Title: Just Another Day
Author: Lucky Gun
Summary: It's just another day in the lives of the Winchesters. Except it's not. Or, one day one brother said everything he wanted to, and the other said nothing at all. – A birthday present for my beta reader SpenChester.
A/N: SpenChester: Thanks for being the Shawn to my Gus, the Dean to my Cas, the Leroy Jethro Gibbs to my Tony DiNozzo, the Ann Deluca to my Clint Barton, and the best Chinese fighting fish ever. You're an awesome friend and a better pseudo-sister. Here's to the one time I forgot the pie, and all the times I never will.
It was five in the morning by his watch, and he was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when he dragged himself out of his oh-so-comfortable generic hotel bed. He splashed water on his face, brushed his teeth, and gargled some mouthwash for just a little more time than was necessary. He searched through his duffel and pulled a relatively clean shirt, smoothing it and tucking it in a little bit. He brushed some graveyard dirt off the cuff of his pants, and he rubbed the tops of his boots with a worn handkerchief. A few passes of a comb through his hair finished his dressing.
His next task took him to the diner attached to the hotel, some twenty four hour pancake house. He gave the waitress a winning smile when she gave him a tired nod, taking the twin cups of hot coffee with a thank you and a fifty percent tip. Her own smile got a little bigger, then, and she gave him a bashful nod, a blush spreading over her cheeks. He winked once at her and passed her a note he'd written the night before; he'd hidden it in his cell phone's battery compartment, convinced his brother wouldn't look there. She glanced over it, the look in her eyes took on an adoring glaze, and she nodded wordlessly. Giving the woman another five dollars, he turned and headed back to the hotel room.
His brother was just stirring when he entered, and he handed him one of the coffee cups silently. Quizzical eyes stared up at him for a moment before hesitantly accepting the offered brew. He sipped his as he watched his brother push away the covers and chug the drink. He smirked behind the lip of his own mug as he watched his brother stagger to standing and stumble into the bathroom; his hangover was fairly obvious. But he held his tongue and instead waited until he could hear the shower running. When it started, he stood and straightened the room, pulling the beds into order and putting their weapons duffels in the car, leaving his brother's personal bag on the bed. By the time he'd finished, his brother was out of the shower and singing in a horribly off key voice as he flossed. He grinned a bit, shaking his head, and waited silently by the door.
When they left, they didn't hit the diner he'd gotten coffee from; they'd eaten there for three days straight and they wanted something different. So his brother drove and he sat on the passenger side, smiling wide and even joining in with his brother's singing. They came to another diner, this one a bit more upscale, and pulled into the compact car space. He didn't say anything and just shook his head, that small smile still playing on his lips.
When they ate, his brother ordering an obscene amount of food that would feed an army and the army's families, he didn't object when his brother kept stealing his knife and using it to spread a God forsaken amount of butter on the stacks of chocolate chip and pineapple pancakes. He didn't say anything when he left to use the restroom and noticed his brother pouring boysenberry syrup all over his eggs. He played up his reaction when he bit into them upon his return, loving seeing his brother laugh, even though his brother started choking and he had to perform the Heimlich maneuver on him. The waiter was nine rainbows the other side of gay, and he followed his brother's lead when he implied that they were in a relationship. Some fake but heavy flirting, hamming up of the recovery from the choking, and a reference to a local bar got them out of the check and a hastily written phone number on a napkin. The waiter left and they burst out laughing, tears flowing down their cheeks, faces red. He didn't bitch and moan when his brother called him 'honey' a couple times after that, though he was sure to put a stop to it when they got to their target's location.
When the young woman let them into the house (and of course it had to be an insanely attractive, petite, advanced gymnastics teacher), he didn't object when his brother suggested they split up and search the sprawling plantation home for signs of the ghost. He pretended not to notice when they disappeared in the same direction, and he added forty five minutes onto his 'search' time by plopping down in a comfy chair and reading a book he'd brought with him. When his cell phone rang and his brother asked for another half hour to finish 'searching' the other wings of the house, he acted like he didn't hear the moaning in the background. Instead, he agreed, hit the end button, settled back into his chair, and opened the book back up to his marked page.
