggest his brother should buy a nice frilly apron.
‘Pianissimo! Louder isn’t better,’ the music teacher bleated tipsily out without much hope of attention from his bored looking charges.
Sam dumped the final chair on stage, sniggering at what his brother would say about that outlandish idea.
As their English teacher bustled around tweaking the few designated props to appear to their best, minimalist, advantage, Sam eased into place next to Sandra who blinked through her glasses, smiling, before jerking her head surreptitiously off to one side.
‘Winchester!’
‘Sir?’ Sam said innocently, eye wide with practised confusion.
‘Stage right, Winchester,’ came the weary instruction. ‘No, your other right. Next to Baxter.’
Sam just shrugged, and grinned at Sandra before finding his real mark next to one of the maths club’s foundation members.
‘Good try,’ Patrick whispered when their teacher’s attention had moved onto another thespian victim. ‘You got to stand next to her for a whole minute this time.’
By the time the first part of the rehearsal was over Sam had managed to drift towards Sandra a lot more than the script called for. He thanked the gods for the advantages of being part of a small group where multiple roles were a necessity.
‘That’s the end of the First Act, guys,’ their teacher said to them all with obvious relief. ‘Take ten, and if I catch any of you smoking outside, there will be more than detention in your future.’
ACT II
‘I feel like three years have gone by,’ Dean snarked impatiently as they shovelled the last lot of dirt out of a grave in the neighbouring hamlet.
‘More like three hours,’ Sam replied, trying very hard not to wrinkle his nose at the sour smell of the dank earth surrounding them. He levered himself out of the roughly dug hole and looked down on his brother who was muttering something about bringing the goddamn ladder next time. Sam decided it would be both childish and stupid in the extreme to accidentally knock some of the piled up dirt onto Dean. So he only did it the once before bending down to give his furious brother a helping yank skywards.
Dean strangely only hit him the once. Which, when he thought about it later, was only fair. But his brother normally only held back when he was worried about Sam, or protecting him from something.
Sam flexed his bandaged hand, looking across at the headstone sadly. Together, as in life. ‘38 years they were married. Do you suppose they still loved each other?’
‘Stop thinking,’ Dean said quietly, tossing a can towards him. ‘Let’s just get this done before they both come after anyone again.’
Sam hated it when his brother was right. Besides, there was no way he was going home to tell Dad that he couldn’t handle a little easy grave desecration, salt and burn on a school night. Now that would put a stop to any of the more normal after-school activities he’d fought to be a part of.
As they proceeded to burn the previously happy couple’s bones Sam couldn’t help but wonder at the strangeness that was love and marriage. His father might go out very occasionally and come back smelling of perfume, but neither he nor Dean ever doubted that the first and last thought in John Winchester’s mind was of his wife. They both knew they tied for second in their father’s heart, and they wouldn’t have understood or wanted it any differently.
~~~
Sam knew Dean was still worried the next day when he found him waiting for him outside the school grounds. He knew better than to call Dean on it though. ‘Why sir, are you here to carry my books?’ He fluttered his eyelashes irritatingly in a scarily accurate imitation of the head cheerleader’s giggling mannerisms.
‘Books, what books?’ Dean growled, easily ignoring the pile Sam was struggling with.
By the time they’d gone half a block Dean had somehow got hold of most of the texts and was blandly strolling along chatting about something mechanical related to their father’s car.
Sam relaxed and let the familiar refrain wash over him. His brother liked to do things for people, and Sam was definitely not the exception to that rule. It simultaneously drove Sam crazy, and comforted him at the same time.
‘Keep dragging around this much homework and you’ll be elected President of your class,’ Dean said with feigned irritation.
‘No chance of that,’ Sam said somewhat wistfully. There was no way, no matter how hard he tried that he’d ever have anything vaguely like the normal life he wanted so badly. He snuck a fond glance at his brother; busy pretending the books weren’t damned heavy. Still at least that was another advantage to their father’s punishing fitness schedule. They could both handle pretty much anything the world threw at them. Including a ton of homework.
He caught Dean’s frown. ‘Everything OK with Dad? He was just going off to check out that zombie rumour up in Laconia wasn’t he? Did he check in OK?’
‘Yeah, he’s fine, should be finished up soon.’
‘How soon?’ Sam asked with the awful idea that he knew exactly what was troubling Dean.
‘Couple of days, end of the week, max.’ Dean said looking straight ahead.
Fuck. No matter how often this happened, Sam was never ready to deal with this. ‘Will he be back for the play?’ He was proud that his voice didn’t waver an inch. All right, maybe just a fraction.
‘Your shining moment as George Gibbs, a baseball player, and Simon Stimson? Neither of us would miss it if we could help it.’ Dean grinned, almost confidently, at Sam. ‘Come on let’s go get a soda at the drugstore.’
