xaara | Supernatural Fic: When They Stop Building Roads

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Supernatural Fic: When They Stop Building Roads

Title: When They Stop Building Roads
Author:

xaara
Rating: PG
Timeline: Pre-series
Characters: Dean, Sam
Summary: You can tell a lot about a woman from the contents of her purse. You can tell a lot about your brother from the contents of his locker. Gen.
A/N: Written for

spn_flashback challenge 109: Dean is cleaning out his locker at the end of the school year, or just because they're moving again. (I started this something like a month ago. And then forgot about it. Until tonight. Yeah, I'm good with deadlines. Title stolen from "Gravity" by Alison Krauss & Union Station.)

When They Stop Building Roads

So here's the thing. It's three weeks before graduation, and the rent money is almost gone. Dad's been laid off. They need to cut town before the landlord figures that out.

Sam hasn't told anyone yet. But he turned down Erica's invitation to a birthday party next week, and he skipped fifth period Algebra to retrieve what he wanted from his locker. Everything fits into his backpack, which he's owned since the third grade. One of the straps has frayed beyond repair; the other is held together with safety pins and duct tape. The bottom has been patched and re-patched, tendrils of blue ink radiate from a corner seam, and a heavy black square mars the front pocket. Only Sam and Dean know that beneath it Dean once scrawled Sammy is a geek after Sam skipped fourth grade but before they moved that time.

Okay, so he's told one person that they're going. He swears her to secrecy and she crosses her heart before giving him a copy of The Miracle Worker, which they read in class right after Christmas break. It's part of the set, but she says not to worry about it, that she'll cover for it if the principal ever notices and besides she doesn't need thirty-five copies. Miss Anderson has a nice smile, even teeth below subtle lipstick. Her eyes are dark and answer questions Sam hasn't thought to ask.

Good luck, she says. Write sometime. Tell us how you're doing.

He gives her the child's eyes that get him into funeral homes and taped-off crime scenes. He lies to her face, tells her he's excited about his dad's new job in Colorado, which is partially true but nothing near the whole story. They exchange pleasantries. When she hugs him, he forces himself not to tense.

In the bathroom, he untapes the razor blade and the crucifix from beneath the divider between the third and fourth stalls. He has to hop up a few times before he can reach the bag of herbs stashed above the projection screen in the auditorium. It's on his way to retrieve the salt packets from under the carpet in the front lobby that he hears the sound of a locker slamming open, a muttered curse. Sam stuffs the herbs and the crucifix into his pocket, drops the razor blade into a nearby trash can. Being caught with a weapon and expelled on his last day of school would, you know, kinda suck.

The lockers are cool beneath his fingers as he presses his back to them and slides along the hall. If it's another student, he's fine, unless it's Evan, in which case he's fucked, because that kid has had it in for him all semester. If it's a teacher, he can expect the talking-to at least of the week if not of the month and a lot of I'm-disappointed-in-you-Mr.-Winchesters and frowning. He edges along the uneven green metal, listening until he hears the thud of a dropped book and the crackle of crumpling paper. Another low curse, this time in a voice he recognizes.

When Sam walks around the corner, no longer bothering to conceal his presence, Dean has dropped into a crouch, his arms braced on either side of his open locker. He's dressed completely in black again, probably just because Dad hates it. He wasn't even up when Sam left for school in the morning, so he must have been late to first period. Sam had assumed Dean would just skip--no point, really, not when they were leaving in a few days.

"Hey," Sam says, leaning against locker 254. Dean shimmies shoulders-deep into 260, hauling out stacks of official-looking paper and stuffing it into a black trash bag. "Hey," Sam repeats.

Dean doesn't answer. He pauses, staring down at a folder with some symbol embossed on the cover before cramming it into the bag along with the rest.

Sam scoots closer, looks over Dean's head at the grenade blast that is his locker. Three textbooks jammed diagonally in the top cubby, a stack of what looks like paper, pens, and an MRE. A bar of soap, a bottle of water, probably from the local church. A first aid kit. Dean's baseball glove, and hanging on one of the hooks his most recent in a long series of secondhand leather jackets. On the other hook: a rosary, a chain with a pentagram charm.