When they met up again, he only gave them innocent eyes and didn't roll them once (though he'd admit it took effort to keep them from doing so automatically). They headed back to the hotel, swinging by the library on the way, and he didn't say anything when his brother crept into a corner and started talking quickly on his cell phone in a low voice. He heard some of what was said and pretended he didn't. His brother's desperate plea to their father's voicemail wasn't something he enjoyed knowing about, and for the sake of his brother, he wouldn't act like he did. So he plowed through the records with his eyes forward and his ears off, and he tried not to think about the tears he thought he could see in his brother's eyes.
When they got back to the hotel to prepare for the barely-pre-midnight-hunt, he watched his brother clean their pistols with a single-minded determination that scared him only every once in awhile. He pretended to listen as the methodology of the cleaning was explained to him for the umpteenth time, nodding and murmuring in all the right places. He left his brother to it long enough to go out and grab them some subs for dinner. He didn't change the tape from AC/DC to Dashboard Confessional, even though it was so damned tempting, and he refrained from getting habaneras on his brother's sandwich. When he got back to the hotel room, he didn't say anything as his brother handed him his guns, and he didn't have to reach far for the grimace that covered his face when he felt the first touch of Vaseline on the grips. He rolled his eyes appropriately but kept his tongue loose. His brother grinned like the Cheshire cat and went back to eating his sub, a thumbs up indicating it was perfect.
They were back at the plantation about time the moon started to rise, and he didn't complain when he turned on his flashlight and found the beam pink, food coloring spread over the lens and shellacked into permanence. He just groaned and huffed and resigned himself to searching for a ghost with a ridiculously pink line of light leading the way. They traversed the property silently, the apparently bendy but terrified woman who'd inherited the property having vanished long before they'd gotten there. He managed not to laugh when a tree frog dropped from the top ledge of an open window onto his brother and made him scream like a girl. He managed to keep a straight face, even, as his brother patiently explained the difference between a manly girl scream and a girly man scream. He didn't think there was much difference, but he kept his lips sealed.
When they finally found the ghost and figured out the resting place of its remains, he let his brother lead without a word. His brother usually led in these circumstances, but the ghost was a pretty annoyed, pretty pissed spirit, and his brother didn't want him in the crossfire. The fact that he didn't want his brother there either meant nothing, so he just shut up and followed orders. He followed his brother, sawed-off shotguns up, rock salt shells loaded, and he tried not to wince when the thing came out of nowhere and slammed both of them into a wall. The next twenty minutes flew by for him, mostly because he was teetering on the edge of consciousness at the bottom of a staircase. But then his brother screamed, and he managed to get himself up and in the fight. Eight minutes later, the ghost was a toasty critter, its remains in a window seat burning nicely in the dry air. With his own head pounding and his eyes on the blood that coated his brother's shoulder, arm, and chest, it was easy to keep his mouth shut and not ask whether that had been a manly girl scream or a girly man scream.
The drive back to the hotel was pretty uneventful, and when they got there, he just barely kept his tongue behind his teeth as his brother decided a simple bump to the head was more important than a ragged gash across three zones of skin. His jaw clicked as he shut it forcefully, ignoring the pain in his brother's gaze and the way his brother's hand trembled a bit as he pressed alcohol-soaked pads against the scrape covering the bump. Then, when he couldn't take anymore, he pushed his brother to the chair beside the bed and silenced him with a practiced glare. He didn't cut off his brother's shirt (like he should've, would've, and God, that had to hurt) and instead averted his eyes when his brother gasped the fact that it was one of his favorites; the pain in his brother's voice as he carefully pulled off his shirt cut him across his heart. But he steadfastly ignored it and stitched up the seven inch long gash, making an offhand comment about how his brother needed to attempt to avoid broken windows in the future, or, at the very least, try not to get thrown through them. He referenced defenestrating, his brother gave him a weird look and asked him if it was a porn site, and he shook his head and went quiet.