Sam sniffled just a bit, but it was winter, and cold out. There was no way he was going to get upset out in public. No … way. He closed his fist hard around the bandage. Pain helped. There was no way he was ever going to be the kind of man his brother and father were. Especially if he got upset at the very idea of leaving again, or his father missing his big night. He wasn’t a kid. He could take it, or at the very least fake it with the best of them. He’d had the perfect education for that.
He was fine until they got inside and he realised he wasn’t doing such a good job at subterfuge. Either that or Mr Morgan was a great judge of teenagers. Sam could tell that he was about to ask what was wrong, but Dean typically rushed to his brother’s defence with a quick story about dodging a speeding four-wheel drive outside.
Dean hastily ordered their drinks before going over to physically threaten the elderly juke box into emitting something other than a daunting organ rendition of Handel’s “Largo.” The jukebox was sensibly cowed by Dean’s standover tactics and hiccuped slowly into the first verse of “Let It Be.”
The disappointed expression on Dean’s face as he angrily pushed buttons on the machine cheered Sam up immensely. The sudden burst of static preceding a screech of “Ombra mai fu di vegetabile” however, was almost enough to have him laughing into his glass.
‘Goddamn wedding music,’ Dean snarled as he thumped down into the booth.
‘Opera,’ Sam gasped trying not to inhale the bubbles.
‘Whatever,’ Dean said with a fleeting look at him. ‘I don’t need to know. What say we make a deal? I’ll concentrate on the important things. You learn everything else.’
As Mr Morgan walked around the store drawing the curtains and coughing meaningly at them, an elderly lady who apparently didn’t have Dean’s taste in music tottered out the door, wavering in time to the music and reminiscing happily to herself, ‘Didn’t she make a lovely bride?’
ACT III
Sam wasn’t sure why he was fond of cemeteries. Dean, he knew, hated them though he hid it under jokes about really bad epitaphs. As his whole family literally seemed to spend half their lives in graves he thought that both of them should have been more blasé. But, typically, on this, as in most things, they were complete opposites.
Sam liked them enough to visit them even without their father. In daylight. Dean, on the other hand would visit a library before he’d go to a cemetery when they weren’t on a job.
The carefully kept graveyard in Southfold had swiftly made it into his secret top ten. He enjoyed the view from the windy hilltop, the town in one direction, blue hills and the lake in another. Mostly though, he laid himself back on one of the more comfortable patches of lawn next to his favourite grave - Edward Woolich 1732-1803 The Lord Layeth Me Down - and read or watched the clouds skitter by in a sky that seemed too big for the state.
He made up stories about the cemeteries residents. Quiet, peaceful stories that went with the kind of town that had heard of burglars, but had never known anyone who’d been robbed. That was weirdly soothing to this Winchester. The town seemed strangely isolated, almost protected from the outside world, ringed as it was by a veritable hotbed of supernatural unrest. Sam was glad that their father had picked Southfold as their current base, no matter how much Dean moaned about the lack of cute girls, and the boredom involved in baby-sitting his little brother in their father’s absence.
Today he wasn’t dreaming of other people’s lives. He was working out a way to get Dean to admit the truth. Just because he was upset at the idea of just up and leaving in the middle of everything he’d only recently gotten used to, it didn’t mean that he wanted his brother to keep treating him like a child and protecting him forever. He figured he’d have to be sneaky about it though. A public place was probably the best place. Avoid confrontation, but make his point at the same time. On stage.
‘Up here all alone? People are going to start talking, Sammy.’
Sam didn’t twitch. He wasn’t a total idiot, and whatever else, he was still a Winchester. This was his spot, and he’d heard the almost silent sounds of Dean’s stealthy approach a few minutes back.
‘Just me, the mountain laurel and the lilacs,’ Sam said calmly, still staring upwards.
‘Li-lacks,’ Dean mocked, lying down beside him. ‘What are we looking at?’ Dean eventually asked.
‘Everything,’ Sam said.
‘Oh,’ Dean replied after a minute. ‘Do we want fries with that?’
Sam rolled over and grinned at his brother. ‘Maybe.’
~~~
Dean mooched hungrily along next to a line of Civil War veteran’s graves; iron flags still stalwartly flying against the wind. He trailed a surprisingly gentle hand over one of the worn inscriptions before looking up at Sam. ‘Do you think they even knew what they were fighting for before they left home?’ He’d obviously aimed for sarcasm, but as sometimes happened when they were together, the pretence fell away.
‘Maybe they found out along the way,’ Sam said sadly.
Dean nodded. ‘Do you suppose they’re uncomfortable when we’re around?’
‘The bodies or the ghosts?’
‘Both?’
‘Probably,’ Sam answered. That was something he’d rather not think about.
Dean nodded, before moving them faster towards the exit. Characteristically he got distracted en route. ‘Huh. Look, no words - just some squiggles.’