"So we're headed south?" Sam asks. Engage, he thinks.

"Looks like," says Dean. He doesn't glance up.

"Get to miss out on the last few weeks of school anyway." So it's not Sam's idea of a party either, but he's not going on a ten-hour drive with a brooding father and sulking brother. He's had more fun with hungry hellhounds.

Dean bows his head over the mess still strewn over the bottom of his locker, his hands still working automatically. He's not concentrating, Sam can tell, because he's adding perfectly serviceable writing utensils to the collection of things to throw away. Sam winces when he sees the pens disappear into the bag; he'd had to beg for months before they got anything but the shitty castoffs with the logo from the garage where Dad worked. Besides, it's not like it's the end of the world or anything. They'll move to another town, enroll in another school. Sam will make new friends, Dean will fuck someone he probably shouldn't have. Status quo. So maybe Dean will graduate a semester late, but it's not like he's ever cared about school. It's not as if he's even gone to school consistently since, like, the sixth grade.

Pulling his copy of The Miracle Worker from his back pocket, Sam slides down the lockers until he's seated in the hallway. "Let me know when you're done," he says, opening it to the page he's dogeared. He sinks into the story, his focus honing itself until all he hears are the words on the page before him.

Until Dean kicks him--hard--in the leg. "Let's move," he says. He slings his backpack over one shoulder and grips the bag of trash in one hand.

"I'll take it out," Sam says. "I need to talk to someone, and it's on the way. Meet you out front?"

"Whatever," says Dean, who drops the bag and brushes past Sam on his way out the door.

Sam scrambles to his knees once he's sure Dean is out the door, drops his book on the floor beside him. He's rifling through papers and notebooks, envelopes, a condom wrapper--he recoils at that, pays closer attention--when he comes across the letter.

Congratulations, the letter proclaims, continuing on to spell out the details of the admittance to Casper College of a certain Dean Winchester. Sam sits back on his heels, holding the letter as if it might shatter. He remembers, after a minute, to breathe.

--

As it turns out, Colorado doesn't look all that different from Wyoming. Big, mostly, broad-shouldered, landscape like a finger painting done in earthtones.

They enroll in school in Alamosa. The counselor is a cool lady, doesn't ask too many questions, figures out a way to have Dean take summer school mostly as a formality so he can graduate. She takes to Sam, gets him into all the classes he wants even though he's just a sophomore and an incoming one at that. Sam notes the absence of a wedding band on her finger, her quick, desperate energy, and wonders whether she's lonely.

--

Graduation arrives halfway through August. Sam wiggles in his seat, his suit pants an inch too short, the jacket pulling across his shoulders. Afterwards, he and Dean take the car out of town, driving aimlessly in the heat of the afternoon. They roll their windows down and Dean slams the accelerator, throws his head back and howls at the sun.

Sam grabs a tape from the box at his feet, fumbles it into the deck and dials the volume as high as it'll go.

He thinks there might be something slightly ironic about singing along with "Another Brick in the Wall" the graduation day. Or it might be fitting. It might, you know, be. Right.

And Dean takes a corner going eighty and Sam's not thinking anything but oh shit followed by Dad's going to kill us if he finds out.

--

The drive back into town takes about twice as long as their frantic rush out. Dean hangs his left arm out the window, even though Dad's told him about a million times to keep two hands on the steering wheel unless he needs one to shoot with.

Sam doesn't know what possesses him to say it, but he opens his mouth and "What do you think about Stanford?" comes out.

Dean looks at him, one eyebrow quirked upward. "What?"

"I think that's where I'm going to go. You know. When I go to college."

Dean shrugs. "Cali. Hot chicks."

"It was a factor," Sam says.

"Why're you asking me, man?"

