Thanksgiving
Lucy Madoc wakes to a flurry of harsh protests from a murder of crows that have taken up residence in the black walnut tree outside her bedroom window. The cacophony of discordant birdsong blends with gusts of swirling snow that rattle the hundred-year-old panes of Lucy's farmhouse. Wind that carries the winter's first storm groans against the clapboard like the specter of a town-crier that wanders the streets warning of danger long passed. The ghost's cries an echo of a sigh that causes the living to huddle together just a little closer against the darkness.
Lucy gathers her blankets around her, straightening the bedding that has become tangled from sleep. She listens to the morning symphony; the crows, the wind, the creak of ancient wood shifting and settling and the soft breathing of Chips, her ancient Irish setter curled at the foot of her bed all underscored by the snoring base notes issuing from the guest room on the other side of the hall.
She chuckles, remembering the urgent whispers and passionate moans of her houseguests as they had attempted to make love in silence during the night. Her two foundlings, young men no older than thirty, were the first people she had allowed into her house since Joseph, her husband, had died last June. Her self-imposed exile had ended when she had spied the lanky one, Sam, staring helplessly at a bushel of apples at the market. She recognized the scent of his thoughts; the warm roasting chestnut of love combined with the sweet undercurrent of vanilla comfort all eddying around a name that he repeated in his mind like a prayer: Dean. The purity of his thoughts enough to drag her from her grief at her first holiday alone and, as a sleeper who rouses famished, she found herself eager to break her fast and seek the company of others who understood the hunger of loss and love.
*****
Sam is confounded by indecision as he stares at the plethora of choices before him. He possesses a wealth and breadth of knowledge that would arouse jealousy in the hearts of most life-long scholars. He has faced a life broken by demons and death, lost his one love and his humanity, rediscovered both and yet, despite all this, has no earthly idea how to perform even this simplest of domesticities, like baking a pie.
It had been almost a year since Castiel brought strange tidings to the Winchesters. The angel with him, Metatron, had informed them that they were off the hook, no more seals, no more hunting Lilith, it was over and they were free. The stranger explained that God had returned early from, of all impossibilities, a ski-ball tournament in New Jersey because the Winchesters had chosen a path that her angelic sons could not, would not have considered across the millennia of their existences. Despite their connection to the genesis of creation, Michael and Lucifer had never once considered that her Grace flowed through them and was the key to healing the rifts that had splintered their holy family. The Winchesters had chosen to love regardless of their pain and that choice, a decision that flew in the face of human convention, embodied her Grace. It was hope and where there is hope there shall be life. At least that is what Metatron had told them before he insisted that they wander across the street to Manny's Roadhouse and do shots of tequila to celebrate averting the apocalypse.
After Nebraska Sam and Dean visited Bobby for a month and then made their way across the country together. They helped out a friend of Bobby's in Jersey with an angry, vengeful spirit and then hung up their guns, knives, and rock salt. They reveled in each other's company; old barriers removed, and grew into an intimacy that neither had ever experienced. Sam watched Dean as he maneuvered the Impala along deserted country roads and wondered at the twining strings of destiny. He sometimes recited their story to Dean as they lay tangled after making love, like Scheherazade, except he was not attempting to forestall the inevitability of fate, but relive their moment of discovery. Dean would stoke his hair and listen, rapt in the tale of two men who started life as brothers, became strangers, then comrades, and now lovers with an actual future lay bare before them, no divine strings drawing them toward divergent and violent ends.
Bobby deeded a small cabin over to the boys. The place was off Vermont's route seven near the bucolic town of Swanton. Bobby claimed he picked it up from a fellow hunter name of Clemons Sodo; insisted he got the place for a song and a case of beer when his friend tired of the ice and snow, that it was a high-holy mess, and probably haunted to boot. Dean and Sam saw through his grumping and were honored and touched that the man they regarded as a father was offering them the one thing their own father never could, a home. They each found work, Dean sweet-talking himself into a job at an auto shop and Sam in a struggling book store. They don't make a lot of money, but it's enough and their earnings are legal, a fact that pleases them both, although Dean will never admit it to Sam outright.
They spend their time making love in front of the cast iron wood stove, fishing, and walking along deserted stretches of beach on the shores of Missisquoi Bay. Vermont is heaven; gunmetal blue water blending into a sky dotted with flocks of ducks and geese all framed by the jutting crags of the Green Mountains. The only sounds that slip into the India ink of the northern night are their laughter, the lap of water, the rush of wind and the occasional lonesome whistle of a train making its way toward Canada.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Sam shops for provisions at the local IGA while Dean prepares their home for the storm that the weather reports insist will strike early on Thanksgiving Day.
