Title: Day of The Dead
Author: chemm80
Rating: PG-13. The boys think in four-letter words.
Characters/Pairings: Dean and Sam, no pairings.
Disclaimer: Dean and Sam don't belong to me.
Summary: Winchesters don't do Halloween. Takes place Season 2, post Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things.
Dean came out of the bathroom in a towel and a cloud of steam. He started pulling clothes out of his duffle, holding up shirts, jeans, socks—sniffing something here and there—finally found some that met his standards. As he was pulling on his only-worn-twice jeans, he looked at Sam slouched back against the headboard.
"Get your boots on, Sammy. We're going out."
"Don't feel like it."
"Don't care. We're goin'."
They hadn't had an easy time of it the last couple of months, or even for the past year, or well…ever, really. But just lately whichever cosmic force had the job of screwing with the Winchester boys must have been bucking for promotion, 'cause it was looking like a banner year in the Fuck The Winchesters department.
And Dean could finally admit to himself that the whole thing had screwed with his head a little. Near death experiences and demon deals (Dad) would do that to a person, even if the person was Dean fucking Winchester. He still wasn't okay with the situation, not by a long shot, and he might be insensitive sometimes (okay, most of the time), but he wasn't so wrapped up in his own problems that he couldn't see what this night would mean to Sam.
Halloween—exactly one year since Dean had come to get him at Stanford, since he'd last seen Jessica alive. Hell of an anniversary. He'd be damned if he'd let Sam sit around in the room brooding all night, no matter how much the big emo dork seemed to want to. Hell, Sam might even enjoy himself some good old-fashioned championship-level mopery—God knew he'd been practicing his entire fucking life—but Dean was here to inform him that that shit wasn't on tonight.
"Going where, Dean?"
"Trick or treat, Sammy, that's where." Dean rolled his eyes. "What difference does it make? Better than sittin' around here."
"You go. I don't feel like it."
Jesus Christ, he's six years old. Good thing Dean knew how to handle a moody 6-year-old Sam. He picked up Sam's boots and tossed them onto the bed, hitting him on the anklebone with the heel of one.
"Ow! Knock it off, Dean."
"Get 'em on, you big baby."
Sam sighed and glowered at the boots but he put them on, muttering under his breath.
Outside, Dean walked down the road toward the center of town, watching Sam out of the corner of his eye. He looked as pouty as ever, but he fell into step at Dean's side, too stubborn to ask why they weren't driving. Not that anything was far; it was a small town. They passed a few houses, mostly older, but well kept. They saw a few trick or treaters, but it was still a little early, plenty of light left in the day.
Dean snorted and pointed to a house on his left. The yard was host to a large pumpkin carved into a distressed-looking face, seeds spilling out of its mouth and into an actual toilet bowl. "Guess Jack can't hold his booze," he said.
Sam just shook his head and rolled his eyes. Okay, not that funny, but at least it got some reaction out of him. Dean was still trying to think of something else to say when Sam finally opened his mouth.
"You know, I never understood the whole trick or treat thing," Sam said. "It's kind of like Hansel and Gretel, only instead of shoving them into the oven, you give the kids a slow death from diabetes."
"Man, you just suck the fun right out of everything. Good thing you're not answering any doors tonight. You'd probably make 'em do ten pushups each before they get any candy, huh?"
"I see a few that could use it," Sam mumbled, eyeing a chunky Fred Flintstone clone.
"Maybe we should go trick or treating. I like candy."
"Yeah, that'd go over big. By the end of the night you'd have a bag full of restraining orders."
It wasn't like he was a big fan of Halloween either, Dean thought. It was a good excuse for a party, he guessed. And maybe it was fun to play dress up when you thought it was all make-believe; he wouldn't know. He was pretty sure coming face to face with the real thing would take most of the fun out of it for pretty much everybody.
A woman dressed as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark herself—and with the figure to pull it off, in Dean's opinion—came slinking up the street toward them. That was one thing about Halloween he could get right on board with. The ladies' costumes seemed to have gotten a lot sluttier since he was a kid. He gave Elvira a suggestive smile, which she returned. Oh yeah. He approved.
They reached their destination. The sign over the entrance brought Sam up short.
"A Halloween carnival, Dean? Are you kidding me?"