‘That’s notes, Dean. Music.’
‘I know music,’ Dean protested with a pout. ‘So what’s the music?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I thought we had a deal. You knowing everything, remember? You should know, you spend all your time buried in books, when you’re not running off to play soccer.’
‘I haven’t played soccer for two years, Dean.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t need to anymore,’ Sam said simply, with a smile at his brother.
‘Aw, don’t say that. You’re not going to turn into a girl again on me, are you?’
‘I love you too, Dean.’
‘See? You had to go and say it, didn’t you?’ Dean protested with his best macho grimace as he wiped some sticky imaginary emotion off his chest. He sighed with relief when the clouds decided to muscle into the discussion. ‘Christ! Come on, Sammy. It’s gonna pour in a minute. Plus, we’ve got fries to slaughter, and I’ve got the best idea for your big ghost scene. Just you wait!’
~~~
Sam stood at the side of the stage. He’d looked out before Act I to see what he expected. Dean sitting front and centre. Alone. It had hurt as it always did when his father couldn’t be there. But he knew now what had been hard to accept when he was younger. He realised that his father wanted to be there. He just couldn’t be when there was something to hunt, someone to save. Their father wasn’t willing to take the chance that he’d miss the demon that killed Mary.
Dean had stood, whistling and clapping, visible, and definitely audible over the sounds of all the other proud parents at the end of every act. He’d somehow managed to sneak backstage, help Sam with his death makeup, and gotten back into his seat with minutes to spare before the curtain rose on the third act.
Sam smiled and stood straighter. He serenely ditched his plan to insert a few extra lines about the pain of leaving into his final biting speech, took a final deep breath and walked on stage to the awed gasps of the audience.
~~~
Dean headed into the makeshift dressing rooms, pushing his way through the crowd of his brother’s classmates, barrelling up to his brother to be the first to give his congratulations. ‘Sammy, you were awesome.’
‘You dyed me blue, Dean!’
‘I thought you wanted to make Sandra Harris notice you?’
‘Notice me. Like me, Dean. Not by being blue!’
‘But you looked cute. Her sister sure thought so.’
‘Her sister’s five.’
‘Still. She knew what she liked. And she liked blue.’
Sam groaned before finally giving in to ask, ‘what did you use?’
‘Woad.’
‘Isatis tinctorial?’ Sam said with an azure frown.
‘I love it when you talk Latin,’ Dean took a closer, admiring look at the results of his “helping.”
‘Shut up! You made woad, like Uncle Bobby taught us?’
‘Nah. Too much trouble.’
‘Please tell me it was food colouring?’
‘It was going to be. I planned to steal some from Home Ec. Would have worked like a charm too.’
‘Would have?’
Dean scowled down at the dusty floorboards. ‘Old Mrs Banner had the store cupboard triple locked. I only had one padlock to go and then the damned cleaner interrupted me. I ended up using some stuff out of your chemistry set.’
‘At least that will wash off.’
‘Uh.’
‘Uh, what, Dean?’
‘UhImighthaveaddedsomeotheringredientssoitwouldn’truboffonyourcostume.’
‘Huh?’
‘I said I might have added some other ingredients so it wouldn’t rub off on your costume before the end of the play. And I think the footlights triggered some kind of extra chemical reaction.’ He flapped his hands distractedly at Sam’s skin. ‘I didn’t expect you to turn quite this … iridescent.’
Sam decided if he took any more deep breaths he’d start hyperventilating. ‘How long, Dean?’
His brother gave him a careful look before slouching in a deliberately unconcerned, but totally cool way against the wall. ‘A few days? A week, tops?’
‘A week? I’m going to be blue for a week?’
Dean shrugged. ‘Look at it this way. You’re going to be a legend in Southfold. Forever.’
As the English teacher cum Stage Manager brushed past them in the narrow corridor, winding his watch and muttering something about everyone getting a good night’s rest, Sam stood there fuming - helplessly and radiantly blue. He forgot about his father, about having to leave town and go God knows where next, and concentrated on glaring at his brother. ‘That’s how long I’m going to hate you for this, Dean. Forever.’
THE END
For further Christmas stories and graphics see my: SPN Advent Calendar
Title: First Night Blues
Rating: R (only for the language), Gen
Word Count: 4,754
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchester dolls for the purposes of general angst. Sorry about the holes!
A/N: Door 1 in my SPN Advent Calendar
This one’s for karenmiller who knows that “the play’s the thing.”
Setting: Southfold, N.H. December, 1998.
Summary: A little woad is a dangerous thing.
… The time is just before dawn.
A rooster crows.
ACT I
‘Sam? What the fuck?’
