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The house is old. Out here on the flat prairies, under God's own sky, the wood is weather-beaten, but the paint has stuck on, tenacious in this hard country where the winds blow unchecked until they hit the razor of the horizon.
The grass has grown up around the dirt track that doubles as a driveway and the car cuts through it like a scythe, with a shining black-hearted growl and rocks skitter away under the tires.
++
They don’t have anywhere to be. Sam’s stretched on his back with his feet pushed against one broken arm of the couch, knees up, eating tangerines as he stares at the ceiling.
He’s got a feeling he’s forgotten something, they’ve forgotten something, maybe they do have somewhere to go, but right now, at this exact moment, they don’t. He shrugs and a piece of rind falls to the floor.
Dean said, Nine hundred miles, give or take, think you can make it, and he smirked which means Sam had to go above and beyond, trump that card his big brother played, and he said, You kiddin' me, stretch of road like that is a bedtime snack.
I can believe it, you'll sleep the whole way, make me do all the work, Dean said.
But Sam doesn’t remember the drive here. He carefully peels a tangerine.
++
Dean comes in, letting the screen door slam crookedly shut. He hasn’t really been anywhere, out here where everything blown open and wide, just on the porch, watching the sky.
When he walks through, Sam doesn’t move, but his fingers slow, his mouth full with a wedge of fruit and Dean says, “No birds.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Too windy maybe?”
“Nah, they’d be used to it. Think they’d like the thermals.”
He watches Sam pry apart a clementine, fingertips deep in its heart. The screen door swings a little on its hinges and something about it is familiar.
++
The coffee’s hot and black and Dean closes his eyes to savor it because Sam isn’t around to make fun of him. His brother’s off in another room somewhere, doing something. Once upon a time, Dean might’ve had a tug of anxiety, that ache under his shoulders because he can’t see Sam, can’t see what he’s doing, if he’s hurt, if he’s in trouble.
Once upon a time.
He stares out the window. The wind blows past the glass and he can see the lit-black edge of the car, sitting in the grasses, like she’s resting or waiting.
They don’t have anywhere to be.
The windowsill is dusted with salt and Dean writes his initials in it with his finger.
The coffee is damn good.
++
The weather’s warm, up here in the mountain prairies, where the land is old and set in its ways.
Sam says, “Have we stayed here before?” The air is so citrusy Dean sneezes and Sam huffs, a laugh he’s holding back.
“I remember just about every house we’ve stayed in, crashed at, squatted, rented.” Dean nods, wise experience style. “I don’t think we’ve been here, Sammy.”
The house feels comfortable, not like anywhere else.
“It’s like,” Sam says and stops. His palms are sticky. “Bobby’s house.”
Dean tilts his head, left right left right. “I was gonna say Lawrence.”
An orange rolls away from Sam as he glances up, Dean perched by Sam’s boots as he glances around at the scarred furniture.
He doesn’t remember Lawrence, not like Dean does, the house different when Sam set foot in it from before when it was on fire, crackling heat and light and heartbreak.
“Did you see the lake?”
++
When Sam looks up, he realizes he’s been talking to himself; Dean has wandered off into the depths of the house. He’s talking about when Dean left his cup of coffee on the roof of the car, drove off and splashed hot caffeinated beverage all over his baby’s paint job.
He’s talking about when Dean left a gun in a diner restroom and had to go back for it.
He’s talking and he thinks there’s something he’s forgotten too. It’s singing along his nerves, irritating, mosquito bite itchy.
“Dean!” Sam yells, not urgent, just curious. “Dean!”
His brother yells back, something that sounds like Sam, but it’s lazy and he isn’t walking back, so Sam doesn’t worry more than he usually does, because a long time ago, he would have, always worried about Dean and his propensity to call down violence with his charming way.
A long time ago.
Sam doesn’t know what day it is.
++
The coffee is so good, Dean brings Sam a cup. Sam’s sprawled on the couch and it’s so worn and old, sagging in the middle, Sam’s knees are bent high even when he’s sitting forward, feet on the ground.
They sip the coffee in their cracked cups. The cups look like an assorted collection gathered from diners using a five finger discount. And that seems about right.
“Did you see the lake?”
“There’s a lake?”
Dean nods, points to the back door with his coffee. “Yeah, thought I’d take a look around and sure enough, lake.”
“Clean?” Sam asks and Dean smirks.
“I could see my very own gorgeous reflection, Sammy.”
“Narcissus.”
“Gesundheit.”
Sam grins and Dean grins and then they practically drop their cups, working on belt buckles and zippers, running for the back door, working on too many layers of shirts.
“Last one in’s –-“
But the dock is shorter than Sam expected. He trips, taking Dean with him and they hit the water at the same time, a tsunami in this flat country.
The water’s cold and clear and they float for a while, side by side, staring up at the clouds.
++
Dean hears scratching at the door, but there’s nothing there.
