Part Two
Well that was just great.
Just perfect for a Tuesday afternoon up here on Bore Your Ass Off Hill.
So thought Chester, aged fourteen. It seemed wholly typical of his life that no sooner had Mom taken off to meet the real estate guy, leaving him in sole charge of the Travelstop, than a couple of complete crazies came wandering out of nowhere down the highway. In his general direction.
He had just wiped the glass door clean of his own sticky fingerprints when he saw the two guys appear at the brow of the hill. They were about the age and height of robbers, he was pretty convinced of that. To Chester's mind, anyone wandering down this highway instead of leaving it far behind them in a four-wheel drive had to be certifiably crazy. Anyone looking like these two guys had to be both certifiably crazy and tending to the criminal.
Chester got back behind the counter double-quick. His hand felt for the sawed-off, twelve-gauge double-barreled shotgun on the shelf right under the cash register. Mom was nothing if not cautious, especially at the moment.
Too many weird things have happened, Chester, and there's too many crazy people wandering around. You keep the gun close while I'm gone and don't you dare get pissy about it.
In truth, Chester was much more afraid of the shotgun than he was of the family business being robbed by lunatics and weirdos, but he always tried to do what Mom asked of him. Because there was only the two of them, and he figured he owed her. Well, except when she was being particularly Stressed-out Lunatic Mom From Hell.
"Help you?" he inquired as the door jangled. He brought one hand up to rest nonchalantly on the counter.
A dark-haired guy in an off-white shirt and tan jacket led the way. Tall guy. Broad and balanced and tough. The dangerous one, Chester had no doubt.
"Oh hi, how're you doing? Our car's up on the ridge," was Tall Guy's opening gambit, delivered with an easy and convincing smile. "Is there an auto repair nearby? And, uh, can we use your phone?"
Chester had expected a pile of bull, but the hopeful and pleasant manner in which this pile of bull was couched threw him. However, he was pretty sure that Mom, in her wisdom, would've hated these two on sight. They were everything that made her unhappy - male, around her age, and not wearing suits.
"You need to go down to North Silverbridge. Twenty miles thataway," Chester said. He pointed out through the window and straight down over the valley. "Got no phone - lines blew down and we can't get a cell signal today. Happens sometimes."
"Dude, I'm not walking twenty miles," said Tall Guy's companion, a trashed-looking guy holding one arm crooked as if in an invisible cast. He was a little sweaty and green around the gills.
Chester couldn't help being apologetic. "Sorry, we got gas and not much else. Haven't had a delivery since Friday."
Trashed Guy looked at the shelves, eyes roving over the bottles of mouthwash, boxes of gum and cans of soup, looking a little sweatier suddenly, a little more pinched than he had even two seconds ago.
He swished a hand over his face, cleared his throat. "Do you have a ....?" he asked thickly.
Chester fingered the shotgun again. "Blue door," he said, jerking his head backwards. "Don't make a mess."
Trashed Guy slipped past him and barged through the door. It clapped shut and then the bolt inside was drawn. Chester braced himself, ready for the sudden move he was sure Tall Guy was about to make.
"Listen," Tall Guy said, glancing at the blue door and then back, "you wouldn't have any ... pantyhose would you?|"
Chester narrowed his eyes.
"No," he said. "We haven't. We don't."
"OK, but nothing at all like it? That might work as a .. you know, in an ... no ... no, I guess not."
"Told you, mister, mechanic's twenty miles thataway."
A hacking, spitting noise came loudly through the panels of the blue door. Then something else that sounded to Chester much more unpleasant and desperate.
Tall Guy was behind the counter in a second. He banged on the door.
"Hey, Dean, what's going on with you? You all right?"
Chester could hear pained breathing.
Awesome. Some loser was about to die on the floor of the john while Mom was with the real estate guy. Seriously, these things always happened to him. Like that time this woman started having a baby halfway between the pump and the door.
"Don't make me come in there," Tall Guy said, hand slipping on the greasy handle. He rattled it up and down. The whole door moved back and forth but the lock held. "Dean, don't make me."
