So the show ended over a year ago, and here I am celebrating Dean's birthday because I wanted to write something happy for a change. Happy birthday Dean! This is set in a nebulous time in later seasons, late season 12 at the earliest, but there aren't any spoilers for anything.
Don't own the show or any of the songs mentioned, obviously. Title is from The Beatles' "Hey Jude" because I can't have a fic be 100% angst-free, now can I? ;) Enjoy!
Eggs. Beer. Chili powder. Whole wheat bread normal non-fancy decent tasting bread. Beer. Kidney beans. PIE! Bananas.
Sam rolled his eyes at Dean's helpful additions to the beer run shopping list and stuffed it back into his pocket as he got out of the car. Dean was giving Baby an engine tune-up, so Sam had taken one of the backup cars in the garage. Despite the January chill in the air, he parked a few stores down from the general mart so he could take in some fresh air and space beyond the bunker's walls.
They'd been taking it easy the last few days, with Dean having bruised a few ribs on their last hunt and neither of them bouncing back as fast as they used to. Thankfully, the world seemed to be able to keep itself spinning long enough for them to take just a bit of a breather, and Sam was intending to use that breather to its fullest.
That was the main reason why he stopped to look in the window of the pawn shop a few doors down from the general mart. Rich usually had a few more items after the holidays, and sometimes interesting things cropped up that could be beneficial in their line of work.
Guitars weren't necessarily beneficial to hunters. But still, for some unknown reason, Sam found himself staring at it through the frosty pawn shop front window. There was a sign up proclaiming "Broken New Year's Resolutions Sale!". Rich's sense of humor matched with his blocky black ad handwriting.
Sam couldn't even play the guitar. But he knew Dean could at least strum out a few chords, and had done so a few times over the years when a guitar was available and he didn't think anyone else was watching. Sam was, though. He always did.
And Dean's birthday was coming up. They didn't celebrate birthdays much anymore beyond the customary 'happy one year more without getting ganked by something nasty' that Dean seemed so fond of.
Those few thoughts alone had him momentarily forgetting about the grocery list in his pocket in favor of heading inside to get more information.
"Yeah, came in a few days ago from a couple in one of those tricked-out, live-in van things, you know the type, those cramped monstrosities on wheels?" Rich pushed his glasses up higher on his nose and looked from the guitar to Sam to see Sam nod. "They got it used for Christmas, didn't have space for it, sold it for gas money. It's got some scratches, but seems in working order, have at it," he said and gestured Sam towards the guitar.
Sam picked it up with careful fingers and looked it over. The strings were tight and unfrayed, just a little out of tune. There were some scratches, but no major dents. Whoever had it before its short-lived time with the couple seemed to have taken good care of it.
"You play?" Rich asked, seeming genuinely interested.
Sam shook his head. "My brother did, a little, years ago."
"Ah. Well, never a bad time to get back into it."
Sam thought of the world perpetually on the brink of ending and making the most of this small reprieve and internally agreed with Rich. They haggled a little about the price, with Rich eventually giving in lower than he wanted because Dean had helped him with a flat tire a few months back, so he would be happy to square up over this.
Money exchanged hands and Sam left with a guitar in a cloth carrying case. He figured he'd keep it in the car until he could move it into one of the artifact rooms that Dean seldom went into. Plan made, Sam stowed it in the trunk and continued on his original trajectory to the general mart.
It was par for the course that he wasn't able to give Dean his present on his actual birthday. They spent Dean's birthday holed up in a motel researching a haunted library—ghosts for me, books for you—as Dean had put it. Sam had acquiesced to watching whatever movie Dean wanted with his choice of take-out and listening to his music with minimal complaints, and that was that. A typical year.
They returned to the bunker with their normal amount of bumps and bruises, but no hospital trips or concussions, so they both counted it as a win.
It was the morning after they returned, three days past Dean's birthday, when Sam decided it was time. "Hey, Dean?" he called from his place at the library table.
It only took a few moments for Dean to round the corner, boots echoing on the hard floor. "What's up? Need me to sharpen a pencil?" Dean asked with a smirk.