After he sent his brother into the bathroom with orders for a long hot bath (and dammit all, keep your stitches dry!), he stripped, dressed again, grabbed all the dirty clothes, and headed towards the coin Laundromat attached to the other side of the hotel. He started one load of clothes and after soaking his brother's shirt in stain remover, he pulled a line of black thread and a needle and stitched it up too. It came out looking a little funky, but it was pretty close to whole again, and that's what mattered. He added it to the wash, coaxed a few more minutes of wash time out of the washer using a trick their father had taught them, and headed back to the hotel room. When he got there, he wasn't surprised to see his brother out of the bath, dressed, and sitting on top of his bed, painfully wrapping his stitched shoulder in gauze. He bit back the usual words of censure and instead smacked his hands carefully out of the way and gave him two tablets from a dingy orange pill bottle. He glared at him until his brother swallowed the Percocet dry, waited ten seconds, and then wrapped his shoulder up. He was a bit more gentle than usual, and he took his time.
He pretended not to notice when the clock showed closer than farther to midnight and his brother's gaze kept darting to the cell phone on the bedside table. He also pretended not to notice when his brother's eyes dilated and his movements got a little smoother, his words flowing easier. There was mention of a meteor shower, a perfectly wonderful one, one bright enough to look like falling stars, and isn't that what they are anyway? So he grabbed his hoodie and threw it over his brother, ignoring his puppy dog look, and walked him outside. He helped him settle on top of the hood, leaning against the windshield, and told his brother if he wanted to look like a dog then he could act like one (sit, stay, good boy!).
He ran back to the diner, blood loss and shock and the desert's cold worrying him, but he still managed to give the 80 hour a week waitress a smile and a wink. He waved away her concern at his bumped and bloodied head with a hand still darkened by ash and slid a fifty across the counter to her. She glanced over her shoulder and he gave her a reassuring smile, even though his mind was still on his brother. He'd left him alone for ten minutes, but high on painkillers, still in pain, and being his brother, that might as well be a lifetime. A cop flew by on the main road, sirens going, and he almost turned and ran, because God, it would so be his luck if it was because of his brother. But the blue lights continued on, and he exhaled shakily, ignoring his headache. The waitress returned from the back of the diner, his requested item in hand, and he gave her a very sincere thank you, a touch of his lips on the back of her hand, and then fairly sprinted out of the room.
He found his brother right where he'd left him, shockingly, and he watched him watch the falling stars with a small smile on his face. His brother's drug-induced ramblings reminded him of when they were kids, of his own words to his brother, his questions silly and random but so seriously important to him. And he thought he might have heard his heart break a little bit when his brother said something wistful about their father, about their mother, his words quieting but his eyes showing flashing memories. So he sat silently on the hood next to him, his long fingers wrapped around the box in his hands, and he waited until his brother's curiosity got the best of him. It started with a glance, then a sniff, then a deep inhalation, then toddler-like grabby hands. He grinned as he watched his brother's features light up like they hadn't done for months when he opened the box, and the first bite in, he decided that, yes, the apple pie was freaking worth it.
"Thanks for today, Sammy."
The words came at a minute to midnight, untainted by the drugs and everything else. The pie was decimated, the box empty, the remains of the plastic forks and paper plates laying between them like a gutted picnic basket. He didn't look over at his brother and instead kept his gaze trained on the stars that were raining down around them. He would deny later that his unvoiced response caught in his throat when he heard the muffled ring from his brother's phone inside the hotel room. He would always deny that he waited for the abandonment, the shifting muscles and soft curses that would come with it. But the phone rang on, eventually falling silent, and his brother was still next to him, his muscles relaxed, a small smile playing on his lips. So he smiled too, his own face carefree, and he shrugged slightly.
"Happy birthday, Dean."
Happy birthday, SpenChester.