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They stop for gas in Weed, about an hour from the base of Mt. Shasta. Town that feels less like a town than a series of empty parking lots. Just a few run-down buildings—a liquor store, a gift shop, an old-fashioned diner flanked by antique street lamps and an enormous neon sign. Nothing but trees for miles, and the mountain rising all around them, swallowing up the sky. Too big to be real, like something from another planet.
It’s early April, and the day is bright and clear. There’s a gentle breeze rustling through the cedars that shakes both of them awake, knocks the remaining stiffness from their bones. Just over Main Street, there’s a steel arch that reads, simply, ‘WEED’ in big, capital letters, and Dean saunters over to it from the filling station, calls out, “Sammy, take my picture,” and mimes toking on a massive spliff.
Sam dutifully rolls his eyes. “You’ve never smoked a day in your life,” he says, but he’s smiling, and Dean fake-chokes on all the imaginary smoke, sputters and rubs at his chest. “Hey,” he coughs, waggling both eyebrows, “You don’t know the kind of shit I got up to while you were in school.”
They grab the booth at the far end of the diner. Sam spreads out with a pen in his hand and a book from inside the gas station—some thick, paperback thing from between the rows of Archie comics and back issues of Soap Opera Digest. Dean squints at the cover. “The hell is ‘KenKen?’”
“It’s a logic puzzle. Kind of like Sudoku, but with arithmetic.”
“Such a nerd.”
Sam smirks. “It’s meant to strengthen your cognitive abilities. Maybe you should try it.”
Dean turns back to the menu. “I’m good,” he says. “But you have fun not going senile.”
They order—corned beef and hash for Dean, a mushroom omelette for Sam—and Dean relaxes into the familiar hum of the diner, the whirr of the ceiling fan and slow gurgle of the coffee maker. Beginning of the tourist season, but not many customers yet in an out-of-the-way place like this. There’s a group of elderly hippies taking up most of the counter, and Dean beams at their long tie-dye skirts, their hemp bracelets and tangled grey beards. He nudges Sam with his foot, ready to say, Hey, remember when you-without-a-soul slept with that hippie chick?
Only, when he turns around, he finds Sam staring, pale-faced, at something just over Dean’s shoulder—something Dean has to twist, craning his neck, to see. There’s a family sitting at one of the booths behind them: a mom and dad and a little dark-haired boy, maybe four or five years old. The dad has his back turned, but Dean gets a pretty good look at the mom. Not much he can think to say about her, really. She’s not wearing makeup, and her hair is cut short beneath her black cotton visor. She’s attractive, he thinks, but in a thoroughly home-owning, adult sort of way, with one hand pushing something out of reach of her son and the other batting at his face with a Wet-Nap.
Dean turns back to Sam, mystified. “You know her or something?”
Sam startles. Something flickers across his face, and then it’s gone, locked down tight.
“Or something.”
Dean turns again in his seat, angling for another look, and Sam yanks at his sleeve.
“Sit down,” he hisses, low and urgent.
By the time the food comes, Dean can’t stop fidgeting, his whole body simmering with interest. He keeps bouncing his leg up and down, while Sam shoots daggers at him from across the table. Not that Sam’s playing it any cooler—he’s got his head tucked down and his shoulders hunched tight around his ears, and his eyes keep darting furtively back to the other booth, then going wide and panicky. He looks—caught-out, maybe, like he’s already seeing the lights of the cop cars.
Just after 2 pm, someone asks for the check, and Dean watches as mom, dad, and son file outside and drive away in their grey Toyota Camry. When they’re gone, he turns back to Sam. Stares at him.
“Who the hell was that?”
“No one important.”
Dean shakes his head. “No, sorry. You’ve been acting weird since the moment we sat down. Who was she? Former hookup? Old flame?” He holds up his palms in mock supplication. “You’ve gotta give me something.”
Sam sighs, scrapes a hand across his face. “Jess’ roommate,” he says, and there’s that flicker again—something sad and distant and a little wistful. “My sophomore year at Stanford.”
“You’re serious?”
Sam nods. Dean whistles, low and surprised. “Hey,” he says, struck by a sudden, horrible thought, “you don’t think that she—“
“She didn’t recognize me. She didn’t even look this way. I’m sure. And even if she did…”
Dean nods. Kind of a risk to stay here, maybe, and he wonders just when he got so comfortable remaining anywhere at rest. But they’re both tired and sore from the drive, and they’ve been presumed dead for a while now. Not much some lady who claims to have seen her dead college roommate’s equally dead ex-boyfriend chowing down in a diner south of the Oregon border can do to hurt them. And if Sam still looks a little haunted around the eyes, well—this just isn’t the place to mention it.
He sips quietly at his coffee, tries hard to think of something to say. “So you guys were close.”
“Nah,” Sam says. There’s still some tension in his shoulders, but he’s sitting up straighter now, relaxing minutely into the yellow cushions of the booth. “We used to play on the same trivia team, sometimes. Name was—Barbara or Brittany or something. History major, maybe? Something good for trivia.” He squints. “You know, I think we won Fall Out Boy tickets once.”
“Who?”
“Nothing you would like,” Sam says, sipping at his coffee. “And anyways, I didn’t end up going.”
Still a few clouds hanging over Sam’s brow, only now there’s a tiny, private smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Time was, that look used to hit Dean like a knife to the ribs. He tries to picture it: Sam and Jess and Barbara-Brittany pressed tightly against each other in the corner of some bar, golden and apple-cheeked, and it’s—yeah, it’s pressing on a wound, but an old one, now. Still a pang of sadness, remembering those lost years without his brother. Still some guilt there, too. But not so much fear. Not like there used to be.
He motions to the waitress for the check. Breathes in deep and claps a hand over Sam’s shoulder.
“Come on,” he says, and drags his brother back out into the light.
They walk to the car in silence, bumping elbows and squinting against the brightness of the day. The sun glints, silver, off the sides of the mountain. It bounces off the crown of Sam’s head as he leans down to open the door, and Dean takes a moment just to drink in the sight of his brother—his dirty, boot-cut jeans and the too-long hair falling against his eyes and mouth. That dumb puzzle book tucked under his armpit. It settles something deep inside him, and he snorts as he gets behind the wheel.
Sam cocks an eyebrow in the passenger seat. “What?”
"I was just thinking. Bar trivia? You really are a nerd.”
There's a flash of dimples in the window.
“Yeah, whatever. You love trivia.”
"Yeah," Dean says, "maybe I do." And he grins as he pulls them out of the parking lot, toward the highway and down the road going home.