Will You Settle For Love, Ch 2
Changing the alarm tone to Back In Black didn’t make Dean any happier to wake up so early. Yeah, this was the part he was going to have to get used to. He hadn’t lived by a schedule and someone else’s rules since he was a kid, and even then, they were his dad’s, not some random stranger’s. Still, he’d been good at it then, thrived on it really, so maybe once he settled into living this way, it would be good for him. He already knew it would be great for Sam.
As a kid, Sam had craved the stability of a routine. Not the routine of training and hunting their father had in place; he hated that from the jump and never failed to vocalize his dissatisfaction. But on the rare occasions when they settled down for three or four months in some little town and Sam got to walk to the same school every day, see the same people, make a schedule for homework and studying, that was the happiest he ever was when they were growing up.
In his times of great distress - his six months alone after Broward County, the time while Dean was in Hell, even when he was soulless - routine was his default setting. It was instinctive to eat the same things at the same time every day, to carefully organize everything he owned, all of it to an excessive degree. When Sam felt out of control, he compensated by having complete control over the small things he could. Maybe now, since he’d chosen his circumstance, having a routine would be a real comfort, not just a way to keep from going crazy.
Dean pulled himself from his thoughts (and from the bed) so he could shower and get dressed. He wasn’t going to show up late on his first day of work. Just as he was pulling on his boots, he heard Sam stirring.
“You gotta go now?”
“Yeah, gotta go now Sammy. Both of us didn’t luck out on a shift that doesn’t start until ten”, Dean replied, reaching over to ruffle Sam’s hair.
Sam just grinned up at him with sleepy eyes. “Hey, you’re gonna do great, you know?”
“’Course I know. You are too. You’re off at, what, four?”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Sam replied, his head still resting comfortably on his pillow.
“Good. You can cook me some dinner, then. I’ll be back before six.”
Sam threw a pillow at his head. “Not your housewife, Dean.” he mumbled.
“We’ll see about that, sweetcheeks.”
That remark got him a half-asleep bitchface, but not another pillow to the head, because there was only one other pillow and Sam wasn’t about to give it up just to throw it at Dean. “Kiss me goodbye then, sweetcheeks.”
So Dean kissed him, bitched about his morning breath, and headed out the door.
It was with much more trepidation that Sam went to leave for his own job a couple of hours later. Dean had done this before, worked a steady job, and he knew what he was doing. Also, Dean hadn’t had a recent bout of Lucifer-induced insanity that left behind a lingering anxiety disorder. He’d been medicated for it to some extent at the hospital and considered that once his health insurance kicked in, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to get a prescription for some anti-anxiety medication. Not that shit you take every day that gives you the shakes and kills your sex drive, just something for whenever he could sense that churning feeling in his gut attempting to take over. It’s not like being a clerk in a bookstore was what he’d classify as ‘challenging’, but a new situation, strange people, and his lack of any real-life work experience definitely made him nervous.
As expected, Dean spent the first half of his day filling out paperwork and signing forms and being introduced to his co-workers. No one batted an eye at the expertly prepared identification his brother had made for him. After lunch, he finally got to do what he went there to do: work. His first task was almost insultingly simple, buffing out scratches from the driver’s side of an expensive sports car. He grinned when he saw the scratches weren’t random - they were words. CHEATING FUCKER, to be exact. Most likely scrawled into the paint job with a key.
Sam spent almost his entire shift filling out paperwork and signing forms and being introduced to his co-workers, as well. Health insurance, those forms were the most complicated. His previous hospitalization wasn’t a pre-existing condition since he’d been checked in under an alias, as he had been on just about every hospital or doctor visit he’d had in his entire life. With a slightly shaking hand, he elected coverage for himself as well as his ‘domestic partner’, Dean Smith. His matronly supervisor gave him a soft look when she saw that, and he detected no judgment from her. The last hour or so was spent being instructed in how to use the register and the ways in which it was most effective to talk people into joining the store’s rewards program.
Sam was pretty certain he’d never win any prizes for being good at that.
At the end of the day, though, he walked the six blocks back to their house feeling fairly confident and considering the possibility of getting a bicycle. There had been a few brief moments of panic at meeting new people, but nothing he couldn’t handle. And now he was home. Home.
Dean wanted dinner. And he’d have it. Sam wasn’t exactly a genius in the kitchen, but he could pull off simple meals, and he figured he’d start with as simple as it gets - pasta with sauce from a jar and pre-seasoned garlic bread.
At a quarter to six, Dean walked into their house and took in the aroma coming from the kitchen. Sam was just draining the penne (just regular penne, he figured he’d ease his brother into whole wheat pasta gradually) and the garlic bread was baking. Dean walked into the kitchen and immediately slid up behind Sam, kissing his neck and saying, “Awww, you really did cook me dinner. Guess that makes you the housewife after all, huh?”
Sam slapped Dean’s arm with a wooden spoon. “Shut up, jerk. It’s just spaghetti and garlic bread. How’d it go today?”
“Great. Got to buff out some obscenity that was keyed into some rich fucker’s Jag. What about you? Any trouble?”
And yeah, it was implied, understood; ‘trouble’ had a specific definition. “A little panic here and there, but nothing I can’t handle. Also, in a month, if I don’t have an attack of the crazies and get fired, we’ll both have health insurance.”
Dean was stunned almost into silence with that piece of information. “What, they have family coverage? You told them I was your brother?”
“Nope. Policy covers ‘domestic partners’.” Sam responded with a grin. “Progressive, huh? So anyway, yeah, it’ll be for both of us. Totally covered by the store, nothing taken out of my paycheck for it.”
“Damn, that’s a sweet deal. Makes up for the crap money they’re paying you. Speaking of which, how does that work at your place?”
