Chapter Two
But thine life lies broken on the headstone of a fairytale.
It was too good to last anyway, that wonderful lusty glow of finding a car just as beautiful as the one he was sitting in, jeans and t-shirt sticking to the sun heated leather. Dean cocked his head, raised his eyebrows as he stared through the windshield at the two sisters talking – most likely about how fucking weird the Winchester boys were, how the world "freak" should be tattooed to each of their foreheads for the entire world to know not to get too close to them – but maybe they weren't. Maybe they were pondering the notion of chipping in to buy Dean some WD40 for Black Beauty's doors because Lord knew it wouldn't do any harm now. Or maybe they were debating what to wear to the town centennial on Friday night, the one as advertised on the large banner hanging across main street.
Yeah, right.
Sighing as silently as he could, Dean turned his head to look at his brother.
Poor little Sammy, crumpled there in his bucket seat looking as pale and gaunt as ever, rubbing his right temple like if he didn't his brain would come oozing out of his ear. His left arm, the one recently injured in a hunting accident, lay slacken across his lap. Dean all but stifled down the urge to add strangulation marks to his brother's list of adjectives; if the kid didn't talk soon Dean'd surely scream.
Sure, he had a devil-may-care attitude about everything, but that didn't mean he wasn't at that very moment longing to know something about what the hell was going on with his brother. He was starting to kick himself for ever wordlessly telling Sammy that he could take his time, collect himself, and then explain what happened. He'd never get the whole story, so it was relatively pointless to not squeeze the story out of his younger brother's pores.
Sam, remaining in his quiet calming down stage, seemed to almost want that to happen. But since he was a good half foot taller than Dean and by some fluke of nature ever got to arrange himself in the perfect position at the perfect time, and with Dean liking his studly neck just the way it was, he went back to observing the goings on in the world outside his car's windows.
The sisters, still locked in their feverish conversation about centennial attire but most likely not, were good-natured enough. They had asked if Sam was alright, but naturally didn't ask if Sam was alright because they didn't know his name – or Dean's name for that matter – which was why after the casual "yeah, my brother's fine, just a little jumpy" lie came the introductions.
Jo (short for Josephine) was the one in desperate need of eyebrow plucking classes, the young boy crazy wild sister who didn't know jack about cars and liked it that way. In five seconds flat she'd explained how she was living not with her sister but in the same apartment building on the same floor two doors down from her sister and was taking evening courses at a school for cosmetology in the closest big city, but her Cocker Spaniel Moxy didn't enjoy that very much.
The older, more automobile savvy sister (who on closer inspection worked for the local newspaper as what, Dean didn't know) kept it simple. Her name was Trude and she thought it very nice to meet them, the brothers, and Dean believed it because she said it so warmly.
Why they hadn't rolled away yet, tried to put as much distance between them and the crazy Winchester brothers with that exquisite example of machinery as they could was anyone's guess. They were probably thinking about it, though.
"I could feel it."
Dean was so wrapped up in convincing himself of the will to ostracize in people he had almost forgotten he had been waiting for Sam to speak about his nightmare. He nearly broke his black twisting himself around to face his brother so quickly.
"What do you mean you could feel it, Sammy?"
"I could feel it," he restated weakly.
Well, this was sure going nowhere fast.
Sam took his right hand away from his head, brought it down to hover above his lap, and studied it with such an intense gaze it was as if he was trying to destroy the thing using only his mind. "The fire," Sam wanted to explain. "I could feel the fire this time. Feel it melt my hand, my skin when I reached for her. I could hear her screaming for me to help her; the blood stung when it fell on me and I looked up and saw her there, reaching for me and yelling for me to help. I just couldn't get to her through the flames. I was so close, my fingers brushed against hers, but I couldn't save her. My hand was... was melting, but I still tried to get to her. It hurt so bad, almost as bad as losing her, but I still tried even when my hand was nothing but bone. I could feel the fire's kiss, Dean." That's what he wanted to say, but instead he shook his head.
Dean, not one especially gifted with other worldly powers such as mind reading, gritted his teeth and moved his line of vision elsewhere. Why didn't Sam ever tell him anything? He wouldn't have brought Sam along if he didn't feel like he could trust him, so why didn't Sammy ever seem to get that message? He just wanted to be able to understand, that was all.
He wasn't going to push the issue, though. The last thing Dean needed was a snubby passenger who refused to change out the tapes while on the road.
"When was the last time you ate?"
"I'm fine," Sam replied defiantly.
"A person who's fine doesn't scream like his gonads are being chopped off. You haven't eaten since last night, we're stopping someplace and getting food."
"I'm not hungry," Sam continued to protest.
Dean opened the driver's door. "That's okay if you're not hungry. I'll just get a screwdriver from the trunk, some Plumber's Helper and shove the food down your throat."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll eat."
Smiling, throwing an "Attaboy" into the car, Dean stepped back out onto the sidewalk and took advantage of the fact that Jo and Trude hadn't run off to hide in the woods. "Hey, ladies, can you point us in the direction of a diner or something?"
Jo looked up so fast it was a wonder she didn't get whiplash, but she didn't say anything. Gave some very suggestive looks that would make Paris Hilton blush (ah, the perks of being so damn handsome), but didn't answer Dean's question.
Caught a little off guard by Jo's unrelenting overtness, Dean tried his luck with Trude, who – like Dean – was now pretending like Jo wasn't really there.