"I'm losing my lunch," came from inside. "Can't a guy lose his lunch in peace anymore?"
"You sound like you're losing more than that, man." Tall Guy rattled again. ""Sides, you hardly had any lunch."
"He'd better not be making a mess," Chester said. He'd assumed the puke thing was a scam to make a move on the cash register but if it was, they were sure taking their time.
There was a rounded silence for a while on the other side of the door. Then some quieter breaths, the sound of water running. Tall Guy stood back when he heard the bolt.
Trashed Guy - Dean - came out. He sucked his teeth, looked longingly at the mouthwash.
"Need to sit?" Tall Guy asked him, extending a hand.
Sheesh. Sounded more like a Mom than a hard-bitten robber, but Chester still didn't trust him. Or the other one. That spluttering and puking could all have been put on with some weird purpose in mind. Chester just hadn't figured out what it was yet.
"Nah, just felt a little crappy for a second there."
"Crappy? Was that crappy, or are you in shock?"
"Just crappy. I told you I'd say if I felt crappy. I just felt crappy."
"And now?"
"Not so crappy."
Tall Guy didn't look pleased. He looked like Mom did when Chester came home with a bloody lip. Kind of like she blamed him for getting whumped in the first place, as well as irritated by his stupidity and totally fuming that he wouldn't take it seriously. Trashed Dean did what Chester did in the bloody-lip circumstance and created a diversion. He held up a length of sand-colored fabric and dangled it rather suggestively between Chester and the Tall Robber Guy.
"You can't have that," Chester protested at once. "That keeps our pipes from rattling."
"Is that ...?" Tall Guy breathed out the question in some awe.
"It certainly is," his partner said. "And we certainly will have it."
"Look, hey, we'll pay you," Tall Guy said. "Then we'll go fix up our car, come back and do something about those pipes."
"You can't have it," Chester repeated, getting a little panicky now. His hands closed right around the shotgun.
"It's a shitty piece of old pantyhose," Trashed Dean said. "We're not paying for it and we're not coming back."
"I've got a gun," Chester said, "a sawed-off. And my Mom says I have to use it if we get robbed."
"Trust me," said Trashed Dean. "You wouldn't want to use it. I happen to have a .45 Smith and Wesson on my person." He smiled. "Which my Mom knows nothing about."
"Now come on," said Tall Guy, shaking his head severely. "Let's not get silly about this. Listen, my name is Sam - me and my brother don't want to rob you, OK? Why don't you tell us who you are?"
"And more to the point, why aren't you in school?" Trashed Dean put in.
Chester looked a little more favorably on Tall Sam than he had before, now that he had the same name as a real sweetheart of a black lab that belonged to the school janitor. Although, he wasn't quite convinced yet about his ultimate robber status, or how buckets of crazy either of them were.
"I'm Chester Beattie. I'm not in school today because .... Mom doesn't want ... I'm working."
"OK. Chester," Tall Sam said, apparently mustering up a kind voice without too much difficulty. "This is how it's going to go. We're going to buy some water. Then we're going to walk back to our car and fix it the best we can, with this piece of pantyhose if you don't mind. On our way through to the auto repair, we'll stop by and get some gas."
"What about the pipes?" Chester asked suspiciously.
Trashed Dean frowned. "String," he said impatiently. "Or tape. It'll do the same job."
"I guess."
Chester kept a hand on the shotgun when the cash register opened. Tall Sam paid for the water with a bunch of screwed up ones and some coins. He handed a bottle to Trashed Dean, watched him drink.
"What you do to your hand?" Chester asked.
"Bitten by a mountain lion. Biiig sonofabitch."
"Holy shit, really?"
"No, not really."
"Oh."
"He burned it," Tall Sam said quietly. He'd never sounded less like a robber. "And we really need a doctor to take a look."
Chester looked across the valley. "That'd be North Silverbridge again. There's a medical center you could go to. My Mom works there, although she's not there now. If she was here she could maybe help you out. But she's not here. Or there."
