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The first cigarette Dean ever smokes goes like this: it's a good day. Fuck, it's a great day. Didn't go back to school after lunch; instead he's stoned out of his gourd in a field two miles away. Hiked out there with guys the closest things he could call friends, everybody laughing and shoving each other down the path. The sky's a big blue empty bowl plopped down on top of them and the only other thing that exists in the world is a crop duster droning miles and miles away.
They pass around a pack of cigarettes and most everybody has one. Jason's only got matches, tries to light up like James Dean and fails, sulfur-burns himself and everybody laughs. Dean shows them how to light a match and how to cup your hands to keep it lit in high winds, happy to show off a little. Dean thinks about Sammy in his DARE classes, all those Nancy Reagan PSAs and has to laugh at how normal shit like this is, how nobody's making a big deal out of it. Dean lost his virginity the month before, two states back, still hasn't breathed a word to anyone because it feels like he's carrying something secret and real. Like he's figured something out but doesn't know what yet. But maybe he feels a little bit more like everybody else instead of how it's usually the other way around.
He coughs on that first cigarette, yeah he coughs his guts out. Leans back in the dry grass dizzy and higher than ever now, feels like he can float away, feels anchored to the ground. Feels his blood pumping even down through his fingers. He watches the smoke trail off to mix with the clouds, takes a cautious drag and looks down at his body like he can see the nicotine flowing in his veins. Talk peters out and they all stare up at the sky. Dean likes the silence, keeps watching his hands just waiting to see if he can tell when things change.
-
They're pulled over off a country highway to piss and stretch their legs in the middle of a long haul day when Dad turns to Dean and hands him a joint, says, "Guy gave this to me at the bar last night. Funny looking cigarette, huh?" He bursts out laughing at the look on Dean's face -- probably equal parts horror and hilarity -- and lights it, inhaling deep before passing it over with a grin. Dean takes it, shaking his head. Dad says, "What, I can't make a joke?"
"I think the last time you did was that time you made Sammy and me hike up a mountain with a pack full of bricks we thought were supplies."
His dad just smiles, says "Yeah, that was funny."
An hour later they're camped on the trunk with beers in hand, tossing rocks at the first round of empties to see who can get theirs closest without breaking the bottle. Been a while since Dean's gotten stoned and never with his dad. The joint wasn't a whole lot better than ditchweed, just potent enough to blur everything just a little, make him appreciate the way the day's just misty enough to feel against his face when he looks up at the clouds. Dad's chatty, smiles easy at Dean and laughs long and hard at his own jokes. Dean feels like he's drinking from a well that's soon to go dry, his chest tight and a smile on his face from his dad's hand on his shoulder. Dean never talks much when he's high, gets a little lost in it, but that's okay; Dad's hungry, rambling about food and other things. Says that peanut butter is gods perfect food on the road, your grandpa taught me that. Has enough sugar and protein to keep you going for days, never goes bad. Kept him alive more than once. He tells Dean that when he got back in country all he'd been dreaming about was a home cooked meal. For months on end, he thought about what he'd eat first and how it would taste. His ma, your grandma, she whipped up something special and brought the family back together everybody all in their Sunday-best to welcome him home. Dad smiles at that, watches the memory out in the far off with his eyes unfocused. He's quiet for long enough that Dean nudges him, says "Was it as good as you thought it was gonna be?"
Dad looks straight at Dean for a heavy minute, his smile gone bittersweet. He musses Dean's hair, lays his hand on the back of Dean's neck. "Yeah, kiddo. Best meal I ever had. Damned if I could remember what we ate, though."
-
Some nowhere town in the lower states keeps Dean busy for the deep bits of summer the year he turns twenty five. He spends his evenings in a dingy bar on the crossroads out of town. There's no toilet seats but the pool table's not too fucked up, and that's all Dean wants besides a cold one while he goes through sixty year old police records. The bartender keeps him company when he's bored, which is most of the time, and after a little while it gets kinda nice to have a face around that he recognizes even if they usually just talk about nothing much. Dean closes down the bar most nights trying to get drunk enough but it never quite works.
It's past three on the last night he's in town, no customers for hours so they'd broken out a bottle to share and stopped counting shots. The jukebox wheezes its way through its last song before clicking off, done for the night. The neon Budweiser sign is hazy behind the bartender -- Dean thinks his name is Rob but honestly he's not sure -- and all Dean has to look forward to tonight is an empty hotel room, everything gone quiet, and he can't face it, can't even think about it. That might be why Dean tells Rob that he was gonna give up on booze since booze had given up on him, and it might be why he goes along with it when Rob says shit, I can help you with that.
Rob digs out a bent and stained spoon along with a tiny twist of plastic with something dark and gooey in it. He drips some water into the spoon and scrapes the goop in. Dean watches fascinated because with as much crap as he'd seen in his life this is completely new. The bartender's lighter sputters and dies and Dean hands over his ancient Zippo like it's Sam lighting candles for an exorcism. Neither of them are talking and Dean's stomach is sour with whiskey and anticipation. The spoon's a good tip off but it still takes him a minute to figure out what's going on because he'd thought heroin was white and powdery or something, and he feels stupid not to know. Doesn't say anything. It all feels a little too late, like whatever's gonna happen in this silent bar is as inevitable as tomorrow. The smell as it cooks reminds Dean of stepping on ant hills as a kid, the vinegary scent the ants gave off when he crushed them under his sneakers.