"Just around the corner on the north side of the street is Goosey's. You might want to hurry, though, because they lock the door when the cases are emptied in the afternoon rush," she explained. "If it is closed, then a few doors down is Harry's. Just don't eat the cottage cheese, whatever you do."
Sam nodded his thanks and began walking, but Dean straggled behind. He was overcome by the oddest sensation, a weightlessness, that continued to grow the longer Trude looked at him. It wasn't because she was beautiful – which she wasn't, enhanced even more so against Black Beauty the Sequel – but because of something else. It ended rather quickly when she looked at something behind him, but not before Dean might have heard something.
It could have been anything, he hadn't heard it that well and wasn't even sure he had heard it at all. It could have come from someone's cell phone or maybe the music from the children's ballet class (there was a hanging sign on a door to the building right beside him) drifted down from a poorly sealed window.
Whatever it was, it spooked Trude something awful, and all the color went from her face.
"Have a nice day, Dean," Jo said sweetly, then threw herself against her seat to sulk and brood about how much boys suck.
"See you around." Only he wished he wouldn't have to see Jo around, not if she was going to ignore the fact that Dean was the one who made the first move, always.
As he was moving away he waved to Trude, who didn't reply but seemed to mutter "oh, shit" under her breath. With an open mouth ready to injuire, Dean started to turn around, but thought better of it. If she had suddenly recognized that Dean had at one point in time been wanted for murder in St Lois, "died", and had somehow come back from the grave before her very eyes he didn't want to hang around for the police to come.
When he caught up with Sam, his stomach seeming to have come back to him, Dean spoke softly so as not to be overheard by a trash can or random alley cat. "I think we should get out of here. After we eat, I mean, because she might've recognized me."
"Maybe she did, you've been with how many women in how many states after all? Don't answer that," he added quickly.
Dean har-harred. "I thought you'd be a little worried about this."
"We're in a small town in Ohio, Dean. There are, what, less than eighteen-hundred people here and unless they can somehow get St Louis local news they won't know you were a murder suspect. She probably just saw a spider or something. A lawn gnome, people are afraid of them."
"It didn't look like she saw any lawn gnome to me," Dean replied uneasily.
Sam stopped walking, looking a little crestfallen for having to see a closed sign in Goosey's front window. It was an act. Though he was hungry, he simply didn't want Dean plaguing him about his nightmare. "If you feel so strongly about it we can leave once we eat, which looks like it's going to be over at Harry's."
"Great. On the day I leave my Hazmat suit in the car."
"It won't be that bad."
Dean scoffed. "If a large blob of fungus starts hitting on me, we're leaving."
"Fungi."
"Whatever, same difference."
"Actually, it's not, really."
"Shut up, College Boy."
Sam, to his credit, smirked as he checked for traffic in the street and walked across it to the food establishment. He opened the door for his brother, just because it was easier that way, and looked back out onto the sleepy main thoroughfare as he waited for Dean to go inside the building.
As if by some work of fate, just as he turned around the Impala convertible, which really did look freakishly a lot like Dean's oh so beloved, came by on the street. Sounded just like Dean's too of course, but by the looks of it Trude was trying to break a land speed record. That set him a little on the edge, more so when Dean gave him that all knowing "I told you so" look.
Shrugging his brother's possible recognition off as some kind of last minute shopping exertion as women often do, Sam and his brother slipped inside the building to be met with AC and elegant yet drowsy room design.
Taking the led foot Trude's warning of the cottage cheese very close to heart, Sam and Dean were very selective as they stared down at the choices laid before them in the buffet line at Harry's Restaurant (after first paying for their meal, getting to the buffet table and gathering their plates and silverware, of course). Everything seemed as it should, but as they both knew seeing wasn't always believing.
The carrots were bright orange and cold, so they each loaded up on those, as was the same with the healthy looking cucumbers (they dared not take dip) and the bubbling and steaming rotini pasta bake, but the salad only looked like it would sneak by on a surprise exam.
Loaded up with their identical plates of food – neither one of them wanted to chance it with the chocolate pudding – they walked across the half empty dining area to a booth between two windows, just in case Trude really had recognized Dean.
There was an older couple sitting to their very far left at a table, but other than that there was no one in that portion of the restaurant. The brothers were free to talk, but quietly.
"Look," Dean said as he munched on a carrot stick and waved it at his brother, "you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, what with the shape-shifting incident and all, but know I'd really appreciate it if you told me something. Even if it's 'Hey, Dean, I think my toes are turning purple with pink polka dots' I'd be happy."
Sam made a face as he waved his hand at the carrot sword, shooing it away. "Just because we're brothers doesn't mean I have to tell you everything."
"And I don't want to know everything. You can keep the order you wash yourself in the shower to yourself, but when it comes to more important things like your dreams I don't like being kept in the dark."
"They're my dreams, Dean."
"But if they intrude into my daily activities I deserve some part to them too, you know. God, Sammy, this can't be healthy. Have you ever stopped to look at yourself? You're falling apart."
With a sigh, Sam began to poke at his lunch.
"I can still go Christmas Story on you," Dean reminded. "Don't think I won't do it."
"Your children are going to hate you."
Dean finished off his carrot stick sword. "I can be cool, you saw how I was with Lucas. But back to our communication issues."
"Communication issues? You're making us sound like a dysfunctional couple, Dean!"
"Well, maybe we are," he countered. "I'm your brother, Sam, just in case you need reminding. I'm not going anywhere so unless you want to start treating my Black Beauty like she's worth I'm the only thing you've got before talking to your thumb."