for tsuki_no_bara
by zionsstarfish
SPN. PG, language, ~1800 words, post-DT.
Not mine; just playing.
Thanks, as always, to luzmaria8
It occurred to Dean, as he shuffled a credenza from one end of the room to the other, considered, drank coffee, considered again, and moved the credenza back, that he had no idea what to do with a house. That last bit was the first line I thought of for this story. Also, any excuse to use the word credenza = awesome.
It had been left to him in Pastor Jim's will, an old, busted up cabin tucked away beyond a long dirt road and surrounded by evergreen trees. There was running water, at least--though it was brown for the first five minutes. There was enough electricity to run a microwave from the 1970's and an avocado green fridge. Shout-out to my childhood fridge. Ahh, avocado. There was a grand stockpile of food that seemed to indicate that Pastor Jim had had a caffeine and sweet tooth almost as bad as Dean's. That, or he'd known Dean would be coming along eventually.
Dean, the will had said, even if you just use the house to store your winter boots, that'll be fine by me. Dean had heard his father's sentiments in that statement, and the gnawing grief in his stomach hadn't gone away for days. Sam had looked secretly pleased, as if it had all been some kind of mutual coincidence of intent. Of course, Sam wasn't here now to help him move the ugly-assed furniture.
Pastor Jim had been a cool guy and all, but he'd had horrible taste in chairs.
"Just throw them out," Sam had said, as if all he knew about interior decorating hadn't come from watching the Home Renovating channel starring Bob Vila. "It's just you living there anyway, for now." His cell phone had crackled; Dean had imagined Sam driving with all the windows down, left arm tanned, his puny white ipod hooked up somehow to the Impala's speaker system and cranking out god knows what kind of smarmy radio drivel at a respectable decibel level. Probably one of the first mental pictures I got when I started thinking of this story: an aerial shot of Sam driving down a winding road, all the windows down.
"They're kind of a cross between Little House on the Prairie and pure, unadulterated evil. This seat cushion has tiny ears of corn on it. God. Think if I douse it in holy water, it'll sizzle?" Shout-out to one of my favourite HP authors, fearlessdiva, who wrote about evil chairs that weren't really evil. Really!
Sam had laughed. "Just burn it, then you'll know for sure."
"Bonfire of Evil Chairs. Check. I'll see if Pastor Jim bought any marshmallows. Hey, Sam?"
"Yeah?"
Don't let those law guys push you around, he'd wanted to say. So much of this story is about what they don't say to each other, but somehow understand anyway.
"Break my car and die."
Sam had hung up then, and Dean had listened to the dial tone with a smile. Dean's okay without Sam, see? He's perfectly fine! Fine, just fine. Fine.
Fine.
*
Essentially a compilation of a living room, a small eating area--like hell Dean was going to call it a nook--a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom, the house was nothing to be nervous about. He'd lived in worse places before, sometimes for months at a time. He couldn't explain why he felt so jumpy. Mostly because he's never been responsible for a home before. This baby is his, and he's a little overwhelmed.
Dean decided to do what he usually did when he couldn't contain his jumpiness (other than getting laid, getting drunk, getting high from speeding down a barely lit road): clean. I clean like Martha Stewart the night before something big happens... this story is starting to seem suspiciously like therapy ;)
Mustiness wrinkled Dean's nose. He forced all the windows open and the cool air sliced through the stagnancy. The living room was the worst, piled floor to ceiling with tome after tome. The carpet was dusty, the windows were covered with a suspicious looking film, and, of course, there was the armada of evil chairs.
He pushed up his sleeves and got to work.
*
Sam called a week later.
"You have no idea what to do with a house, do you?" Sam teased. hahaha, he's so right. He was cooking--pots and pans clanging in the background, an occasional hiss and curse. Dean was cooking, too, one of about a thousand microwaveable meals he'd found stacked in the freezer. Two minutes on high equaled creamy deliciousness. Not that Dean can't cook... he just knows the proper time to implement convenience foods!
"Of course I know what to do."
There was an amused silence on the other end.
"Fine, I haven't a clue." He'd cleaned up most of the living room a day ago, and had decided to tackle the bathroom after noticing a disgusting amount of rodent droppings on the tiled floor. And if Dean had happened to shriek at the sight of a rat tail vanishing through a crack in the baseboards, he wasn't telling a soul. His muscles were aching, but he was sleeping soundly every night. He wondered if Sam had been as lucky.
"Sounds like you're doing all right. Fuck!"
"Add the fucking garlic near the end, loser," Dean said, scraping the bottom of the cardboard carton. See? I told you he could cook! "But to be perfectly honest..."
Dean heard the sound of a garbage can being opened, a clatter of pans, and then the beeping of a microwave. Two minutes on high. Aww, Sammy. Dean had the right idea all along...
"What?"
"Shit, Sam. I know the house is paid off. But there are taxes, and bills, and I don't even... I can't..." Some things are easier to talk about when you don't have to see the other person face-to-face.
He rubbed his hand over his face, wishing he hadn't said anything at all. He listened to Sam rattle around for a fork, and then slump down into a chair. The microwave whirred on.
"Leave it to me." I shall use my Sam-fu!!
"You don't make enough money as it is--"
"I know. I'm not talking about me."
Dean frowned. "You told me that the money Dad put away for us when we were kids is gone."
"It is. But he wasn't the only one." I love the idea that Mom made provisions to take care of her boys in case anything happened to her.
Dean's mouth was suddenly dry. He stabbed holes into the cardboard carton.