"No, right. I see. That's .... thanks. We'll check it out." Tall Sam smiled tightly, began herding his brother towards the exit like a sheepdog. "Take it easy, Chester."
"Sure thing."
Chester watched them go out, faintly surprised that still no attempt had been made on the cash register. But glad too, in lots of ways.
"You say your car's up on the ridge?" he called out on a sudden thought.
"Yeah," Tall Sam said, looking back.
"Well, there's a shortcut. If you take a left out of here and then cut up through the trees to your right, there's a little track. It'll take you straight across and out below the ridge, misses out the big bend. Pretty steep climb to start with, then it levels out."
"Thanks."
"Sure thing."
"Yeah," said Trashed Dean. "And tell your Mom you'd rather be at school."
Chester snorted. "School sucks," he said.
"I know that, dude, but you get to leave the shotgun at home. Safer that way."
The door jangled shut and he watched them pause outside as if considering whether to take the suggested shortcut. Tall Sam seemed to cast the deciding vote. They turned left and began walking.
Chester felt a pang of regret. It got boring and lonely as hell up here, and in the great scheme of things these guys had really been pretty OK. Of course, he'd known all along that they weren't robbers. They seemed kind of cool actually. He'd have liked it if they'd stayed longer, at least until Mom got back.
Still, they said they'd come for gas in a bit.
They said they would.
So maybe.
-----
It was breezy among the trees. Without the early March sunshine, there was a chill to the air, the kind of chill that made Sam realize how very weary he was, how very far north they were. He could feel the pull and sting in his muscles as they negotiated the first stretch of Chester's shortcut, a slippery slope of loose stone and hard earth.
"You think we can fix the car?" he asked Dean's back.
"We?"
"OK then ... you. Do you think you can fix the car?"
"I can try."
"Sure?"
"Yeah," Dean said, stopping and turning, breath coming in and out a little laboriously. "If you do as you're told and don't ask pansy-ass questions."
"You've done it before, right? Replaced a busted fan belt?"
"Uh-huh."
"And we'll get to North Silverbridge?"
Dean, moved off again, muttering.
A couple of hundred yards further on Sam fished for his brother's attention again, just to get him to slow down.
"That kid," he said. "Chester. Do you think he'll be all right?"
Turned out to be an inspired question, because Dean stopped right away, turned around, suspicious and a little bit amused. He put one hand on his knee, caught his breath.
"Really?"
"Well, I mean ... didn't you want to be in school sometimes, you know ... when Dad had you out working?"
"Not ever," Dean replied at once.
"So what you said was just bullshit? You wouldn't have preferred to be hanging in the schoolyard with your buddies, knowing where you had to be, knowing what was going to happen that day, that you'd be safe?"
"Safe? Some of the schools we were at, man, there were freaks everywhere you looked. It wasn't safe."
"Safer than running round the countryside with a shotgun."
"I don't think so."
"Huh."
Dean turned as if he was about to carry on walking, then he turned his head back again, gave Sam a look.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"We're talking," Sam said. "I mean, I'm saying something and you're giving me an answer. That's talking, right?"
"And what is is exactly that you're saying, Sam?"
"That since ... Iowa ... we haven't been talking."
Dean did that little glance and away thing, cradled his hand into his chest and pursed his lips as if considering a weighty problem.
"Can take a little chat about feeling crappy, Sam, some back and forth about the goddamned fan-belt maybe. More than that, I don't know."
A pulse of irritation beat in Sam's temple. "You are one sarcastic sonofabitch, you know that?"
Dean walked on. Sam took a few faster steps to catch up, digging his hands in his pockets. They were leveling out now along a track strewn with brown pine needles and flint. It took Sam some effort to keep in his own space, to work against the magnetic pull that caused them to collide occasionally, a gentle bump of shoulders or elbows.
"The road," Sam said in sudden relief, pointing. The road was definitely up ahead and they began to walk towards it across a clearing. "I don't know about a shortcut, but .... what the hell?"