Dean just smiled and walked to the entrance. He pulled his wallet out and handed four dollars to the, uh… person…keeping the gate. His mouth twitched with the effort of stifling a laugh. The person in question looked to be somewhere around middle age and was wearing a black, hooded cape decorated with pumpkins, witches on broomsticks, bats and owls. And don't forget the matching pointy hat. A small mongrel dog was sitting placidly at the feet of said person, also wearing the ever-popular matching pointy hat. No cape, though.
Dean smiled pleasantly and moved on, but he was pretty sure his face was turning bright red from choking back laughter. Once they'd gone a ways past the gate, he let out his breath and risked a look at his brother. Sam was smiling. Worth the four bucks already.
"Do you think that was a costume, or should we go back and do an exorcism?" Sam said.
"I'm more disturbed by the fact that I have no idea if that was a man or a woman underneath there." He faked a shudder.
Sam looked back over his shoulder. "Nope. Me neither."
They walked down a lane formed by two lines of makeshift stalls featuring carnival-style games, obviously manned by townspeople. There was a dunking booth, a ring toss, a "haunted house" and stands selling corn dogs, and caramel apples and popcorn balls that looked homemade.
There was a pretty good crowd. They wove their way between running, screaming children in costume. A few adults were in costume as well. A three-foot-tall elephant crashed into Dean's legs and he grabbed it by the arm before it could bounce off and fall to the ground. He handed the kid off to apologetic parents with a wave and a smile.
Sam noticed Dean looked more relaxed than he had since…well, in a good long while. Losing Dad hadn't been easy for Sam, but he knew full well it had been harder on Dean. He hadn't needed the roadside confession to know why. He'd keep doing what he could to help Dean come to terms with it, but Dean had finally laid his wound bare for Sam to see and he was right. There was really nothing Sam could say to make it any better.
Besides, he knew something about that kind of guilt from personal experience. Words, wishing, and sympathy did nothing to ease the sting.
Sam had never been a particular fan of Halloween, even as a kid. There was no reason he would be. Winchesters didn't celebrate Halloween; they survived it. They didn't go hunting anything that night if there was any way around it. The ancient feast of Samhain, end of the Celtic Old Year when the veil between worlds was thin—not the best time to be confronting spirits.
Ironic that the short "normal" phase of his life had come to an end last Halloween night. And here they were a year later, both haunted by the restless spirits of the dead.
They reached the end of the line of stalls, where the lane opened out into an open field. A short laugh surprised its way out of Sam when he saw what was poised at one end. It was an actual medieval-style catapult, and a big one. It bore a colorful sign reading, "Batesville Punkin' Chunkin' Contest".
Besides the one big catapult, there were some smaller ones as well, a fairly elegant-looking trebuchet, a couple of cannons and some other machinery that defied categorization, at least by Sam. He'd heard of this pumpkin thing before. It was a big deal some places; there was even a world championship. He thought this wasn't a bad turnout for such a small town.
It looked like the contest was just getting under way. An announcer started introducing the competing teams, who all stepped forward and took a bow with varying degrees of flamboyance. Sam looked over at Dean, who was standing with his arms folded, but he was smiling.
"This what we came here to see?" Sam smirked.
Dean just smiled and turned back to the action. The gourd flinging commenced.
"Yes, folks that's three hundred and forty-seven feet for Big Air, the biggest air cannon we have out here today! Looks like Johnny's Boys' Toy is ready to go. Let's count it down for 'em now…
The crowd began a disorderly backward countdown and when they finished stammering their way back to one, the trebuchet let loose, sending a pumpkin an impressive distance down the field to an orange and white splashdown at the far end. A ragged cheer erupted from the crowd and Sam looked at Dean.
Dean was laughing. And it wasn't just a smirk or a sardonic snort; it was actual honest-to-God laughter. Sam shook his head. He'd barely seen Dean smile for months, couldn't remember the last time he heard him even give so much as a chuckle, and this was what did it for him. Fucking Halloween.
Dean caught his breath. Sam couldn't help smiling at the look on his face—Dean looked about 6 years old. And actually happy.
Dean said, "Heh, I knew even you would have to crack a smile at a friggin' pumpkin cannon, Sammy." No way was Sam going to contradict him.
Sam turned Dean back toward the booths with a hand to his shoulder.
"Come on, you big dork. I'll buy you a caramel apple."