Sam choked on the pipe he’d just stuck back in his mouth. ‘Uh …’ He thought frantically as he spat it out onto the ground. There had to be something he could say to make this appear to be anything other than what it was. Trouble was he had - nothing. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have an entire lifetime (okay, fifteen years anyway) of practice at deception, and maybe a con or two, or a lot.
‘Nice hat,’ Dean said with a smirk as he yanked it down over Sam’s eyes.
‘Dean!’ Sam wrenched the hat off and tried to whack his attacker over the head with it. He was in the middle of a goddamn farm for heaven’s sake! How’d his big brother managed to sneak up on him?
‘Nuh uh. Never catch me,’ Dean sang as he dodged the pathetic felt weapon.
Sam ended up throwing the hat at Dean and stomping off across the frosty grass. Alone.
Dean, never one to take a hint, subtle or otherwise, ran ahead of him, and then began to jog in irritating backwards circles around him. ‘I’ve been watching you for the past hour. You’ve been wandering around this field waving your arms about like a madman.’ He grinned, swinging the forgotten pipe in front of Sam’s face. ‘So, exactly what have you been smoking, Sammy?’
Thankfully Dean would find even a nun suspicious, and had swiftly jumped to the wrong conclusion. But Sam could work with that. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t memorised everything already. ‘I don’t think he smokes no cigarettes, Mr Webb. Leastways not more’n two or three a year.’
‘Say what?’ Dean blurted out, understandably confused as he looked down at the battered pipe in his hand. You could see the wheels turning slowly inside his head. Cigarette? Webb?
Sam just smiled. At least he’d taken his brother’s mind off the rooster.
~~~
‘You’re a dork,’ Dean repeated for the third, and hopefully the final time as they wandered back through the eerie backwater quiet that was downtown Southfold at seven in the am.
If there was an exciting heart to New Hampshire, and Sam still thought that was debatable, the small town they were in was situated somewhere behind the state’s left knee. Everyone knew everyone else and their lives so well that they could probably tell you to the minute when their neighbours came downstairs to make breakfast and what they were having. Sam loved it, but he knew that kind of predictability made Dean twitch.
‘Because?’ He heard himself enquire before he could think.
‘Because, what?’ Dean asked as he dodged Duff, the elderly bearded collie cross sleeping in his usual spot in the middle of Main Street, and veered off to idly check out the hot sellers in the hardware store’s front window.
Sam hated that he couldn’t stop himself asking, ‘I’m a dork because?’
‘Many reasons,” Dean said as he followed his brother through town towards this month’s house. ‘Mostly because you were out in the middle of nowhere doing a good impression of Marcel MarSoSo.’
‘I wasn’t miming,’ Sam replied hotly. ‘I was rehearsing my …’ Oops. There he went again, forgetting Dean was - well, Dean. He knew better than even their father, not to underestimate his brother. Dean never forgot anything, and he could lull a saint into a false sense of security before moving in for the kill.
Sam shot a glance sideways. Yup. Dean was looking at him expectantly. That one damned eyebrow cocked, just waiting for little brother to ‘fess up everything. Well, shit. Knowing Dean, he’d probably been stalking him for days now, and knew his secret already. Talk about turning their childhood training games against your own family. Sam belatedly realised he’d come to a stop and was standing on the corner of their street staring at his brother while his mind went into discovery meltdown. He must look like a …
‘Sheep? Guppy?’ Dean proffered helpfully.
Guh. Who’d be a Winchester? There were no secrets, even in one’s own head. Ever.
‘Rehearsing,’ Dean prompted as he gave him a shove towards what never could be home, no matter how hard Sam tried to fit into the small community.
Sam winced. ‘My lines,’ he said in a much smaller voice than he’d meant to. Damn it.
‘Lines?’ Dean said, drawing it out. Making him suffer. Big brothers were hell.
‘My part,’ Sam muttered down into the neck of his hoodie.
‘Oh, your part. You know I’ll give you a buzz cut any time. Then you won’t have to worry about your hair any longer,’ Dean said, mocking him with his best insincere smile.
‘In the play!’ Sam choked out, hating his brother for making him spell it out.
‘The play. Would that be the high school’s exciting Christmas production of Our Town? Posters all over town? Copy of Thornton Wilder stuffed under your mattress for a month? Sneaking out of the house to practise in Mr Wallace’s back acre every day before school? That play?’ Dean’s voice oozed sarcasm.
Sam wondered if killing his brother would be a bad thing. After all it wasn’t like both Dean and their father hadn’t taught him a dozen ways …
‘Never take me in a million years, Sammy.’ Dean just grinned at him as he thumped him on the shoulder. ‘I must say I was hoping you were up to something a little naughtier. And as for highlighting your lines in pink?’ Dean shook his head sadly. ‘Not a good choice. You’re a moron.’
Sam meant to protest that the pens had been on sale but he knew Dean’s next remark would undoubtedly be something cutting about the global phenomena that is Barbie™.