++
Sam makes eggs and snags a piece of fruit.
Dean talks around his slices of bacon.
They find fishing poles in one of the closets, by the staircase that looks like Bobby’s. “Man, the wallpaper’s just ‘bout as ugly.”
There’s beer in the fridge and they cart a sixer down to the little plank of a dock. They’ve fished before, back when they were kids and their dad would stop somewhere long enough and there was a body of water around big enough to support an ecosystem.
Once, Dean taught Sam about tadpoles and years later when Sam was in biology dissecting a frog stinking of formaldehyde, he remembered those tadpoles and Dean’s grin, better than fireworks.
They fish until Dean’s cheeks and forehead are turning dark pink. They’re both drowsy and tipsy and there are clouds rolling in. Sam pushes Dean into the water, then turns tail, makes a mad dash for the house as Dean yells his fury.
“You come back here, you sneaky little bitch! Where’d you learn to be so fucking sneaky! See if I do anything nice for you ever again! Sonuvabitch!”
The skies open up as soon as Dean steps on the porch. But the sun doesn’t go down.
They don’t notice.
++
Once, Sam looks up and Dean isn’t there. He doesn’t remember him wandering off anywhere, so he goes searching.
And Dean isn’t anywhere.
The panic is building, a heavy black feeling in his chest, he can’t find Dean and he’s alone out here and the day outside is flat calm.
He tries calling for his brother, but no answer and when he turns the corner through the kitchen, Dean’s there, cleaning a fish.
“Dean. Oh fuck.” Sam has to catch his breath because Dean was gone and he was alone. He swears he checked the kitchen, twice at least.
“What stupid thing have you gone and done this time,” Dean says, “can’t a man make lunch without it being the apocalypse?”
Sam shakes his head, then nods and he sits at the table to watch Dean cook.
He tries to catch his breath.
++
Sometimes, Dean gets antsy and Sam picks up on it, so they get in the car and drive.
The roads are beautiful, straight shots and curves prettier than a woman, and the wind’s at their backs.
The gas needle rests at half a tank. It never dips any lower. They don’t notice.
Dean smacks at Sam to roll down his window and then war whoops as the air shoves its way in, Sam laughing at the commotion.
Ninety, and they’re a flash in the pan.
The music’s loud and good, like when they start an insult contest and each name gets filthier and filthier.
“’Dicktits’? Seriously, Dean, dicktits? What the hell does that even mean?”
“Oh, what, rubber ducky, you feelin’ unloved?” Dean smiles, mock leering at Sam and he rocks the car, the wheel going left right left right left right.
Sam just glares, a hand on the dash to fight the swaying of the car. “No, I’m not now, if we’re gonna start using lovey-dovey names, sweet lips.”
“Wouldn’t want you fucking pouting, sugar ass.”
“So I won then, peppermint dick? Think I won.”
“In your dreams, chiseled chest.”
Wherever they go, it doesn’t seem to matter. They always end up back at the house. All roads lead to Rome, or something like that.
The grass has grown up around the dirt track that doubles as a driveway and the car cuts through it like a scythe, with a shining black-hearted growl and rocks skitter away under the tires.
++
There are times when they need to shoot at something. Huge square hay bales nearby, the best targets in the area.
Scattered hay floats in the wind as they shoot, making Sam sneeze and when they go back into the house, there are straws of hay in their hair.
It helps pass the time. The gunshots echo along the ground and up into the sky.
++
Storms come and go. The skies are clear. Sometimes it’s windy, sometimes it’s calm.
The lake water is always cold, but Sam’s goosebumps go away quickly and Dean stops trying to hide the fact that his teeth chatter.
There are books on the shelves, thumbed-through hardbacks and broken-spine paperbacks. The television works great, picks up too many channels and the signal wavers only when the wind is high.
They don’t have anywhere to be. And Sam says, “I think we can take a vacation.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Dean says.
“’Vacation’ is not a dirty word.”
Dean opens his mouth and shows Sam his chewed-up bite of sandwich in reply.
Sam doesn’t know how long it’s been.
Dean washes the car and there aren’t any birds.
++
Sam’s eating an orange in messy chunks, juice running down his fingers as Dean remembers the time they stole ice cream sandwiches, which had been a complicated process because the ice cream started melting right out of the freezer.
Dean pushes Sam’s feet aside and flops down on the couch and Sam says, “Remember when you beat up that one kid who took my lunch?”
Sam’s eating a grapefuit, using a knife and his fingers instead of a spoon as Dean remembers the time they fell asleep in the Laundromat, and the owner threw them out before they could dry their clothes, which had been a complicated process because they ended up with a whole back seat full of wet clothes.
Dean pushes Sam’s legs aside and sprawls on the couch and Sam says, “Remember when you were chasing that ghost speedster and the cop pulled you over?”
They remember and work on one-upping each other.
But Sam feels like he’s forgotten something.
