coyotesuspect

Title: Dean Winchester Tours America
Fandom: Supernatural
Summary: "Does anybody realize what life is while they're living it - every, every minute?" ""No. Saints and poets, maybe. They do some." Nine moments in Dean's life. Gen.
Rating: er, PG-13
Word Count: ~1500
Spoilers/Warnings: general series spoilers, nothing specific beyond end of season 4. No warnings.

AN: To make a long story short,

spnland was holding a Free For All drabble contest. (A drabble, in the contest's definition, being between 50 and 100 words.) So I, in order to help out my team, tore apart some abandoned fics and found random pieces of things I'd written and turned them into "drabbles." I then, of course, forgot to submit the drabbles. But, since they were all- for whatever reason- written from Dean's pov, I threw them into chronological order and, well, here we are.

Mostly, this is for

familiardevil , who ~~loves me~~ wanted to read my drabbles despite my failure.

The swing door creaks outward, and Dean steps over a line of salt and onto the porch. The air is hot and still, and the night is silent where there should be frogs and crickets. There's nothing to suggest that anything exists beyond the harsh illumination of the bug zapper.

Dean hefts his shotgun and waits.

Something large swoops from the left, and Dean aims, shoots. The thing shrieks, high and human sounding noise that makes Dean's bones ache.

It disappears.

Dean steps back over the salt line and closes the door behind him. Sam's pale face watches him from the gloom.

“It's all right Sammy,” says Dean. “Dad'll be back soon.”

-------->

“Geek boy here got all A's on his report card,” Dean tells John.

John grunts and sinks down onto the couch. He's moving stiff and tentative, and Dean's got this tight-pinched look on his face, smile too wide as he wonders whether their father's hurt.

“S'good,” acknowledges John. He fingers the remote control and his eyes comb over the room until they land on Sam, leaning in the doorway to the kitchen.

“How's his aim?” asks John. He's still looking at Sam, but he's speaking to Dean.

Dean flicks Sam a curious glance. “Better,” he says, and for once it's the truth.

“Hmm,” mutters John. “We'll see about that tomorrow.”

“I have school tomorrow,” says Sam, the first thing he's said to their father since John got back.

“Some things are more important than school, Sammy,” John tells him quietly. “And if you're getting good grades, you can afford to miss a day.”

“Yeah?” growls Sam. “And what was your excuse for taking Dean out of school so much?”

-------->

Dean knows the country by the shortest route from Denver to Austin, by this diner in Illinois that serves the best cherry pie, by this library with the particularly helpful index, and by a town in Oregon where he screwed up, arrived twenty minutes too late.

Dean’s never thought he’d do much good in the long run; he’s always believed the world will end in pain.

He’s never seen the Grand Canyon, the St. Louis Arc, Times Square, or Disneyworld. His American dream is his brother in the car beside him.

Right now, he could use some company that isn’t trying to jump his dick. He loves his car, but he’s pretty sure she shouldn’t be his only source of conversation. He’s also pretty sure Sam would balk at personifying the car as “she.”

But Sam’s in California, so he can go fuck himself for all Dean cares.

------->

It's six in the morning by the time the police let them go, convinced for now that neither he nor Sam were the ones to set the apartment on fire. The officer who interrogates them asks that they stay in town in case he has anymore questions.

Dean looks him straight in the eye and tells him, “Yessir.” Figures he's not lying either; they'll stay in town long enough for Sam to realize there's nothing here to keep him, and they'll leave no more than a minute later.

They stop at the first motel that accepts AmEx. Different name this time, since Burt Aframian's been blown.

The light is the color of weak-tea, and Sam paces from the door to the far wall and back again. He smells like smoke. They both do.

It's Monday. And that means something, Dean remembers. Something about Monday.

“Your interview,” he blurts. “When do you need to go to your interview?”

Sam stops and stares at him, eyes showing white all around. He laughs, hollow and harsh.

“Dean,” he says. “Why the hell would I go to the interview?”

-------->

“You need a haircut,” says Dean.

“I’m not twelve,” Sam bites back, irritation flashing dark in his face,

“It’s gonna get in your eyes,” Dean insists. “You’re not gonna be able to see and you’re gonna get us killed.”