"Could you grab me the big cardboard box from the top cabinet on the left side of room 29B?" Sam asked and moved his fingers across the paper records in front of him like he was actually looking at something of importance.
"You know I was joking, right, about being your pencil sharpening errand boy?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "What's in it?"
"Supposedly some giant piece of blessed wood. The files said it was found in—"
Dean loudly started fake snoring, cutting Sam off. "29B?" When Sam nodded, Dean sighed and turned to head out of the library. "You're bringing me a beer later!" he called as he left, making Sam smile.
He stared at the report that wasn't at all about blessed wood for a few minutes before Dean came back with the taped up cardboard box that Sam had hidden the guitar in.
"How much wood do they need, I mean, really? Overcompensating much?" He put the box on the table and grinned at Sam, pleased with his quip, and muttered to himself about his talents being wasted on someone with absolutely zero sense of humor. Sam watched as he pulled out his pocket knife and got to work cutting through the tape to open the box. "The hell?" His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as he opened it to reveal the cloth case. "You sure you got the catalog number right?"
"It's not the wood?" Sam asked and craned his neck to look over.
Dean's expression didn't change until he unzipped the case and flipped it open, revealing the guitar. His confusion only grew, while a smile appeared on Sam's face.
"I mean, technically, it's still a type of wood," he said as Dean looked between him and the instrument. "Happy birthday, Dean."
"What? You—what?"
Sam chuckled at Dean's antics and waved his hand toward the guitar. "It's not gonna bite. Take it for a spin."
Dean slowly snaked a hand out, grasped the guitar by its neck, and pulled it from its case. He gently flipped it around to inspect it, eyes wide as he did so. "Dude," he whispered. "You're serious about this?" He watched as Sam nodded and then perched on the corner of the library table, guitar on his thigh, a motion so smooth an outsider would have thought he'd been doing it all his life. "You know it's been like a million years since I played, right?"
Sam shrugged. "There are videos and practice books that I'm sure could help you get the hang of it whenever we have some free time."
Dean raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh yeah? And you're totally cool with listening to me butcher anything and everything under the sun—because I will, I guarantee you—until I 'get the hang of it'?"
"Totally cool," Sam assured.
Dean minutely shook his head and strummed a hand down the strings. He immediately frowned and began messing with the tuning pegs, trying to get the pitches to match what he remembered in his head.
Sam smiled to himself as he watched. Dean put himself down, as expected, but just the simple act of trying to tune the guitar proved that he remembered more than he thought he did. That, and he seemed genuinely interested in it. Both of those were wins in Sam's book, no matter how much butchering would take place in the next few weeks.
Dean liked to poke fun at himself, but in truth, the butchering wasn't even that bad. Dean didn't practice much out in the library where Sam could hear, instead choosing to do so later at night in his room. Sam caught him with his door open a few times after coming back from a run earlier than expected. Dean would perch on a chair or on the side of his bed, one time sitting cross-legged on the cement floor, with the guitar in his lap and his laptop usually in front of him.
Slowly but surely, Sam noticed Dean's 'noodling', as his older brother liked to call it, becoming more melodic.
"How goes it?" Sam asked a few weeks after the gift had been given. He was headed to the showers after his run and couldn't help but stop at Dean's open door.
Dean, surprisingly, looked almost sheepish, and shrugged around the instrument in his hands. "It's goin'. Forgot how much the strings bite into your fingers," he said and toyed with his fingertips for emphasis.
Sam quirked a smile. "Callouses are a sign of progress, you know."
"Yeah, yeah, don't you have a shower to take?" Dean waved him off with a touch of humor in his voice.
Sam laughed and continued down the hallway towards the showers.
It was a few days later that a similar encounter took place, only Dean's door was closed when Sam walked by, hair still damp. He paused by his brother's door and listened. There was a slightly uneven strumming of chords, muffled by the door so he couldn't quite pick out the song, but he'd bet money on it being something they had on one of the Impala's tapes.
The strumming wasn't unusual, but the humming was. Sam let out a quiet breath of surprise upon Dean's low vocalizations in time with the playing.
The funny thing was that all of Dean's over-exuberant, loud, off-key singing was usually purely for Sam's benefit. If they had company with them, the same held true. He did it to lighten the mood, make people relax and smile and feel more comfortable to jam along.