++
The fridge always has beer. And bacon. Assorted food items. The cabinets are never empty. There’s stuff to make burgers. There’s a grill out back.
Fish in the lake and they taste pretty good, after Sam stops burning the hell out of them the first three times.
Dean doesn’t remember driving here, all long roads and stopping on the shoulder to sleep.
He gets a headache occasionally, but it passes, like the rain.
Sam eats fruit and reads. Dean shoves him off the couch and steals his book.
It’s a nice house, all things being equal, though the wallpaper is still pretty damn ugly.
All the windows are salted. The water heater moans sometimes, but it’s just old bones, like the house.
++
Sam said something when they stepped over the threshold a while back; it sounded important at the time, but Dean can’t remember what it was. Probably something about how the house needs a new coat of paint and how he’s too much of a little bitch to help, so Dean’ll have to do it all himself.
The television goes out one day, then the electricity, but it’s only a blip, the wind not even howling, just shushing past the windows, like someone talking.
++
Sam says, “Dean, hey, you gotta read this.”
So he crawls out from under the car, washes his grease-streaked hands, and reads the passage, then the chapter, then the next, then Sam starts whining.
Then Sam tackles him, which is uncool, you don’t tackle a man who’s reading. Unfair.
It’s a fight like when they were young, all wild elbows and windmilling limbs because it’s a sport with Winchester rules and no blood drawn.
***
It’s been two days. Bobby paces in loopy half-circles.
It’s been two days since Sam hauled ass up Bobby’s drive, throwing dust everywhere and his face, Bobby will never forget the expression on Sam’s face.
Bobby, man, oh fuck, Bobby, you gotta help me. Dean. Dean’s, he’s just.
All right, slow down, slow down. Tell me what happened.
Dean was in the backseat, propped against the door, and Bobby’s heart almost failed him because the kid looked like he was dead.
He’s not dead. He’s. He’s.
Let’s get him inside, Sam, c’mon.
They hauled Dean inside and he felt warm, so he was alive, pulse in his neck, and Bobby almost cried, especially when Sam looked at him, eyes pouring misery, and said, You gotta help me.
One hand on Dean’s shin, a bottle of whiskey in the other, and Sam started talking.
You ‘member that job you sent us on, out in Dubuque? Vengeful spirit, regular salt ‘n burn. No harm, no foul, easy job.
Sam took a big swig from the bottle, rubbing his wrist over his mouth.
The spirit threw Dean before we could burn the bones. Threw him almost clear across the graveyard. And I heard him hit. Something. I dunno. I meant to check on him – but I had the matches – I shoulda –
Bobby wanted to rush Sam, get to the heart of the matter, but the boy was breaking down in front of him, big frame shaking and he was about to drop the whiskey. Deep breaths, kid, deep breaths.
Okay, okay. So I burn the bones, ghost’s gone, whatever. But Dean. He wasn’t moving. Blood all on his forehead and.
Here and now, two days later, Bobby paces, looking over the protective sigils he’s drawing, one, two, three circles of protection. He double-checks in the book on his desk and kneels to erase the spine of a sigil, redraw it. He pushes the blanket edges out of the way so he can finish chalking the curve of the circle.
Bobby, he won’t wake up. I can’t get him to wake up.
Hospitals are out of the question, are most of the time anyway, and Dean in a coma is them as sitting ducks, paint a target on them and let hunting season begin.
The Winchester brothers are crashed on blankets on Bobby’s floor. They’re so vulnerable in sleep, so young, the rest of his kin sprawled on the floor like they’ve fallen there, unable to go any further.
Sam’s fingers are curled around Dean’s wrist, their faces turned towards each other as if they’re talking.
A spell, stronger than the dreamroot and more potent, and Sam was going to try to pull Dean out, back to the surface, back to the land of the conscious living because they don’t have much time.
Dean doesn’t have much time.
Bobby hasn’t slept in over a day.
Neither one of them has moved, made a sound.
Two days.
They need to wake up. Come back, boys, open your eyes.
He remembers what Sam told him as he fell asleep, under the spell, grabbing hold of Dean to ground himself.
I’ll bring him back.
Then Sam wanders through, hands in his pockets.
“Wanna go for a drive?”
++
They don’t have anywhere to be. Sam’s stretched on his back with his feet pushed against one broken arm of the couch, knees up, eating as he stares at the ceiling.
In Kentucky, there was this bar, Dean’s talking, telling all about how he got into a bar fight with six guys, just for hustling pool, and Sam’s laughing his dry laugh, you’re so full of shit, then he says it out loud, you’re so full of shit.
There’s a feeling they’ve forgotten something, they’ve forgotten to do something, maybe they do have somewhere to go, but right now, at this exact moment, they don’t. Sam shrugs and Dean swats at his knees and a piece of rind falls to the floor.
Dean watches Sam pry apart a blood orange, fingertips deep in its heart. The screen door swings a little on its hinges and something about it is familiar.