It's Sam's turn to shrug. "Dunno. Older, wiser, all graduated." He makes an expansive gesture that earns him a cuff to the back of the head. "Hey, I just called you wiser. It's all you're going to get."

"I wouldn't know anything about it," Dean says. "Ask the counselor. She likes you."

"You never thought about it?" Sam asks, and this started out as a bad idea and keeps getting worse, but he wants to hear it. Wants to hear Dean say, Dude, what the fuck is with you and slouch in the way that means he's smiling behind his eyes even if his mouth has set into a scowl.

"Nope," says Dean. "Never thought about it." He sits up straighter. Sam has just opened his mouth again when Dean heads him off. "So, fries? My treat."

"Sure." Sam directs his gaze away from Dean, pulls The Miracle Worker from his back pocket. The cover has gained a lengthwise crease from being folded into the pockets of all three pairs of jeans Sam owns over the past few months. The corners no longer bend at right angles.

"Geek," Dean mutters, but there's affection in his voice.

Sam opens to a random page, lets his eyes rest on the words without processing. He thinks of the way water runs over his hands when he hunts in the rain and imagines Helen Keller connecting it for the first time with the letters flickering across her palm. He thinks of five-subject notebooks and empty lecture halls. He imagines Dean sitting in the back of class, the seat by the door, throwing absent spitballs at the nearest girl, because for all he's older and wiser, sometimes his brother is twelve.

He thinks about Dean not-hunting and can't picture it, so he tries one more time. "We stuck together, then?" It doesn't sound like he plans, sounds instead soft around the edges, gentle.

"'Til death," says Dean. "Or until we kill everything else. Whichever comes first."

Dean's never going to get married, Sam thinks suddenly. And so he says back, "'Til death," whispers it into the grumble of the engine, the stream of the wind. Imagines his words thick like armor, careful as smoke. Spirals rising to meet the blue, blue sky.

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Thank you.

Oh Dean. *sniff*
Lovely story.

Thanks. :)

That was so incredibly wonderful. So heartbreaking and sad, and so believable. It flows perfectly with the present-day characters in the series.

Thanks for posting this.

Thank you for commenting. You know, one of the things I find most interesting about the show is how clear a picture of the boys' childhoods it manages to paint despite the fact that the Wee!Winchesters only appear in a handful of scenes. Admittedly, some of this is done with a liberal sprinkling of anvils, but a lot of it is just authentic, comprehensive world-building. It makes it a lot easier to explore their childhoods, though, because the outline and basic truths are already in place.

Oh Dean....

Dean's never going to get married, Sam thinks suddenly. And so he says back, "'Til death," poor poor boys.

Nice Job

Thanks for reading and commenting.

Beautiful and heartbreaking. Poor Dean. *sniff*

Thank you very much. *hands out tissue* :)

Nice! Really enjoyed the hell out of this. You nailed their voices and everything about them. Very achy without belaboring the emotion -- lovely. Thank you for sharing your talents. :)

Thanks--I really enjoyed writing this as well, even though around nine last night it was a little Wasn't there something I was supposed to do on the 5th? Oh. Oh.

Congratulations, the letter proclaims, continuing on to spell out the details of the admittance to Casper College of a certain Dean Winchester and "you never thought about it?" "nope. never thought about it." oh, dean. i can totally see this - he might've applied to college but i don't think he ever seriously thought he'd get to go, and when caught thinking about something he knows he can't have, he'd lie.

and i love "Dean hangs his left arm out the window, even though Dad's told him about a million times to keep two hands on the steering wheel unless he needs one to shoot with." that sounds like something john would say.

He so totally thought about it. And his counselor told him to go; he even arranged for Dean to meet with an admissions officer in Casper who laid out all the options, all the financial aid they had available for low-income students. Dean applied, because they waived the application fee anyway and so he figured why the hell not, and nothing surprised him more than the day the letter showed up and it didn't say no.