"Granny smiths are better for pie, Sam."
Sam startles at the sound of his name. They have been careful in Swanton not to get too close to any of the locals. Sam and Dean have spent the past four years at the top of Heaven's and Hell's Hit Parade and are still suspect of strangers.
"Christo."
The woman's hazelnut eyes crinkle into a smile and she cocks her head to the side, a disheveled mess of auburn curls frame a round, open face that is just starting to traverse the borders of middle-age. "Huh?"
"Christo." Sam invokes the name a little louder, just to be sure.
"Oh, I'm not a demon and granny smith is the best apple for pie, some say no, my mother for instance, but I think she's wrong, you need that tart snap to balance the sugar or your pie is too sweet. I don't think," She pauses for a moment as if to listen to a song only she can hear "Dean? Yes, Dean, he likes it sweet, but not so sugary it makes his teeth hurt."
"Ah," Sam smiles in spite of his anxiety, "Psychic?"
"Yup. Name's Lucy Madoc." She juggles the carry-basket to her left hand and sticks out her right. "I swear I'm harmless, just a little parlor trick I picked up after a car accident this past spring."
Sam relaxes and reaches out to shake, noticing that the skin on the proffered hand shines with the tell-tale rubberized texture of severe burn scars and the fingers are about a knuckle shorter than normal. Lucy frowns as Sam takes her hand. "Sorry, I still forget sometimes. Gross, huh?" She lets go of his hand, flexes her stubbed fingers then tucks them away in her coat pocket. Sam instantly feels like a gigantic douche bag.
"That's some parlor trick." Sam shakes his shaggy mop of wavy chestnut hair and ducks his head in embarrassment.
"Yeah, well, I tried to stop a rolling jeep with my noggin, got one hell of a headache and the ability to see into people's heads. So, you're making a pie for this Dean character, huh? Hope he's worth it, pie is a gift, young Padawan." And Sam feels the seedling of friendship take root in his heart. He senses a kindred spirit in this woman, someone who might understand the roads that he and Dean have traveled.
"You boys the one's that took over Clemson Sodo's old haunt, huh?"
"Yeah, how did…oh, that was going to be dumb question."
"Nah, it's a small town, people talk." Lucy likes this kid Sam, he reminds her of her Joseph when he was in his twenties, a little shy, a lot cute, with cheek bones higher than heaven. But Sam has an air of wariness that hangs around him like the tang of pipe tobacco hung around the head of her grand-pa when he was still this side of the grass.
"Okay, this is probably going to sound wicked strange, but you seem like a good kid and I'm a dead shot with a 12-gauge on the off chance you're not."
She smirks and Sam decides that this is what their mother would have been like if she hadn't burned to death in his nursery.
"Anyway you and your boyfriend Dean want to come spend Thanksgiving with me? I was going to savor this lean cuisine and drink myself into a coma, but I could be persuaded to roast a turkey and bake a pie or two if you boys would bring be willing to stack some wood and help me put on my storm shutters."
"What you see, in here," Sam rubs his forehead, "it doesn't scare you?" Sam cannot understand how this civilian is so cavalier about the fury and blood in his memories.
"I see it, I just...I think I may understand, at least some of it." Sam hears the echo of loneliness in her voice and before she speaks again Sam has his phone out to tell Dean about their dinner plans.
*****
"I still don't like it Sammy." Dean steers the Impala into the driveway of the weather beaten farmhouse.
"Dean." Sam brushes his fingertips across Dean's jaw and let's his hand fall to Dean's thigh. He squeezes the firm muscle. Dean sighs and feels the heat gather in his gut. He is awestruck that Sam's touch never loses its power over his body, his heart. "She's a widow. I just...I get it and I don't want her to be alone. I remember how it felt when you were…" Sam swallows hard and stares out the window. Dean returned from hell over a year ago and there are still quiet spaces where Sam's heart aches with the phantom pain of that old scar.
"What if she figures out, you know, about us."
"Are you ashamed of me?" Sam's sharp tone warns Dean that they are wandering into dangerous territory.
"No, Sammy, I could never be ashamed of you, but some folks won't understand." Dean turns off the Impala and twists to face Sam. "I don't care who knows we're together, but you say she's psychic, right? She's going to figure out that we're brothers. And what if she gets a peek in here," Dean taps his temple, "an eyeful of my big brain and she's either going to need a cold shower or a lobotomy."
A knock on the driver side window makes Dean jump. He looks up into Lucy's crooked smile and immediately recognizes the twist in her lips that belies the ache of a deep, but healing wound.