‘I thought I was a dork?’ Sam found himself saying instead. It was right about then that he decided that killing himself was the better option. It had to be easier in the long run.
Dean snickered for a minute. ‘You’re a clever dork, you can multi-task can’t you?’ Then he sighed, and looked particularly distressed. ‘But next time can you please use a damned blue marker? We need to have some standards.’
~~~
Mr Willard had somehow managed to spend a whole hour droning on about how the Appalachian range’s Pleistocene granite was crossed with Devonian basalt, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Sam was dutifully underlining the relevant parts in his textbook (except for the bit about the pear tree because he was fairly sure that wasn’t going to be in any test), while he tried not to think about tomorrow’s rehearsal. He got kind of distracted, however, by the swathes of colour bleeding across the pages. Fuschia? Magenta? Violet? Cerise? Roseus? Even translating it into Latin didn’t help. There was no getting around it; his geology book was a sea of pink. Sam hunched over the desk doing his best to hide the evidence from view of his classmates. Fuck. No wonder he’d been getting some strange looks lately. Two months in a new school, trying to fit in as usual, joining up for absolutely everything, and what was probably standing out the most to his fellow students? His pink highlighter, and the fact that he was now a certifiable drama dork. Way to go, Sam.
He grabbed his thankfully blue biro and started jotting down additional notes inside the front cover while making a promise to himself to buy another highlighter that afternoon before his life as he knew it ceased to exist. It was only then he noticed that a certain someone had added, in large sprawling pink writing, the words “Drama Central, Southfold, New Hampshire, The United States of America, Western Hemisphere, the Earth, the Solar System, the Universe” below his own neatly printed name. It was about then he decided that he really hated his brother.
~~~
Sam made a brief, but necessary, detour to the stationery store before stomping home. He deliberately ignored the trellises, covered with vines that surely bloomed with pink flowers in spring, kicked the rolled up Sentinel out of the way before slamming through the back door yelling ‘Dean!’
‘You got a problem, Sam?’ his father remarked much too quietly from his seat at the kitchen table. He put the safety back on the pistol before placing it down next to the large pot of black coffee in front of him.
Sam dropped his heavy knapsack and came to immediate an uneasy parade rest. ‘No, Sir.’
His father just sat there looking at him for a long moment before Dean eased into the kitchen.
Both of them knew better than to say anything under that critical stare. Well, for a while anyway.
‘Dad, he wrote in my book! In pink!’ Sam burst out finally, knowing he sounded like he was still in grade school.
‘It was his pen,’ Dean retorted defensively, scuffing his boots on the checked linoleum.
‘You defaced my textbook!’
‘I just wrote your address.’
‘In pink!’ Sam wailed again.
‘Should have got another pen, Stage boy.’
That was all it took for Sam to snap and jump his brother. They’d been wrestling for about ten minutes, each alternately gaining the upper hand before the other pulled a better move. Sam was nearly convinced that his newfound and much envied greater reach was going to win out over his brother’s strength and knowledge of dirty tricks before their fight was abruptly ended by a bucket of water.
They pulled each other up to stand dripping before their father again. By the time he’d critiqued every move and outlined an increased training schedule Sam was over the whole pink argument. Okay, partly over it.
~~~
Dean dangled himself dangerously from the highest rung on the extendable ladder they’d propped up against the guttering. ‘My kingdom for a pink marker,’ he yelled out into the night.
‘Shit, Dean!’ Sam flung his torch and script onto the roof and grabbed the back of Dean’s belt with one hand, the other hanging grimly onto the jagged edge.
‘Heh,’ Dean chortled happily, still swinging upside down. ‘Live a little, Sammy. Don’t be such a wuss.’
‘m not a wuss. I just don’t want to be the one to explain to Dad why your head split apart like an overripe watermelon after you bounce to a stop on the pavers. Though on second thoughts he might not notice the difference.’
‘Bitch,’ Dean said, slapping Sam’s hand aside before curling easily back up to lever himself onto the roof again.
Sam swiped his bloody hand absentmindedly on his jeans and nobly refrained from making his usual come back. ‘Quiet, Dean. You’ll wake Dad.’ He made a careful mental note to do more abdominal crunches.
‘He’s been on a hunt for a week. I don’t think we could wake him if we tried. Leastways, not with noise. If we tried to sneak around, that would be another story. He’d be up and aiming in a second.’
Sam didn’t even bother to justify that with a response. Dean was, as usual, totally on the money about their father.
Dean grabbed the script off him, and unerringly found a pertinent line. ‘Don’t make a noise. Your father’s been out all night and needs his sleep. I washed and ironed the blue gingham for you special.’
Sam ignored his sing-song voice as they settled back into the play. He mightn’t like to admit it but Dean had been known to wield an iron once or twice on his behalf. Generally only once a year on Prize Night. He bitched like a princess about it, but he’d never, ever, let Sam get on stage without making sure he looked exactly like all the other kids, and cooler if he had anything to do with it.
