InsaneJournal

SPN Fic: When the Hour Turns Over (Gen, PG)
Title: When the Hour Turns Over
Author: dotfic
Rating: Gen, PG
W/C: 2,100
Disclaimer: Never were mine. Never will be. I keep writing this stuff anyway.

a/n: Many thanks to luzdeestrellas for the beta.

Summary: In which Dean turns thirty.




7:13 pm

It was really freakin' cold.

"We should just hot-wire a car," Dean said, his breath streaming into the frigid Illinois air. The lights of the small town--he couldn't even remember the name--glimmered sharply at him from across the open fields.

He caught the disapproving look Sam gave him. Sam's view was that hot-wiring a car was only something they should do in an emergency.

Dean ignored the look (it didn't seem worth arguing) and opened the door to the bus station. The building, a faded brick rectangle that dated from the 1950s, rose up in the middle of the vast parking lot, with the fields on all sides beyond that. As if it'd been dropped there in the middle of nothingness, and then forgotten.

Warmth wrapped around Dean as they stepped inside. The heat in the place worked, which was a win.

"We're going to sit here and wait for how long?" Dean peered up at the schedule board.

"Next bus to Sioux Falls is at three a.m." Sitting down on one of the long benches, Sam opened his backpack and took out his laptop.

"Oh, joy."

His knee was still bothering him from that damned poltergeist throwing him into a wall. He slowly lifted his foot and bent and straightened his leg. He'd always felt this stiff after getting battered on a job. He was pretty sure, almost completely certain, it wasn't taking longer than usual for the aches to ease, for his muscles to stop clenching.

"We're lucky Bobby was able to help us," Sam said, tapping away at the keyboard with the computer on his knees. "And tow the Impala back to his place after he un-cursed it, so we could stay here and work the poltergeist job."

Bad enough that crazy chick in Nebraska had slashed the tires. Next his baby had to go and get cursed, complete with windshield wipers going crazy, steering with a mind of its own, a radio refusing to play anything but the local Lite FM station.

Stupid warlocks and their stupid warlock covens. Stupid poltergeists.

He left Sam doing his research and wandered off in search of coffee.



8:15 pm

In addition to a small coffee shop that sold stale pastry, the place had a Pac Man arcade machine. Dean found it tucked away in the shadows beneath the stairs that led up to the station offices, rickety metal steps that looked like they'd collapse if too many people went up them at once. He perched his coffee cup on top of the video game and put in the quarters.

The coffee wasn't bad--for various levels of "not bad" that probably meant it wouldn't burn away the lining of his stomach--and it'd been years since he'd played Pac Man. His knee only ached a little as he worked the game, the little yellow guy fleeing the monsters. Dean lured them into a trap, had his Pac Man eat the fruit, and then turn and kill all the monsters.

"Hey." Sam was at his shoulder.

Dean glanced at him; he had his hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes had that far-off look they sometimes got when he'd been reading or thinking intently for a while. "You want a turn?"

"Sure." With a shrug, Sam stepped in as Dean stepped back.

As far as Dean knew, Sam had shown no recent interest in video games--had nothing except Tetris loaded on his computer. When they were kids, it had taken a year after the shtriga thing before Dean could bring himself to play one again. But after that, he had memories of the two of them in the flickering light of arcades, drinking soda and eating popcorn while Dean tried to get Sam not to notice how much time had gone by while they waited for Dad to pick them up.

They played Pac Man for a while, taking turns, getting through level after level until they ran out of quarters.



9:47 pm

"My favorite is when the victim runs up the stairs. Into the house..."

"Instead of getting outside and running to the neighbors or to a police station," Sam finished.

Dean poured more ketchup over his fries. The coffee shop was small, with four tables, a magazine rack, a counter with four stools, and framed prints of vintage buses. Behind the counter, the waitress flipped through a fashion magazine. She was a skinny blonde with her hair pulled up into a ponytail. Cute, but Dean decided she wasn't worth it. Too made up--nails an achingly bright shade of red, far too long, and too much eye-shadow, too much lipstick.

The only other customer was a heavy-set man in a business suit, tie loosened. He looked like he worked in insurance or sales or something. Dean noted the college and wedding rings on his fingers, the slight tan as if he actually got away somewhere nice once in a while. Ordinary guy, exactly the type that demons liked to possess and shapeshifters liked to imitate. He'd go home to a house that ghosts might be haunting, a house that he'd purchased all unknowing.

"How's your knee?" Sam asked.

Dean hadn't mentioned it hurting him but by now he knew that didn't matter. Sam could spot it if he had a splinter--had been able to do that for a while, if Dean thought back over the past few years.

"Could be worse," he said, shoving a couple of fries into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. "Hurts a little."

That was a small enough admission to make, he decided.

"You should rest it. Stretch out on one of the benches," Sam said.



11:19 pm

He dozed on and off, using his duffel bag for a pillow, while Sam settled on the bench opposite with his laptop on his knees again and a book open next to him. The benches were wood, all in one piece with the backs slightly curved, with varnish so old it had practically turned black, pitted from years of use and graffiti. They seemed to belong to a train station not a bus station, one of those old Victorian buildings.

When he'd gone to sleep there'd been four other people waiting, including the businessman. Now there were two, a couple of college kids with tattoos and shaggy hair and head phones turned up so loud Dean could identify the genre, if not the artist--some emo crap of the kind Sam listened to. Looking at the board, Dean saw that the bus for Dubuque had left half an hour ago. He and Sam had killed a nest of basilisks in Dubuque once. Good times.