Sam was probably the only person on earth who knew that Dean could actually sing, and that knowledge was gained in fragments torn from a book written in hundreds of motels across the country. Little moments like a younger Dean humming to a song on the television as he cleaned his guns on a grimy motel bed. Or him quietly singing along to a soft rock tape while he thought Sam was dozing in the passenger seat as the Impala rumbled under them both.
Sam was more than happy to keep this one innocent secret to himself. They had kept so many over the years that were leeched in blood and hard decisions. It was nice to have a calm, mundane one for a change.
He listened for just a few minutes longer before he continued to the library, wishing the sound carried further down the cement and tile halls.
"I've got a song suggestion for you to learn," Sam said and pointed towards Dean with his half-eaten piece of toast.
"Shoot," Dean said around a piece of bacon.
"Iron Heart."
Dean mouthed the name to himself and frowned. "Not ringing any bells."
Sam took another bite of his toast. "It's got a decent guitar line. May be worth looking into."
Dean considered it for a moment before he shrugged and grabbed another piece of bacon.
Later, Sam was transcribing one of the old Men of Letters' files when an "oh, hell no!" echoed down the bunker's halls.
Sam smiled, the reaction being exactly what he expected. He counted the seconds it would take for Dean to storm into the library, phone probably in hand and frown likely on his face.
Dean did just that, exactly seven seconds later. "No way in hell am I sullying that guitar with this—this Vincente hair rock crap," he said in mock anger—in this case it may have just been the slightest bit real but was still for entertainment and the sake of getting his point across—as he pointed to his phone, where the music video for Ladyheart's song was pulled up.
"Did you even make it to the riff I told you about?"
"I don't need to! The eight seconds I accidentally heard were enough!"
"Eight seconds, huh?" Sam said thoughtfully, eyebrows raised. "So you didn't immediately click out of it when it started playing? Sounds like you're a fan."
Dean's faced morphed from angered to shocked to annoyed in the span of just a few seconds. "I—what? It played automatically! I couldn't shut the damn thing off!"
"Yeah, sure," Sam got out between bouts of light laughing.
"It ain't happening, so you know what, forget about it. Don't you have something more useful you could be doing?" Dean said and shut his phone off.
"Not at the moment, no," Sam replied, still smiling. "Hey, you know, another one—"
"Don't want to hear it!" Dean interrupted and spun away from Sam to head back out of the library.
"Roses and Thorns!" Sam called after him.
"Can't hear you!" Dean shouted back, already down the hallway and out of sight.
Sam smiled to himself for another few moments before he got back to the task at hand. It was worth a shot.
They continued like that throughout February. The back and forth, Sam ribbing him about songs he should learn but wouldn't, and listening outside Dean's door when he thought Dean wouldn't notice. It became comfortable, almost, to have something else to bicker about outside their norm. Dean just happened to be out with the guitar trying to find a replacement peg since one kept slipping, when Sam found their next hunt. It was pretty timely too, with the full moon due in a few days and a small town having been besieged with bodies missing hearts the previous month.
How they missed it before, Sam didn't know, and chalked it up to being on another hunt at the same time. They were only human, after all, and couldn't be everywhere at once.
They hit the road as soon as Dean came back and they both got packed. Thankfully it wasn't an extremely long drive to northern Colorado, but Sam found himself wishing he'd brought another jacket as they canvassed the park where the bodies had been found the previous month. They ran the usual gamut, talking to witnesses and police, even as the winds and rain kicked up.
The brothers were back in the motel just past dark, lukewarm pizza from a small joint down the street spread on the table in front of them, as the newscaster on the television warned people about the cold front moving in. Rain fell in sharp sheets against the window and if Sam tuned out the television, he could hear the wind rattling the motel's roof.
"It's like it knew we were coming," Dean muttered and took another bite of his pizza. "Figures."
Sam couldn't find himself arguing with that. They finished eating and afterwards, Sam pulled out one of the lore books he had brought to cross-reference with the town's history just to make sure they were indeed hunting a werewolf. He had multiple tabs open on his computer and kept clicking back and forth just to make sure he wasn't missing anything. Dean tossed what remained of the pizza into the room's small mini-fridge and looked out the window.