"You must be Dean Winchester. Don't worry sweetheart, I know, brothers, demons, angels, end of the world, and a giant talking teddy bear. Did I miss anything?"
Dean grins. "Nope, I think that covers it."
****
"Are you sure you're okay with us staying tonight Lucy?" Dean asks as he rinses a dish and places it in the dish rack.
"Positive. The wind is kicking up; it's going to be beast of a night and…" Dean hears the words as if she has spoken them.
"How did it happen?" He casts his eyes toward her burned hand. Sam is sound asleep on the couch in the other room; he can hear his soft, slow breathing.
"The police told me it was a deer." She begins the story she has never told anyone, a story that her family and friends begged her to share with them, a story that she now knows she has waited to reveal to this man, who has traveled a far darker path than hers.
"We were driving home from a friend's house; it was the first cook out of the summer and it was so warm; we had taken the top off the Jeep for the first time that year. Joe and I were trying to decide whether to drive down to Burlington in the morning. I wanted to visit my sister and Joe was fussing about her new girlfriend and how there wasn't going to be anything but wheat germ and sawdust to eat at her place because she was a vegan."
"I don't remember the accident, just that one second we were laughing and the next moment I was hanging upside down from my seatbelt and Joe was," Lucy's breath catches in a sob and she crumples to the floor. Dean kneels down and places a calloused palm on her shoulder.
"Joe was dead, Jesus, his face, he was always about to smile, you know and his face was so empty. I got myself unbuckled but there was a fire, and I wasn't about just leave him there to burn, not just leave him, empty or no, but I couldn't get his buckle undone." Lucy looks at her withered burnt hand and weeps. "I tried so hard Dean, I did everything I could but it got so hot, so hot."
Dean kisses her forehead. "I know." Lucy looks in his eyes, smells the cold damp scent of pine and fire from Dean's memory, the copper tang of Sam's blood as his life flowed out of him into the rutted dirt road of that forgotten haunted town.
Dean eases himself all the way to the floor and wraps his arms around Lucy and they sit together, her body slack, burdened under the weight of her sorrow. Dean doesn't know how long they stay this way, maybe a minute, maybe an hour, but finally her crying subsides and she pulls away from him, cupping his cheek in her hand.
"Thank you." She takes his hand and kisses his palm then places it over her heart for a moment. Dean understands and is grateful this strange, beautiful woman has chosen to allow them into her life.
"We'll stay tonight and bring that wood in tomorrow morning." He wonders at her bravery. When she lost the man she loved, she kept moving forward, no crossroads, no deals, just kept letting one second pass another as water rushes from rock to rock in a stream, moving ever forward.
She smiles, "Perhaps we'll take a look at your place tomorrow, make sure you boys are set for the winter. Guest room is upstairs, first door on the right." She squeezes Dean's hand one more time and then retires.
Dean gets up from the floor and stretches, he is emotionally spent and leans against the sink, so lost in thought that he doesn't hear Sam behind him until his breath whispers across the nape of Dean's neck. He brushes his lips above the collar of Dean's shirt and Dean shivers. Sam's hands find his way into the Dean's front pockets.
"Lucy went to bed. Holy shit Sammy, that woman is incredible."
"I knew you'd like her."
"Yeah, I think…I think that's what mom would have been like if she had lived. Tough, you know?" Dean leans his head back against Sam's shoulder and presses his body against Sam's. Sam leans in, as his palm slides across the front of Dean's jeans exploring the hardness sheathed in denim. Dean moans with pleasure as Sam licks and nips at the soft skin just below his earlobe. Dean twists in Sam's embrace and crushes his mouth against his lover's. He raises his hands to Sam's face and pulls away to gaze in his lover's eyes.
"I love you Sammy. I…you are what I have to be thankful for, everyday."
"I know. Me too." Sam kisses Dean gently, running his tongue across Dean's lower lip. Dean weaves his fingers with Sam's and leads him up the stairs to Lucy's guest room.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Sammy." Dean whispers as he runs his hands across the bare planes of Sam's chest and for the first time in his life, he means it, he is Thankful for Sam, his family, his love and his life. Dean is thankful for Lucy, her trust, her strength and the sweet aroma of her apple pie. Thankful for his home and the peace that he and Sam discover again each morning when they curl just a little closer to stave off the chill that rides in on the cornflower blue light of dawn.
It is this final image that eddies and then breaks apart in Dean's mind as Sam explores his body, returning him to the brilliance of the present moment, where they will make love in a strange bed and then sleep, content and comforted as the first snow begins to fall.