“I’ll get a check on the 15th, which will only be partial since I’ll only have six days of working until then. Again on whatever is the last business day of the month. What about you?”
“Every Friday. Taxes taken out like a law-abiding citizen and direct-deposited into our joint checking account.” Dean thought a minute before he gave voice to what was going on in his head. “This is weird.”
Sam laughed while he dumped the pasta back into the big pot he’d cooked it in and stirred it up with a generous helping of the store-brand red sauce he’d heated up. “Well, yeah, to us. But most people live like this their whole adult lives, and we’ll get used to it. Eventually.”
Dean smiled then, a real smile that showed on his whole face. “Guess we will. Also, I thought we’d hit up a thrift store or some yard sales, Saturday, after I get paid. We still need a sofa, some kitchen stuff, maybe, uh…you know, a side table or a dresser?”
“Sure, yeah, let’s do that. I already worked out a budget and figured out how much we can spend on stuff like that for the next couple months.”
“Why am I not surprised you’d get that all figured out on your own? We’re gonna be okay. Not living like royalty, but shit, how many weeks did we spend as kids eating nothing but dry cereal or bologna sandwiches on stale bread? I can bargain-shop for groceries like a boss.”
Laughing, Sam responded, “Good, ‘cause grocery shopping isn’t on my list of Domestic Chores I Will Embrace.”
“Dude, I did not just volunteer to make all of the trips to Aldi!”
“Oh, no, I believe you did. You’re the expert, right?” Sam ignored Dean’s murderous glare as he heard the timer go off, then removed the garlic bread from the oven.
Dean took one whiff of it and said, “Fine, I’ll do the shopping.”
Score one for Sammy. He wasn’t great at cooking, but he could learn. Grocery shopping, however, he would certainly hate forever. They both knew that a division of labor would either have to be planned out, or it would fall into place naturally. Sam hoped for the latter.
Weeks and months flew past faster than either Sam or Dean expected. They were both in possession of debit cards, health insurance, a bookcase and a coffee table before they knew it. One of Dean’s co-workers who had a pickup truck offered to haul a sofa they’d purchased at Goodwill to their house. Sam’s boss asked if he wanted a charcoal grill; her husband had bought a fancy new propane job and they didn’t need it anymore. Dean invited their neighbors for a cookout on Labor Day weekend. They’d had dinner with the Lopez family on more than one occasion, Sam had mowed Mrs. O’Malley’s lawn several times, and Dean had been roped into changing Stephanie’s brake pads one Saturday as she sat on the grass and pumped him for information about his relationship with Sam. The guys at the shop where Dean worked knew he lived with a guy, but never gave him any shit about it, at least not to his face. None of them treated him differently or made any gay jokes, which was a relief.
So there they were, hosting a backyard barbecue and entertaining guests like they knew what the hell they were doing. It wasn’t that hard, though. During the summer, Sam had gone to see a family practice doctor and was prescribed a low-dose benzodiazepine to take as needed for anxiety. He’d needed them fairly often at first, but as he got more comfortable with his surroundings and secure in their new life, he found it was rarely necessary.
Today, though, he’d taken one of the pills an hour before people were scheduled to start showing up at their house. As a result, he was just as at ease conversing casually with their neighbors as Dean was manning the grill. After a little while, he noticed Manuel had been fairly silent and keeping to himself, nursing a can of Coke on their back steps.
“Hey”, Sam said, as he approached the boy. “Nervous about school starting?”
“Uh…yeah, I mean, I am, junior year and all, you know how important that is.” It was clear, though, that something else was bugging the kid.
“Come on, what is it really? Is there something going on?”
The boy looked down and mumbled, “Just some stuff the other kids are talking about, I - it’s all crazy, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway.”
Sam knew that unless the ‘stuff the other kids are talking about’ turned out to be Bigfoot sightings, there was a whole lot he really would believe. Of course, Manuel had no way of knowing that.
“Why don’t you try me? I’m an open-minded guy. Whatever it is, it’s upsetting you. I told you before, if you need something, ask me. I didn’t just mean school stuff.”
Taking a deep breath, Manuel looked up at him. “It’s just kind of freaking me out, the things people are saying. You know the school on the other side of the highway? Ashford?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it.” Sam had actually considered enrolling in an online class or two until he realized it was one of those for-profit places and didn’t have much in the way of accreditation. “You know some people who are going to college there?”
“No, it’s not that. One of the buildings on campus, it’s abandoned, guys go there to sneak beers, hook up with a girl, whatever. But now there are all these rumors going around. Creepy sounds, things being moved around. My friend Tony, he swears he got pushed down when there wasn’t anyone even close to him. Some of the other guys, they said he just doesn’t want to admit he had too much to drink and he fell, but Tony says he only had two beers and I believe him. He’s really freaked out. And now the guys are making fun of him, saying he’s telling ghost stories, he’s a big baby, stuff like that. School starts back Tuesday and he thinks everyone is going to, like, give him a hard time about it or whatever. I’ve never been out there - really, I haven’t!”
Sam laughed, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Hey, teenagers sneaking out to an abandoned building to drink and make out is not exactly what I’d call a cardinal sin. Hell, I did it myself, a million years ago, so did Dean. Not that I’d encourage underage drinking, obviously, but hey, there are worse things. I’m sorry about your friend.”
“It’s all right, Sam, thanks. I appreciate that you offered to listen, anyway. I can’t tell my parents because then you know they’ll be all like omigod beer and sex and ahhhhhhhh! and freaking out. Just forget it, I’m sure everything will blow over.”
Manuel got up to join the rest of the party then, and Sam did his own mingling, complimenting Dean on his flawless burgers and talking to some of the other neighbors.
Chapter 3