Rob eyeballs him for a long moment before pulling out a glass pipe and a baggie of weed. Dean feels himself crack a smile, a rush of relief at the familiarity of it in the midst of all the strange. Rob grins, rolls a nug into the stuff in the spoon until it's sticky, dark. He loads it into his piece and offers the green to Dean.
It's different. He can feel that right off. Dean lets the smoke out as slow as he can and it's almost invisible with the neon signs the only light. They pass the pipe but it's not the same. It pools in his stomach, down all the way to his boots. He breathes in and in and it feels endless. His dick is heavy; he's shamefully, weirdly turned on. His head is swimming and he wants to puke but it's distant, somewhere too far off to bother him.
Dean realizes he's been staring at the smoke for way too long, lifts his head with an effort to see Rob smiling at him. Rob says, never done this before, huh? and Dean shakes his head, wishes he were anywhere else. Thinks that if this is life by himself he doesn't want much to do with it.
-
Spiders.
Spiders, for fucks sake. Y'know, most of the time Dean didn't let stuff like this bother him, didn't let hunts follow him home afterwards because it's no big deal, survived that in one piece didn't we? Sam and Ray and him are sitting outside, and it'd been a good trip until about ten minutes ago, some damn good shit; swimming, the way the water caught the light down under the trees and everything warm and then. Ray couldn't know why it was fucked up when he started in talking about killing. Things. How you shouldn't. He can't even imagine using a gun. Dean's known the shape of them like his own hands since he was younger than Sammy. Ray doesn't, and it hits Dean like a train. Dean watches Ray's mohawk, gets lost for a minute in the way the spikes are rippling like gooey waves along his scalp, throwing shadow patterns over his skin like living creatures but it's not much use, it catches up to him and he thinks: spiders.
He thinks about the amafufunyana they exorcised last year. The youngest kid killed the family cat, babbling in Xhosa, made the news, that's how they heard about it in the first place. By the time they got there all the kids were crazed, like you can catch ghosts that live inside your belly like it's a fucking virus or something. Dean's amazed that he can even remember the name of the ghost in the state he's in and then can't stop saying it, mouthing ama ama am a yan a. He puts a hand over his stomach to protect it because what if you can catch it and what if it's been living inside him all this time? How's he even gonna know? Ray's freaked about killing spiders, but you can't let things like this live or they're gonna kill you. He opens his mouth to tell Sam this but the words swim away from him chasing the smoke from his cigarette and so he closes it again, frustrated.
Sammy's watching him closely pretending to be drawing in the dirt, and Dean's hurting, embarrassed to have Sam see him like this but needing him there. Ray wanders into the house lost in his own world, can't see what Dean can see, hasn't done what Dean's done. But Sammy knows, Sammy knows just about everything now and Dean hates it to tell you the truth, wishes Sammy didn't need to be a part of it. Looking at Sam is like looking through an oil slick on the pavement, the air thick with colors that you have to look at sideways to see. Dean hadn't even noticed how tall Sam's getting. Dean catches his brother's eye, smiles and awkwardly waves trying to say without having to say it thank you for reminding me that someday I'll be sober and it'll be okay. Sam laughs at him and Dean feels warm again, like he can breathe just a little better. "Sam," he says, "never take acid."
-
Dean dangles his fingers out the window to feel the current of air push against them, solid like someone else's hand. With the radio off all he can hear is the wind: they're alone on this highway in the heat of the day just chasing the sun, and they've got three hundred miles to go but no hurry to get there. Sam's crashed out in the passenger seat with his hand stuck forgotten in a bag of chips, and it makes Dean grin, stupidly fond. Dean leans his head out the window and breathes it all in: alfalfa, oil, leather, heat and asphalt. He feels dizzy with it like the day's inside him. Dean spreads a hand on the dash to feel his baby purr, cranks the radio in time to catch the opening chords of his favorite Zeppelin song, hums and sings out the window into the wind.
Leaves are falling all around -- it's time I was on my way...
Sam joins in on but now it's time for me to go, his voice muffled but Dean can hear the smile in it. Zeppelin was one of the few bands they could agree on as kids, Dean air-guitaring in the front seat while Sammy caught the drums in the back. By the third verse they're both shouting the lyrics, grinning at each other, and it makes Dean think about singing with Sam the day before he died, that one and only Bon Jovi song that he likes, and the words get stuck in his throat for a moment.
Dean looks out the window, swallows it down. Feels the sun on his face. He looks over and Sam's back on the drums singing, On my way, been this way ten years to the day. Dean leans on the gas and they're flying down the highway, the rest of the world a blur of color out their window and nothing else besides this, Led Zeppelin in the sun and his brother off key in the passenger seat. Thinks he could do this forever.
Tell you the truth, Living on a Prayer wasn't such a bad song either.