~~~
Sam winced as he manoeuvred a table onto the stage as the school orchestra ground out a loud and syrupy rendition of “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds.” The rusty guttering had sliced much too easily through his palm. Dean hadn’t said anything when he’d given him a tetanus booster and patched up the wound the previous evening. He’d joked that Sam should just tell his teachers that he cut his hand while he was eating an apple. But he had cooked French toast for their breakfast, grumbling ‘Shut up,’ when Sam smiled at him. Sam hadn’t even wanted to suggest his brother should buy a nice frilly apron.
‘Pianissimo! Louder isn’t better,’ the music teacher bleated tipsily out without much hope of attention from his bored looking charges.
Sam dumped the final chair on stage, sniggering at what his brother would say about that outlandish idea.
As their English teacher bustled around tweaking the few designated props to appear to their best, minimalist, advantage, Sam eased into place next to Sandra who blinked through her glasses, smiling, before jerking her head surreptitiously off to one side.
‘Winchester!’
‘Sir?’ Sam said innocently, eye wide with practised confusion.
‘Stage right, Winchester,’ came the weary instruction. ‘No, your other right. Next to Baxter.’
Sam just shrugged, and grinned at Sandra before finding his real mark next to one of the maths club’s foundation members.
‘Good try,’ Patrick whispered when their teacher’s attention had moved onto another thespian victim. ‘You got to stand next to her for a whole minute this time.’
By the time the first part of the rehearsal was over Sam had managed to drift towards Sandra a lot more than the script called for. He thanked the gods for the advantages of being part of a small group where multiple roles were a necessity.
‘That’s the end of the First Act, guys,’ their teacher said to them all with obvious relief. ‘Take ten, and if I catch any of you smoking outside, there will be more than detention in your future.’
ACT II
‘I feel like three years have gone by,’ Dean snarked impatiently as they shovelled the last lot of dirt out of a grave in the neighbouring hamlet.
‘More like three hours,’ Sam replied, trying very hard not to wrinkle his nose at the sour smell of the dank earth surrounding them. He levered himself out of the roughly dug hole and looked down on his brother who was muttering something about bringing the goddamn ladder next time. Sam decided it would be both childish and stupid in the extreme to accidentally knock some of the piled up dirt onto Dean. So he only did it the once before bending down to give his furious brother a helping yank skywards.
Dean strangely only hit him the once. Which, when he thought about it later, was only fair. But his brother normally only held back when he was worried about Sam, or protecting him from something.
Sam flexed his bandaged hand, looking across at the headstone sadly. Together, as in life. ‘38 years they were married. Do you suppose they still loved each other?’
‘Stop thinking,’ Dean said quietly, tossing a can towards him. ‘Let’s just get this done before they both come after anyone again.’
Sam hated it when his brother was right. Besides, there was no way he was going home to tell Dad that he couldn’t handle a little easy grave desecration, salt and burn on a school night. Now that would put a stop to any of the more normal after-school activities he’d fought to be a part of.
As they proceeded to burn the previously happy couple’s bones Sam couldn’t help but wonder at the strangeness that was love and marriage. His father might go out very occasionally and come back smelling of perfume, but neither he nor Dean ever doubted that the first and last thought in John Winchester’s mind was of his wife. They both knew they tied for second in their father’s heart, and they wouldn’t have understood or wanted it any differently.
~~~
Sam knew Dean was still worried the next day when he found him waiting for him outside the school grounds. He knew better than to call Dean on it though. ‘Why sir, are you here to carry my books?’ He fluttered his eyelashes irritatingly in a scarily accurate imitation of the head cheerleader’s giggling mannerisms.
‘Books, what books?’ Dean growled, easily ignoring the pile Sam was struggling with.
By the time they’d gone half a block Dean had somehow got hold of most of the texts and was blandly strolling along chatting about something mechanical related to their father’s car.
Sam relaxed and let the familiar refrain wash over him. His brother liked to do things for people, and Sam was definitely not the exception to that rule. It simultaneously drove Sam crazy, and comforted him at the same time.
‘Keep dragging around this much homework and you’ll be elected President of your class,’ Dean said with feigned irritation.
‘No chance of that,’ Sam said somewhat wistfully. There was no way, no matter how hard he tried that he’d ever have anything vaguely like the normal life he wanted so badly. He snuck a fond glance at his brother; busy pretending the books weren’t damned heavy. Still at least that was another advantage to their father’s punishing fitness schedule. They could both handle pretty much anything the world threw at them. Including a ton of homework.
He caught Dean’s frown. ‘Everything OK with Dad? He was just going off to check out that zombie rumour up in Laconia wasn’t he? Did he check in OK?’