There was a house directly on their left. It was absolutely the last thing Sam expected to see.
For a start it seemed like way too pretty a dwelling to be sitting right out here exposed to the mountain winds and empty silence. Sam came to a halt and stared at it, although Dean kept right on going.
"Wow." Off to the left Sam could see the line of trees from earlier, still spiky and pretty, but just as far away. "What a ... fantastic ... wow."
Dean stopped and turned round to look at him, eyebrows hiked.
"Really, man," said Sam. "Isn't this just a great place to build a house?"
Dean scowled. "Oh sell it to me, Sam. No cell phone signal. No neighbors except ones with claws. And ... uh ... just what do you do when you run out of coffee up here on Brokemyfreakinback Mountain?"
Sam felt a big grin stretch his face.
Dean came back to stand next to him, doing him the favor of giving the house a good, long appraisal.
"OK," he said eventually, clearly unconvinced.
"Imagine that view, every day. This air."
To Sam's mind this was a loved house, solid, newly painted, nestling stoutly in the alpine firs. Even as Dean started off again, his eyes swept over the windows glinting in the sunshine, the smart roof tiles and healthy bay trees in pots by the door. It seemed that nobody was home though. There was no vehicle parked outside and the blinds were all down.
Just as Sam was about to fall back into step with his brother, he thought someone shouted.
"Did you hear that?"
Sam arrested Dean's progress with a hand to the arm.
"What?"
It didn't surprise Sam much that Dean hadn't heard anything, although it pained him. Reminded him yet again that Dean was way off his game, even if it hadn't been for the burn and the lack of lunch. To Sam's mind it all added up to the terrifying possibility that Dean was letting go, bit by bit, day by day, the fight trickling out of him like lifeblood.
Sam kept his hand on Dean's arm, almost territorial.
"Really, dude," he said quietly. "Listen. I heard something."
Dean shook his head. He pulled away from Sam's grasp, mouthing an "ow". Sam held his gaze, miming for him to stay still.
"Oh hey, then smell that."
And again, it didn't feel very surprising that Dean looked at him like he was simple-minded. Far as Sam could make out, his brother's senses were blunt and messed-up, all of them.
"I'm sorry?"
"Bread, dude," Sam laughed, filling up with pleasure in spite of himself. "Don't you just love that smell?"
"Listen," said Dean through clenched teeth. "I am not John-Boy, and you are not Jim-Bob. And we never were."
Sam heard the sound again. From deep within the pretty house. He began to walk, losing Dean from his peripheral vision.
"Hello?" he called, and went up the steps. He couldn't believe it. Someone was yelling for help and Dean wasn't moving.
The front door sprang open, and a woman appeared, tall and well-dressed with shining grey hair and an oven mitt in one hand.
"Thank the Lord," she said, holding it out towards Sam, the other hand touched lightly to her neck. "There I was in the kitchen baking and Jim fell out of his chair. I could really use some help."
The combination of her brilliant smile and anxious eyes were all it took.
Sam didn't hesitate.
He was the leader right now.
-----
To Dean's mind the house was ugly.
Although he'd been as surprised as his brother to suddenly come across it clamped on the side of a windy mountain, all he thought about it was .... ugly. No garden and too much money spent on polishing the roof tiles.
He didn't really care about it because his goddamn hand hurt. Well, maybe it did. His arm did, for sure, throbbing in time to his heartbeat. The hand on the end of it was doing something - he hadn't quite gotten a feel for what it was yet. It felt huge, like a big useless glove, the skin tight and hot around his finger-joints and wrist. The sensation was eerily familiar and made him feel queasy.
When it came down to it, he was really not sure what had happened with the engine and skin-melding thing. Although he knew it had involved his own stupidity, he couldn't quite get a handle on the sequence of events or how he'd managed to do what he did, not once but twice. At any rate, the pain at least gave him a good excuse to think about something that wasn't to do with Rock Ridge or Bedford, or with Sam, whose words and deeds kept on scuttling around in his head like cockroaches and made him not want to open his eyes in the morning.