Sam slams shut the book he’s reading and glares.

“I’m not really into the butch look,” he says coolly, and there’s the potential for a full blown piss-off, but Sam stands and grabs the car key from off the dresser. He tosses Dean a haughty scowl and stalks out the door.

A few hours later, he comes back with his hair still too fucking long, but a couple of inches shorter. Which, okay. It’s okay.

“Looking good Sammy,” Dean calls.

Sam smirks like he knows what Dean’s thinking, and hell, maybe he does, too many weird things going on in baby bro's head these days. Then he chucks a folded newspaper at Dean, and Dean's thoughts evaporate as he reaches out to catch the paper.

“Found us a job,” Sam says smugly.

Dean looks at the circled article and smiles. “Black dogs. Fun.”

-------->

They get the job done and they get it done alive, if barely. They even save the girl, nineteen and pink-mouthed who’s staring hungrily at Dean. Normally he’d stick around and see where that went, but not with Sam glassy-eyed and bleeding all over the place. He doesn’t even give her a lift, just shoves Sammy into the back of the Impala and drives, drives to the nearest hospital because the gash is at least seven inches and his hands are shaking too badly to sew stitches.

He half-carries Sam into the ER. They get him in quick and don’t ask too many questions, thank God. Dean spends the next hour cramped in a chair and staring past the freaks who come into an ER at three in the morning. Sam comes out and yeah, he’s sore and a little woozy from blood loss. But he’s alive.

He’s alive, and Dean commits insurance fraud beaming.

-------->

“You turned twenty-five,” Dean says, when they finish putting their duffels in the Impala.

“Huh?” says Sam.

“While I was...” Dean closes the trunk with one hand, waves vaguely with the other.

“Oh.” Sam shrugs. “I was kind of thinking about other things.”

Dean leans against the car. There's a crack in the asphalt near his left foot. A rainbow oil slick two parking spaces over. The light is gray and weak, making the world seem washed out, faded.

“You ever gonna tell me what happened?” he asks softly.

Sam stands next to him, their shoulders almost touching. They both stare across the parking lot at a weedy lot, a for sale sign gleaming hopeful in blue and red.

“You're just gonna have to trust me.” There's a pause. Sam half-turns toward Dean and says, over-bright and cheerful, “You're gonna be thirty in January. Getting old there Dean.”

Dean scoffs and smacks Sam open-palmed on the shoulder.

“Getting old?” says Dean archly. “I'm just glad I'm able to. 'Sides,” he grins, “I'll still be able to kick your scrawny ass.”

Something flickers in Sam's face, hope or relief, and he nods.

They get in the car.

----->

“Where to next?” asks Dean.

“Hmm,” says Sam, rustling through a sheaf of internet print outs. Dean glances out the window. A telephone appears, races alongside, disappears behind.

“Been some omens in Louisville.”

“Kentucky?” asks Dean, and at Sam's nod, he rolls down the window. There's a burst of ozone, the smell of far away rain. A storm's rising to their left, same direction the road's curving towards, a mass of high-towered black clouds, swathes of rain gray-streaking the horizon. Been a lot of storms lately.

Sam shoves the now-fluttering papers under the seat, shooting Dean a glare, just as white-blue lightning plunges through the clouds and to the earth. Dean counts the seconds before the thunder to estimate their distance from the storm. Five mississippi later, the thunder finally booms across the prairie, and Dean dials up the volume, blasts his music in response.

Sam rolls his eyes. Dean winks, and they ride out of Nebraska howling.

-------->

Sam’s asleep in the passenger seat, and Dean has a map of the western United States spread out on the steering wheel. Pulled over to the side of the road, and the sun’s rising ahead of them, the sky gone gold and pink, and the last of the stars are fading out behind them. Just enough light to see by, and Dean uses his fingers to measure out the distance between here and the Grand Canyon.

West Texas, and the world didn’t end after all.

AN: *throws hands into air* Someday, I will write real fic again, promise. Quote in summary stolen from Our Town, because I was too lazy to think of my own.

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