‘Yeah, he’s fine, should be finished up soon.’
‘How soon?’ Sam asked with the awful idea that he knew exactly what was troubling Dean.
‘Couple of days, end of the week, max.’ Dean said looking straight ahead.
Fuck. No matter how often this happened, Sam was never ready to deal with this. ‘Will he be back for the play?’ He was proud that his voice didn’t waver an inch. All right, maybe just a fraction.
‘Your shining moment as George Gibbs, a baseball player, and Simon Stimson? Neither of us would miss it if we could help it.’ Dean grinned, almost confidently, at Sam. ‘Come on let’s go get a soda at the drugstore.’
Sam sniffled just a bit, but it was winter, and cold out. There was no way he was going to get upset out in public. No … way. He closed his fist hard around the bandage. Pain helped. There was no way he was ever going to be the kind of man his brother and father were. Especially if he got upset at the very idea of leaving again, or his father missing his big night. He wasn’t a kid. He could take it, or at the very least fake it with the best of them. He’d had the perfect education for that.
He was fine until they got inside and he realised he wasn’t doing such a good job at subterfuge. Either that or Mr Morgan was a great judge of teenagers. Sam could tell that he was about to ask what was wrong, but Dean typically rushed to his brother’s defence with a quick story about dodging a speeding four-wheel drive outside.
Dean hastily ordered their drinks before going over to physically threaten the elderly juke box into emitting something other than a daunting organ rendition of Handel’s “Largo.” The jukebox was sensibly cowed by Dean’s standover tactics and hiccuped slowly into the first verse of “Let It Be.”
The disappointed expression on Dean’s face as he angrily pushed buttons on the machine cheered Sam up immensely. The sudden burst of static preceding a screech of “Ombra mai fu di vegetabile” however, was almost enough to have him laughing into his glass.
‘Goddamn wedding music,’ Dean snarled as he thumped down into the booth.
‘Opera,’ Sam gasped trying not to inhale the bubbles.
‘Whatever,’ Dean said with a fleeting look at him. ‘I don’t need to know. What say we make a deal? I’ll concentrate on the important things. You learn everything else.’
As Mr Morgan walked around the store drawing the curtains and coughing meaningly at them, an elderly lady who apparently didn’t have Dean’s taste in music tottered out the door, wavering in time to the music and reminiscing happily to herself, ‘Didn’t she make a lovely bride?’
ACT III
Sam wasn’t sure why he was fond of cemeteries. Dean, he knew, hated them though he hid it under jokes about really bad epitaphs. As his whole family literally seemed to spend half their lives in graves he thought that both of them should have been more blasé. But, typically, on this, as in most things, they were complete opposites.
Sam liked them enough to visit them even without their father. In daylight. Dean, on the other hand would visit a library before he’d go to a cemetery when they weren’t on a job.
The carefully kept graveyard in Southfold had swiftly made it into his secret top ten. He enjoyed the view from the windy hilltop, the town in one direction, blue hills and the lake in another. Mostly though, he laid himself back on one of the more comfortable patches of lawn next to his favourite grave - Edward Woolich 1732-1803 The Lord Layeth Me Down - and read or watched the clouds skitter by in a sky that seemed too big for the state.
He made up stories about the cemeteries residents. Quiet, peaceful stories that went with the kind of town that had heard of burglars, but had never known anyone who’d been robbed. That was weirdly soothing to this Winchester. The town seemed strangely isolated, almost protected from the outside world, ringed as it was by a veritable hotbed of supernatural unrest. Sam was glad that their father had picked Southfold as their current base, no matter how much Dean moaned about the lack of cute girls, and the boredom involved in baby-sitting his little brother in their father’s absence.
Today he wasn’t dreaming of other people’s lives. He was working out a way to get Dean to admit the truth. Just because he was upset at the idea of just up and leaving in the middle of everything he’d only recently gotten used to, it didn’t mean that he wanted his brother to keep treating him like a child and protecting him forever. He figured he’d have to be sneaky about it though. A public place was probably the best place. Avoid confrontation, but make his point at the same time. On stage.
‘Up here all alone? People are going to start talking, Sammy.’
Sam didn’t twitch. He wasn’t a total idiot, and whatever else, he was still a Winchester. This was his spot, and he’d heard the almost silent sounds of Dean’s stealthy approach a few minutes back.
‘Just me, the mountain laurel and the lilacs,’ Sam said calmly, still staring upwards.
‘Li-lacks,’ Dean mocked, lying down beside him. ‘What are we looking at?’ Dean eventually asked.
‘Everything,’ Sam said.
‘Oh,’ Dean replied after a minute. ‘Do we want fries with that?’
Sam rolled over and grinned at his brother. ‘Maybe.’