"Sam--"
"She had life insurance. So there's money. Not a lot, but hell..." He laughed, low and easy, and Dean wondered when Sam had developed this ability to talk about their mom without his throat getting all tight. "...we've never needed much of anything." At Dean's silence, he added, "Don't say no. She'd like the idea."
Sam's microwave beeped.
"Yeah," Dean said. "Yeah, okay."
*
Dean's cell phone woke him up at four-thirty in the morning. He fumbled for the damned thing as it chirped and chirped from somewhere in his bed sheets, coming to the awful realization that he'd fallen asleep in his painting clothes (he'd only planned to lie down for a moment and rest his eyes) and had gobs of glossy latex in Pebble Mosaic adhered to his skin. It took forever to decide on a paint colour. Don't ask me why. Sometimes it's the little things :)
"...know it's late. Or early. And you're probably pissed at me. But I can't. Just. I take the fucking coffee order, Dean. Every morning. And some shithead always wants a venti half-caf non-fat soy vanilla latte and when he gets it he complains that he wanted half-fat and not non-fat. I could kill him. You know I could. They would never find the body. And then? I think I spend more time with the photocopier than I do alone. I know it intimately, Dean. Intimately. If someone wants thirty-six copies double-sided, on low-gloss eleven-and-a-half-by-seven, collated, stapled, and enlarged by one hundred and nine percent, I know how to do that. It's just not natural. I've picked up dry-cleaning and babysat a Labradoodle. I've given someone my own suit jacket because he just spilled his venti half-caf non-fat soy vanilla latte on his $1800 Armani one five minutes before court. He's not possessed by a demon, Dean; I know because I've checked!" This paragraph was so much fun to write! I wanted a huge, solid block of Sammy-freak-out. I think I even Googled "most complicated Starbucks order in the history of forever" because I'm more of an off-the-menu kind of girl, but I didn't find anything useful.
"Sam. Sam. Sammy."
"What." Sam's belligerent tone wasn't promising. *Sam bitch-face extraordinaire*
"You know what I'm gonna say." Dean rubbed his eyes, and then cursed when flakes of paint came off in his eyelashes.
Sam took a huge breath. Let it out. Repeated.
"Yeah. I do. You'd tell me to slash his tires and make it look like some other guy in the firm did it."
Dean grinned. "Damn straight."
Sam gave a weary laugh.
"I know they're just giving me shit because I'm new. It's just. I hate the artifice. All the posturing, and the double-talk, and the red tape. It sucks. Sometimes I wish..."
"...I hadn't come here at all."
He trailed off, but Dean understood.
*
The salt line had been disturbed. Disturbed, and then remade.
Dean left the groceries on the driveway and drew his gun. Stalked slowly up to the door and found it locked. It could have been a raccoon, Dean mused, and then heard Sam's voice in his head: idiot, when has it ever been a raccoon?
He hadn't left the property in a month; Pastor Jim had left the house that well-stocked. But now that the cleaning and repairing was finally almost done, Dean had realized how low he was on essentials: toilet paper, toothpaste, coffee. The trip into town had taken him an hour, tops. If it had been a raccoon, it had had a damned good sense of timing.
He circled around back, looking for more clues, when his heart lurched: the Impala was parked at the back of the house, muddy and in need of some love, but intact. HIS BABY!!!!
Sam. HIS BABY BROTHER!!!!!!!!!
He was sprawled on the bed, half under the covers, dead asleep. It looked like he'd driven for miles without stopping; fatigue was etched into his face. His boots lay where he'd kicked them off, one just outside the bedroom and one just inside. His jacket was flung on top of one of the few chairs that had passed Dean's scrutiny. There was no luggage, and Dean wondered if that meant Sam's bags were just in the trunk of the car, or if he'd even bothered to pack at all. He wondered what had happened to make Sam come all this way without a word of notice. And he wondered if this was just a short-term pit stop, or something more permanent.
As he closed the door softly, he realized that it didn't really matter either way. Dean finally understands that distance is relative... and understands that being apart won't break them. Won't break him, either.
*
Flashback. Cue my clumsy use of the perfect past tense. *sigh*
"It's not forever," Sam had said, shutting the door of their dad's truck. Their truck, now. The Impala had been sitting in the lot of the autobody shop, gleaming; her keys had been warm in Dean's hand. "We both said... well, I said we could use a break, and you sort of grunted in what I construed as agreement."
Dean had run his thumb over the edge of the keys. Acknowledged the vague gnawing in his gut, the feel of his pulse throbbing in his temples. Dean is not freaking out. Dean is not freaking out.
"I input my apartment and work info into your phone. Plus the number of my landlord in case you ever need to reach me." Sam-speak for "don't freak out. Here are 2093847234 ways you can reach me. I'm not going anywhere, not really."
Sam had slung his backpack over his shoulder; Dean had eyed the pocket where he'd hidden eight hundred and sixty-three dollars. I told ignipes once that the part where Dean sneaks money into Sam's pack is my favourite part of any Sam-leaves-for-whatever-reason story, pre-Stanford or post-Stanford. It tugs at my heart-strings. It's Dean-speak for: "I'm still your big brother, and I'm gonna take care of you, period."
"You know you can get a hold of me via e-mail, too. Do you have the power cord and the adaptor? What about the extra battery?" "Everything's going to be okay."
Dean had nodded. Dean body-language for "I'll believe it when I see it."
"All right, then. I guess... that's it."
"Guess so."
Dean had tossed the keys; Sam had caught them easily.
"Sam--"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Smash the car and die." Sam doesn't need to hear it... doesn't need Dean to say it.
Not what Dean had wanted to hear, but not goodbye, either.
He could live with that.
The end.