Three swallows of Jack Daniels helped. Jack always helped, or so he told himself. After that, though, the walking took it out of him and he had been about ready to fall on his face when they got to the Travelstop.
In the rest-room there, after puking up the latest round of sandwich and fear, he had stared at himself in the mirror above the sink. Looked himself over, chin to crown, while Sam continued to rattle the door handle from the other side. Hard to fathom how the whole of Hell could be in a tiny space like the inside of his head. Yet there it always was, waiting for him, whenever he slept without a Jack-flavored safety-net. Or whenever he forgot himself so completely that he shook hands with a hot engine. Luckily his eye had been caught by the incongruous sight of the pantyhose wound around some exposed pipes at that point.
Next they were on some shortcut back to the car, which wasn't nearly short enough.
And then they came upon the house.
He would have just walked past without a second thought except that then Sam heard voices and smelled bread baking.
Dean heard nothing but the wind blowing through the trees. He smelled nothing but pine and pollen.
Saw the crazy woman though, when she threw open the door. Mad eyes and dressed all wrong. Sam seemed as charmed by her as he was by the fucking house. Dean had to drag his feet up the steps. All of a sudden something had piled on top of gravity, a weight that pressed painfully on his shoulders, trying to get him down. His knees protested, his spine ached. Everything wanted to cave in, sink to the earth and lie still.
Fighting it, Dean latched his sights on Sam's back, let his brother's upright energy draw him along.
"There I was in the kitchen, baking," the woman said, as if she was in the middle of a conversation. "And then Jim fell out of his chair."
All right, so Jim's an idiot. Why do we care?
Dean's brain struggled with it all. This woman ... baking ... in her pressed pantsuit ... in this lonely, super-clean nonsense of a house?
Inside the front door he felt chilled and had to lean on the wall.
"What's the problem?" Sam was asking her, already following.
Dean wasn't sure for a second if he felt grateful that Sam wasn't fussing over him, or totally freaked by it. Then that second passed and he knew for sure that he was totally freaked.
They were in an angular yellow-painted hallway flanked by neat doors, a hexagonal carpet lying in the center, over which hung a large brass chandelier. Dean thought the pattern on the carpet was too wild and strident, the solid chandelier too heavy. He wanted to get back to the car.
"My brother," the over-dressed woman was saying, leading the way to the one door which was open. "He fell and I need help to ..." She indicated the door and Dean heard Sam say, "Oh, hey ..." as he disappeared through it.
Determined not to let him out of his sight, Dean pushed off the wall. Crossing the carpet was like wading through mud in lead boots.
"Here," the woman said, glancing at him, "honey ... can you help us?"
Dean got through the door and found Sam already stooped next to an elderly man sprawled on the wooden floor, tangled up in a wheelchair amid a sea of books and loose papers.
"No he can't," Sam said over his shoulder. "Burned his hand earlier, needs to take it easy."
"Honeee," said the woman, head on one side. She stared directly at his bound limb, then up at his face. He didn't like her tone of voice and he didn't like her expression. "How did that happen? Would you like me to take a look at it?"
Dean's tongue wouldn't come off the roof of his mouth. He made a dismissive gesture, began to pat his pocket to find the water. Somehow his hand was all over the place, swatting thin air. The woman watched him curiously.
"There you go," Sam said. He'd righted the wheelchair as if it had been no effort at all.
"Heh!" the man said cheerfully. "Way to go there, young feller. Heh. I was just reaching for my pen and then ... woof! Over I go!"
"Jim, you frightened the life out of me, you old fool." The woman brushed her smoothly manicured hands down her immaculate pantsuit, causing the bangles on both wrists to tinkle. She was laughing and Dean couldn't think what was so funny.
"Baking?" he found himself saying. "Really?" He could smell nothing but dust.
The look Sam shot him was wide-eyed with disapproval.
"Marlena Broomfield," she said, plainly ignoring Dean. "And my brother Jim. I really can't thank you enough, Mr ...?"