Sam was no longer working. He'd put his laptop away and lay on his side with his long body stretched out on the bench, hair over his face. He'd used his jacket as a pillow. At rest, with the tension gone from his face, Dean thought his brother looked really freakin' young. Too young to be messing around with demons and demon powers and living from one kill to the next. Except Dean knew he wasn't. In fact, he hadn't been for a while, but especially since Dean had been back from Hell. Lately it felt as if Sam were catching up to him, which was funny since Dean was now, what, forty-four years older than him instead of four? But lately it was like Sam was closer to his age than not.

Sitting up, Dean rubbed his bad knee. Recovery was definitely taking longer. He'd taken hits harder than that and the pain had faded faster.

Shit, body don't bounce back the way it used to. He remembered his father grimacing while Dean handed him an ice pack.

The station felt colder. He shrugged out of his jacket and put it over Sam, then went over to the vending machine.

Hershey bar, M&M's, Twix, pretzels, corn chips--he wasn't sure what he was in the mood for, salty or sweet. Dean finally settled on both. He slid two one-dollar bills into the slot and selected the M&M's and the pretzels. The M&M's dropped right away but the little metal coil for the pretzels turned and stuck, leaving the package dangling.

"Hey. Drop!" Dean rapped at the glass. The pretzels didn't oblige. Bastards. He reached down, scooped up the small bag of M&M's and opened it, popping a few into his mouth.

The pretzels continued to dangle. Dean banged the machine harder. The package twitched but still didn't fall.

"Aw, c'mon!"

Dean stepped back and took a breath. He tilted the M&M package back, pouring the candies into his mouth, and crunched on them while he glared at the vending machine. Really, he was entitled to those pretzels. It wasn't so much to ask.

He finished the M&M's, crumpled up the wrapper and tossed it into the garbage can. Then he gripped the machine at its edges, on either side, and tugged. It leaned towards him, and Dean pushed it back into place with a thud that made the college students glance up and the ticket seller lean out of his booth.

Raising his hand, Dean grinned at all of them. "All good. Just need my pretzels!"

But the pretzels hadn't fallen.

Dean so did not whimper. Dean Winchester did not whimper.

"Dean, what's going on?"

He turned and saw Sam sitting up on his bench, yawning.

"Nothing. The vending machine is trying to rip me off."

Sam got up and walked over to join Dean. He hunched, peering through the glass at the dangling pretzels, his forehead creasing with a frown. "Huh."

Then he straightened up, took a step back, stared at the machine, and smacked it, palm flat. It was a quick, sharp slap, right above the change slot.

The pretzels fell clear.

When Dean stared at him, Sam gave him a squinty kind of smile, as if he was Clint freakin' Eastwood or something, and went back to lie down on his bench.



12:05 am

A hand smacked against Dean's left boot, waking him. For a disorienting moment, Dean forgot where he was--which state he was in, even though he knew he was in a bus station. At least he wasn't still waking up as confused as he had been for the past few months, jolting awake and taking seconds to recognize he was in the world and not--

"Yo. Sammy." He put his arm across his eyes against the glare of the fluorescent lights. "Whaddyawant?"

"Happy birthday," Sam said.

Dean lowered his arm, saw Sam sitting on the bench at Dean's feet. The college students were gone and they had the place to themselves except for a janitor mopping the floor and the ticket seller. The coffee shop was dark and empty.

"Huh?"

"It's five after midnight," Sam said, head jerking towards the big round clock over the door.

When Dean sat up, he saw that Sam held two packages, wrapped in the funnies section of the newspaper. One was small, flat and square and the other was large, flat, and rectangular. Dean stared at them until Sam, a little impatiently, waggled the packages at him.

He took the square one first, shook it once, then tore it open. There were two cd's inside, High Voltage Tour I and II by AC/DC. The plastic cd case for volume 1 was cracked and volume 2 had a chunk missing from the corner, but when he took out each cd and held them up to the light, peering at the shimmering surface, there wasn't a scratch or warp in sight.

"Dude." Dean put the cd's carefully back into their cases, and swallowed hard. Wow, it was really dusty in this bus station; he blinked, the lettering on the cases blurring. "I've always wanted these. Never could find a copy."

"Here, check this one out." Sam's mouth twitched like he was trying not to grin.

Dean ripped the paper open. Inside was a steel black and white street sign that read IMPALA PARKING ONLY. VIOLATORS WILL BE CRUSHED.

Dean laughed. "Where did you get that?"

"Some auto show website." Sam shrugged, and then a big grin spread over his face.

"Uh, this won't be much use seeing as how we don't have a permanent base."

"So. You can hang it up at Bobby's. He'll think it's hilarious. Or maybe we take it with us and hang it outside our motel room."

"Yeah, because motel managers across America would love that." Dean ran his fingers over the raised lettering, feeling the cold metal beneath his hands.

Sam leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking like he wanted to say something else, but instead he picked up High Voltage Tour II, turning the case over in his big hands. "I'll copy these to the ipod," he said. "So you can listen to it in the car and not just on the cd player of the laptop."

"At least that thing will finally have some decent tunes on it." He propped the Impala parking sign up next to him on the bench. "Thanks, Sammy."

"You're welcome."

They got more junk food out of the vending machine and got into an argument about music. The hours slid comfortably by until it was time for the bus to Sioux Falls.

Standing in the cold air again, about to step onto the bus, Dean hesitated before climbing on board.

"Dean?" Sam said, over the noise of the idling engine.

"I just. Didn't think I'd get to thirty. Y'know?"

Sam's hand was on his shoulder. He felt him grip tight, and let go. "I know." Sam climbed up into the bus ahead of him, and said over his shoulder, "I'm really glad you did."


~end


+The sign Sam buys for Dean.
+Weird how this was unplanned, but when I was done writing this, I realized it could be a prequel to the Dean's 30th birthday scene I wrote last year.