Title: Custard Pie
Author: nao_asakura (aka SuperMiss)
A/N: set during season 4 (I began writing it between season 4 and 5)
I'm putting that here, because it has spent way too much time in my "to finish" folder. But there are so much things I don't really like about that fic.
"I'm hungry," Dean says, stretching out, and Sam isn't sure if it's true, but he doesn't want to ask, and his brother obviously doesn't want to talk. He's been sleeping in the passenger seat since they got out of Batesville, his face all scrunched up and his shoulders tensed.
It was a basic house cleansing, a rogue spirit, and neither of them had sustained any notable injuries. Dean was simply not talking – less than usual, that is.
The dinner they stop by is the only construction visible from miles around, as the road stretches on, hot and dusty. The bushes are low and the trees dry, that summer. Someone's Dinner, the sign above the shabby building read. Moe, or Joe. Bad weather has erased the first letter, probably a long time ago. And no one has bothered to repaint it.
When they enter, pushing the revolving doors, no one comes to take their order. As for places, there was a great deal of choice, and dust everywhere.
"Are you really that hungry?" Sam begins, raising a dubious eyebrow. "Because we could..."
But apparently the absence of owners or customers doesn't bother Dean that much, and he's already sat in a small booth with seats made of red vinyl, threadbare and dirty. No blood, Sam notes, but he still feels somewhat uneasy. Like something isn't quite right about that place. The location is all wrong, it looks like a diner from a goddamn movie and—
Sam's thoughts are interrupted when a bony man comes out of the kitchen – the white apron is greasy, so is the hair – with the ghost of a smile on his lips. He has weird teeth and his hands are callous, like an old man's, while his face looks young, and thin. This time, Dean too looks like he feels something's off, Sam thinks, as he watches his brother sit straighter in the seat, adopting a hunter stance. But no, he's just spotted the menu in the hands of the young-old man. Dean's smile is nearly feral when he takes it and makes his choice. Burger, beer, pie, nothing new here. But why can't his brother see...
"What is there to see, young man?" the cook asks. "You were thinking aloud," he adds with a shrug. Sam is pretty sure he was not but he doesn't argue. Instead he remains on his guard, ready for anything to happen.
The meal is decent, and Dean is talking with his mouth full. Like a petulant child who needs food or else he'd be cranky. Sam feels suddenly very tired – not tired "someone has spiked our beers" tired, no. Only a deep ache in his bones, and the feeling that somehow they needed a rest.
The sun is slowly setting, sinking to the ground, melting. A cat is sprawled in the evening light, in front of the window pane. Everything is still and quiet – too quiet.
"Man, these fries are good," says Dean, his mouth stuffed, holding one big, golden fry at the tip of his fork.
"Sure, whatever." Sam is looking out the window, but there is nothing menacing outside. No storm, nothing. Why does this place feel so wrong, then?
"I don't get a lot of customers, you see, 'm not really used to seeing people."
Creepy cook is back, and Sam hasn't ever heard him approaching. His face looks blurry, out of place.
"How do you make a living, then?" And he can hear that his brother is just curious, not sarcastic or suspicious.
"I'm not here very often, really. Kinda busy elsewhere, you know."
"We travel a lot, too." When did Dean become such a chatty Cathy, Sam will never know. There is something about this man—
"He doesn't see, because he doesn't believe. You, on the other hand..."
The voice is different, all of a sudden, and Sam is petrified, because he knows, but his brain can't seem to process the information. It couldn't be...
"Why not?" the man asks with a crooked smile.
"Why God would be making fries in a diner in the middle of goddamn Arkansas, you mean?"
Sam glares at Dean, who stares at him, but apparently he doesn't hear or see the same things as him. A wondrous looking pie has replaced the golden fries in front of him, and it must be the most wonderful pie his brother has ever eaten, because there is something akin to bliss in his eyes.
"Everyone needs their time off, once in a while. You don't know how it can be, upstairs." His grey-green eyes flicker upwards, then he shrugs.
And Sam wants to shout and scream and ask why, but then the old, old man who looks so very young is gone, and Sam is staring at empty space, and Dean is smiling like Christmas all year long, because, apparently, meeting deities is making him regress to a four-year-old.
It's dusk now, the road awaits, and the diner is silent and empty. Dean is quiet again, but there is a different quality to his silence now. Something unsaid is still twirling in the air. Like always.
When Sam awakes in the car, a good forty miles from there, the night has fallen and the stars are twinkling, as if to say, was it all just a dream? But Dean wouldn't have driven so long on an empty stomach without bitching, Sam thinks.