~~~
Dean mooched hungrily along next to a line of Civil War veteran’s graves; iron flags still stalwartly flying against the wind. He trailed a surprisingly gentle hand over one of the worn inscriptions before looking up at Sam. ‘Do you think they even knew what they were fighting for before they left home?’ He’d obviously aimed for sarcasm, but as sometimes happened when they were together, the pretence fell away.
‘Maybe they found out along the way,’ Sam said sadly.
Dean nodded. ‘Do you suppose they’re uncomfortable when we’re around?’
‘The bodies or the ghosts?’
‘Both?’
‘Probably,’ Sam answered. That was something he’d rather not think about.
Dean nodded, before moving them faster towards the exit. Characteristically he got distracted en route. ‘Huh. Look, no words - just some squiggles.’
‘That’s notes, Dean. Music.’
‘I know music,’ Dean protested with a pout. ‘So what’s the music?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I thought we had a deal. You knowing everything, remember? You should know, you spend all your time buried in books, when you’re not running off to play soccer.’
‘I haven’t played soccer for two years, Dean.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t need to anymore,’ Sam said simply, with a smile at his brother.
‘Aw, don’t say that. You’re not going to turn into a girl again on me, are you?’
‘I love you too, Dean.’
‘See? You had to go and say it, didn’t you?’ Dean protested with his best macho grimace as he wiped some sticky imaginary emotion off his chest. He sighed with relief when the clouds decided to muscle into the discussion. ‘Christ! Come on, Sammy. It’s gonna pour in a minute. Plus, we’ve got fries to slaughter, and I’ve got the best idea for your big ghost scene. Just you wait!’
~~~
Sam stood at the side of the stage. He’d looked out before Act I to see what he expected. Dean sitting front and centre. Alone. It had hurt as it always did when his father couldn’t be there. But he knew now what had been hard to accept when he was younger. He realised that his father wanted to be there. He just couldn’t be when there was something to hunt, someone to save. Their father wasn’t willing to take the chance that he’d miss the demon that killed Mary.
Dean had stood, whistling and clapping, visible, and definitely audible over the sounds of all the other proud parents at the end of every act. He’d somehow managed to sneak backstage, help Sam with his death makeup, and gotten back into his seat with minutes to spare before the curtain rose on the third act.
Sam smiled and stood straighter. He serenely ditched his plan to insert a few extra lines about the pain of leaving into his final biting speech, took a final deep breath and walked on stage to the awed gasps of the audience.
~~~
Dean headed into the makeshift dressing rooms, pushing his way through the crowd of his brother’s classmates, barrelling up to his brother to be the first to give his congratulations. ‘Sammy, you were awesome.’
‘You dyed me blue, Dean!’
‘I thought you wanted to make Sandra Harris notice you?’
‘Notice me. Like me, Dean. Not by being blue!’
‘But you looked cute. Her sister sure thought so.’
‘Her sister’s five.’
‘Still. She knew what she liked. And she liked blue.’
Sam groaned before finally giving in to ask, ‘what did you use?’
‘Woad.’
‘Isatis tinctorial?’ Sam said with an azure frown.
‘I love it when you talk Latin,’ Dean took a closer, admiring look at the results of his “helping.”
‘Shut up! You made woad, like Uncle Bobby taught us?’
‘Nah. Too much trouble.’
‘Please tell me it was food colouring?’
‘It was going to be. I planned to steal some from Home Ec. Would have worked like a charm too.’
‘Would have?’
Dean scowled down at the dusty floorboards. ‘Old Mrs Banner had the store cupboard triple locked. I only had one padlock to go and then the damned cleaner interrupted me. I ended up using some stuff out of your chemistry set.’
‘At least that will wash off.’
‘Uh.’
‘Uh, what, Dean?’
‘UhImighthaveaddedsomeotheringredientssoitwouldn’truboffonyourcostume.’
‘Huh?’
‘I said I might have added some other ingredients so it wouldn’t rub off on your costume before the end of the play. And I think the footlights triggered some kind of extra chemical reaction.’ He flapped his hands distractedly at Sam’s skin. ‘I didn’t expect you to turn quite this … iridescent.’
Sam decided if he took any more deep breaths he’d start hyperventilating. ‘How long, Dean?’
His brother gave him a careful look before slouching in a deliberately unconcerned, but totally cool way against the wall. ‘A few days? A week, tops?’
‘A week? I’m going to be blue for a week?’
Dean shrugged. ‘Look at it this way. You’re going to be a legend in Southfold. Forever.’
As the English teacher cum Stage Manager brushed past them in the narrow corridor, winding his watch and muttering something about everyone getting a good night’s rest, Sam stood there fuming - helplessly and radiantly blue. He forgot about his father, about having to leave town and go God knows where next, and concentrated on glaring at his brother. ‘That’s how long I’m going to hate you for this, Dean. Forever.’
THE END
For further Christmas stories and graphics see my: SPN Advent Calendar