Thank you. :)

Ah, i like that. A pragmatic Sam and a Dean all hunkered down and hiding things that Sam knows about but doesn't know what to do with. That last little bit, just utterly lovely...smoke.
Good stuff!

things that Sam knows about but doesn't know what to do with is a sort of sub-theme of the show as a whole, and one I find really intriguing, mostly because Sam is so good at creating a character for himself when he's around other people. Around Dean, though, he just...doesn't know.

Smoke means so much for those boys, doesn't it?

Thank you.

Gah. This was....

I loved the progression of how it started with Sam, but then you end up finding out more about Dean than he's ever willing to tell anyone. It was sharp and powerful. Fantastic writing.

"'Til death," says Dean. "Or until we kill everything else. Whichever comes first." Just. yeah.

I'm really glad you mentioned the POV--I actually started this from a much more obvious direction (Dean Cleans Out Locker & Thinks Deep Thoughts), but it was kinda, er, boring. It's gratifying to know that the decision to change it around worked for you.

Thank you for stopping by.

This is lovely and so very believable.

Thank you. :)

This was brilliant. The way you write Sam mirrors him so well on the show. Some people see teenage!Sam as a bit oblivious to what's going on around him, only ever seeing what Dean and John present in front of him. Personally I think he'd be very perceptive of the people around him, especially his family--like if Dean ever did get accepted into college somewhere but just never mentioned it, never followed it up ... I love the way you have Sam purposely looking through the bag of trash Dean was throwing out, looking for the letter, then later trying to bring it up subtly in the car...

And also--Sam notes the absence of a wedding band on her finger, her quick, desperate energy, and wonders whether she's lonely. love, love, LOVE that little detail for some reason even I don't know. I think both boys would automatically see things in complete strangers that others wouldn't, be able to take one look at them and get a pretty accurate impression of them from what they see, and that bit there shows it so beautifully.

Dean's never going to get married, Sam thinks suddenly. Again with perceptiveness, with Sam wanting more for his brother but not knowing how to go about it--which ties in with his line in Shadow, "There's got to be something that you want for yourself."

Awesome job. I'm glad you managed to get it finished. I just realised I've written a mini-essay in response [facepalm].

Mini-essay your heart out. :) I absolutely love in-depth commentary--it often makes me think about things I hadn't considered fully when writing, which is just fun. Icing on the cake of completion! (Bad metaphors: 1 - Carmen: 0)

On the subject of Sam, I think it's very important to draw a distinction between being oblivious and not being able to see consistently through all eight miles of shielding his father and brother put up. Like you said, he's very observant, obviously very bright and perceptive; he's the one who eases his way into others' confidences without even having to try.

That whole being able to size people up is a highly important skill; Sam and Dean need to be able to make snap decisions about who to trust and who to suspect, who to ply for information and who to avoid, who to lie to and who will only accept the truth. It was totally a trial-and-error process, too, even though Sam always had this little something that would sometimes ping in his subconscious, like the time the PE teacher was actually incubating dragon eggs in the locker room or the time that he just knew Christina was bad news for Dean even though he had no evidence to support his claim. (Agh. I always sort of start writing fic outlines in my responses to other people. It just, you know, could have happened that way.)

I loved that line in Shadow. Because of course Dean wants things for himself, but his sense of self is so tied up with his commitment to his family, to the hunt, to others that at this point in his developing maturity he can't really conceive of them.

*coughs* And you now have a mini-essay in return. ;) Thank you so much for your comment; it was truly a pleasure to read and gave me a lot to think about.

Oh man, that physically ached! Great work!

Thanks! (And I love your icon. In a sort of tangential way, it reminds me of these puzzles we had to solve in elementary school where we'd get an addition problem done with letters and have to figure out which numbers the letters corresponded to. Because I looked at this and immediately thought WWDD+WWSD=PWN. Just sayin'.)

This was my prompt, and I must say thank you for what you made of it!

The moments of realization are fantastic, because whether they're true or not doesn't even matter; it's about Sam's desire to know his brother. Really nicely done.

Oh! I hadn't realized it was yours--I suppose I could've checked that, but yeah. Thanks for submitting it as well as for dropping in to comment.