Sam heard his brother whisper a "crap" under his breath and the next thing he knew, Dean walked out of the motel room, out into the biting wind and rain. Sam got up from the table and stood in the doorway, confused and ready to help if needed. He watched as Dean's dark silhouette made its way to the back of the Impala, got something out of the trunk and hurried back inside.
Sam closed the door immediately after him as Dean shook his head, trying to dispel the water drops from his hair.
"What was that about?" Sam asked as he looked down to find the guitar case in Dean's hand, darkened in spots by drops of rain. He was also clutching one of their battery powered lanterns, apparently thinking ahead just in case something happened.
"Weatherman said it's gonna be near, if not below, freezing tonight. Temperatures like that can mess with the wood and the glue and the whole nine." Dean explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He put the lantern next to Sam's things on the table and set the case down next to his bed before he sat on top of the sheets to surf through the channels.
Something in Sam's heart warmed just a little to see Dean taking care of the instrument, even though he seldom played it in Sam's presence. It was a begrudging caretaking, something Dean easily brushed off as being self-explanatory, a job to be done, and not a big deal. Sam knew from experience that the exact kind of caretaking meant that Dean in fact did care a great deal.
They continued with their respective research and channel hoping until around nine when the power suddenly went off. One moment it was there, and the next they were plunged into darkness, with the window offering little in the way of light.
"You good?" Dean asked. It sounded like he was making his way across the room to where the duffel bags were.
"Fine," Sam said, making his way to the window. The wind kept howling outside and the rain hadn't stopped its incessant pounding against the glass. He couldn't see any other lights on in the motel itself or in the surrounding buildings on the street. "Winds must've knocked a tree into a power line or something."
Dean rummaged through the duffel as Sam talked before finally finding what he was looking for and clicking on a flashlight. "Heads up." He made sure Sam looked his way before he tossed Sam another flashlight. Sam caught it, made sure it worked, and turned it back off. Dean's light was more than enough for their small room.
Sam turned back to his computer, only to find a window proclaiming that the Wi-Fi network couldn't be found. "Knocked out the internet too," he informed his brother.
Dean grumbled under his breath. "The hell am I supposed to do now?"
Sam shrugged and settled back into his chair. He had some files downloaded and was close to being done anyways, so finishing without power or internet wouldn't be a problem. "Could get some shuteye," he suggested.
"Dude, it's…" Dean paused and looked at his watch to check the time. "Barely nine. What am I, a grandma?"
"You want me to answer that?" Sam smirked at him.
"Very funny." Dean checked to make sure there was indeed no internet on his phone before he tossed it on the bed and sat on the edge. The flashlight bounced as the bed did, the light wavering against the wall before it settled. Sam pulled up on the lantern in front of him, activating it enough so they could see, and Dean turned off the flashlight.
Boredom had never done his brother any good. Especially the type of boredom brought on by circumstances completely out of Dean's control. Already, Sam could see Dean's leg bouncing up and down as he looked around the room. Sam was about to tell him he could help research, but that idea fell flat when he remembered that Dean had brought in the guitar earlier.
"You could always practice," Sam said and gestured towards the case next to the bed.
Dean looked at him with a bit of a frown. Of course, it was concealing the tiniest amount of sheepishness that hid within Dean's usually impenetrable bravado. "And have you laugh at my noodling? Yeah, that, no thanks." Dean waved him off.
Sam paused for a minute before he reached into his backpack on the chair and pulled out a pair of earphones. He could see Dean watching him out of the corner of his eye and didn't make a big show out of plugging the headphones into his laptop and putting them in his ears. He typed a few things, clicked the volume button where Dean could see, and settled in to finish the rest of his research.
There was nothing playing on the headphones, but Dean didn't need to know that.
Still, it took another few minutes of Dean staring at the wall before his chest heaved in a sigh and he rolled over to get the guitar out of its case. Sam internally smiled in victory.