"Sam, and my brother Dean."
Jim Broomfield cackled from his chair. "Someone needs to park their ass!"
"Yeah, Dean, come on, man, you look like you should really sit," Sam said but his smiling face didn't seem to fit his words.
Just what is it that's so freakin' hilarious about all this?
Dean swiveled his gaze from the old man to his brother and then to Marlena Broomfield who was indicating a wooden straight-backed chair.
The temptation to rest was immense, but Dean wouldn't do it. He was icy-cold and his hand was agony. All he wanted was to leave. And for Sam to change out of his Good Samaritan costume.
"No I'm good," he got out.
"Oh here," Sam said, turning away from him with a nonchalance that Dean felt like a poke in the gut. "Can I help you with this?" He bent again to the puddle of paper.
"Careful with that, son. That's my life's work you're stamping on," Jim told him.
"Jim ..."
"Heh! It's all right, M. I can see the boy's no fool."
From his position hovering over the chair Dean could see the papers were all covered in handwriting and neat pencil drawings.
"What are you working on, Mr. Broomfield?"
Sam, please. Tell me you're not as interested as you sound.
"It's a book about trees, son."
"Those ones with the spindly branches," Sam said, waving his hands. "You can see a whole line of them from up on the ridge ... you know what I mean? What are those?"
Dean felt like walking across the room and punching his brother in his goddamn polite, personable teeth.
"That would be the larch," Jim said.
"Beautiful tree," said Sam, nodding.
"Let me offer you something, Sam and Dean," Marlena put in then. "Some coffee perhaps?"
Sam looked round at Dean grinning, like he knew exactly what he was going to say. Dean's hand burned angrily, worse than before.
Damnit.
"Heh, something stronger I think?" Jim suggested.
"Now Jim, the boy doesn't need any more liquor." Marlena seemed very sure of this and Dean felt his brows contract lazily in a frown of protest.
"Oh he's not drunk," Sam assured her, sounding bright as a freakin' button. "And coffee would be great. Dean, if you'd just sit down for a minute ...."
"No!" Dean said angrily, and then they were all looking at him. "I'm gonna go back to the ... car. Fix it."
Sam got to his feet, a sheaf of paper in one hand. He stepped carefully over the remainder.
"Really ... dude .." His fingers closed on Dean's good arm, squeezed hard. "Have a cup of coffee. Sit for a while."
"Rather get started."
"With one hand? I don't think so."
Dean wondered if he was suffering from a freakishly-quick infection. Sam's voice sounded like a 45 being played at 33, and he looked pleased with himself, like the Sam of the Rock Ridge hallucinations. The Sam who crackled with power and wrapped his hand round Dean's airway.
Wearily, Dean shut his eyes. He heard the three voices, knew they were talking about him. He pulled his arm free, regretting the loss of contact.
"Must," he said. "Sam, we must. We gotta go. North Silverbridge."
"Honey," came Marlena's forthright trill. "Whatever you got planned for North Silverbridge, I'm sure it can wait."
"No."
"Your brother is a stubborn boy, Sam."
"Yes he is."
Yes, Sam? Freakin' yes?
"Sam, I'm going, I'll see you back at the car."
Bright dark eyes turned to him.
Come on, Sammy. Ditch the creepy siblings. Let's go.
"Fine, dude, I'm right behind you. Take it easy."
Dean pressed his elbow into his stomach, bent himself slightly over the injured hand. It felt like it was on fire.
No, nothing wrong with Sam. This is me. I'm the one who's screwed.
"Ah, honey," he heard. "Close the front door behind you."
He couldn't remember crossing back over the hexagonal carpet or opening the front door. All he knew was that inside the house his brother was chatting with two crazy people like they were old friends.
Dean reached for the big ring in the center of the door, closed his good hand around it and tugged. It was unnaturally heavy, or else he was unnaturally weak. When it finally banged shut, he staggered backwards down the steps and landed on his ass.
tbc