He finally finished going through the county death records for the last few years right as Dean was making sure the guitar was tuned properly and strummed a few chords. He kept looking up at Sam from the bed, but Sam kept his attention focused on the computer in front of him. He'd occasionally flip to a different page in the book to make it seem like he was busier than he actually was. Maybe Dean could see through the ruse, maybe he couldn't, Sam didn't really care. So long as it got Dean doing something productive and not steeping himself in boredom and frustration before a hunt, Sam would take it.
Dean returned his attention to the guitar and though he played a slow, stripped down and simplified version, it only took Sam a few moments to recognize Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". Sam schooled his features to be completely impassive, even though he wasn't the least bit surprised that it was one of the first songs Dean had picked up.
Dean did stumble a few times with the wrong notes or an uneven melody, but it was recognizable and mostly correct, and Sam was impressed. He knew Dean had been spending most of his free time practicing, but still. They didn't have an overabundance of free time to begin with, and Dean hadn't had the instrument all that long. It was heartening to know that he was using and enjoying Sam's gift in exactly the way Sam had hoped he would.
Over the next fifteen or so minutes, Dean cycled through a few songs. One even sounded like "House of the Rising Sun", which was a little surprising given the case they had worked over a decade ago where the song precluded the appearance of a ghost.
Eventually, Sam couldn't fake research any more and pulled out his headphones and shut his laptop. Dean paused his playing immediately. "Nothing to suggest what we're dealing with isn't a werewolf," Sam informed him of the conclusion he had come to.
"Awesome," Dean replied.
Outside, the wind and the rain didn't seem to be letting up any. Sam checked his watch to find it just past nine-thirty, which was early for them, but they'd had a long day and would have another long one tomorrow. He honestly wouldn't mind the opportunity for a few more hours of rest. He stifled a yawn and picked up the lantern as he left the table.
"I'm calling it," he said and made his way to the bathroom, leaving the lantern on a cabinet just outside so some light could get into the room and the bathroom itself.
"Grandma," he heard Dean mutter from the main room.
Sam busied himself with brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed. All the while, Dean resumed his strumming in the other room. When Sam was finished, Dean again paused when he came back into the room, put the lantern on the nightstand between the beds, and got into bed.
"Want me to shut it off?" Dean asked.
Sam shook his head. "It's not that bright. Just don't stay up too late."
Dean let out a light scoff at the parental-esque reminder. "Yeah, yeah."
Sam flipped over to his other side so he was facing the wall, with the lantern and Dean at his back. The silence in the room was broken up by the sound of rain hitting the window. Sam could practically feel Dean's uncertainty, and soon enough, his fingers began lightly drumming on the wood of the guitar. A rhythmic tap-tap-tap joined the sheeting rain.
Maybe Dean wouldn't continue. Maybe he'd put the guitar away and they wouldn't talk about this again. Maybe he was more tired from the drive and the investigation than he was letting on and would be eager to bed down for the night. But just as Sam was beginning to wonder, Dean started to play.
It was even quieter than before, and just single notes instead of chords. Aching and longing, almost, in their simplicity. Sam tried to keep his breathing even but couldn't help the tightness in his chest when he recognized "Hey Jude". It took almost half the song for Sam to realize that Dean hadn't made a single mistake. And not only that, Dean himself seemed more certain in what he was playing, even though he was deliberately playing quieter than before.
Dean started humming softly when he reached the second verse, just enough to drown out some of the rain. Sam's eyes burned with the bittersweetness of it. There was something inherently soothing about the Winchester-style lullaby. For an instant, he could almost picture their mom leaning over Dean's bed, brushing hair off his forehead as she sang him to sleep.
To Sam's surprise, when Dean reached the end of the song, he simply repeated it. A peaceful air settled over the room and Sam could feel the lingering apprehension and stress of the case melt from his shoulders. He didn't fall asleep, but it was a near thing.
Gradually, the rain turned from harsh sheets to a gentler pitter-patter and the wind stopped shaking the roof. And through it all, Dean played, each note a melodic drop of rain in their otherwise still room.
This is a tad bit more self-indulgent than I usually write, but I wanted to give Dean a happy birthday, and it's been a headcanon of mine for a long time that he can actually sing (he doesn't do a terrible job in 2x05 and 11x04) so ta-da! Hopefully it was enjoyable for you guys, thanks for reading!