It really is all about Sam's desire to know, to keep worrying at an issue until he has an answer, whether or not it's one he likes.

Oh, Dean. Lovely story, the end is so heartbreaking. Thanks!

Thanks for popping in to comment. :)

"'Til death," says Dean. "Or until we kill everything else. Whichever comes first." Aw painful, and Sam knowing it's until Death, probably... the pain of finding the letter. Loved this fic, it was an interesting prompt, and you ran with it. Lovely!

Definitely until death--whether they're physically together or not, that's the only thing that could keep them apart in spirit. (And who knows, maybe not even that. ;))

Have to credit

innie_darling for the prompt; it was a lot of fun to work with. Thank you.

Oh, ow. This was really wonderful. At first I had a hard time believing that Sam would snoop like that but, well. I can also imagine him feeling like he didn't have a choice. And as someone else mentioned, the detail about the way Dean drove and what Papa said about it was just so spot-on.

Thanks for participating in the challenge, and for sharing such an excellent story!

In an earlier draft, he was just curious, but later I revised it so that he was retrieving things that Dean probably shouldn't have thrown away. In either case, the letter completely broadsided him. Hehe, I love that line--in my head, John was totally all Keep both hands on the wheel at all times until they came across a pack of werewolves and had to shoot them while getting the hell out of there, which was when he revised it.

Thank you for reading.

Congratulations, the letter proclaims, continuing on to spell out the details of the admittance to Casper College of a certain Dean Winchester. Sam sits back on his heels, holding the letter as if it might shatter. He remembers, after a minute, to breathe.

Oh it hurts.

I love Sam's realization that Dean would never get married, never have anything but him.

Very impactful.

I think Sam probably realized that quite early, but sort of suppressed the knowledge. He's never going to understand exactly what Dean went through when he went to college.

Thank you.

Nice. Makes me want to tackle Dean and hug him for a few hours.

Favorite lines:

Everything fits into his backpack, which he's owned since the third grade. One of the straps has frayed beyond repair; the other is held together with safety pins and duct tape. The bottom has been patched and re-patched, tendrils of blue ink radiate from a corner seam, and a heavy black square mars the front pocket.

Love the description of Sam’s backpack. I’m sure he had lots of crappy clothing and backpacks over the years, given what had to be their precarious financial situation.

In the bathroom, he untapes the razor blade and the crucifix from beneath the divider between the third and fourth stalls. He has to hop up a few times before he can reach the bag of herbs stashed above the projection screen in the auditorium. It's on his way to retrieve the salt packets from under the carpet in the front lobby that he hears the sound of a locker slamming open, a muttered curse.

I really like all the details about the different things Sam has hidden around the school.

Sam scrambles to his knees once he's sure Dean is out the door, drops his book on the floor beside him. He's rifling through papers and notebooks, envelopes, a condom wrapper--he recoils at that, pays closer attention--when he comes across the letter.

*g* Snoopy younger brother … I like it. And LOL at him finding the condom wrapper and then paying closer attention to what he’s touching. *snickers*

Congratulations, the letter proclaims, continuing on to spell out the details of the admittance to Casper College of a certain Dean Winchester.

Oh, that’s good. A very interesting revelation. I’d love to find out onscreen if Dean ever really did consider college, if he applied to places. And if that’s the case, then what finally convinced him that he couldn’t leave the family? Was it a specific incident, like John or Sam getting hurt, or maybe them not being around to save an innocent person?

Sam sits back on his heels, holding the letter as if it might shatter. He remembers, after a minute, to breathe.

I really like how this affects Sam. He’s learned something unexpected about Dean, and he doesn’t know what to do with it just then.

Dean hangs his left arm out the window, even though Dad's told him about a million times to keep two hands on the steering wheel unless he needs one to shoot with.

*g* That sounds sooo like something John would say.

Dean's never going to get married, Sam thinks suddenly. And so he says back, "'Til death," whispers it into the grumble of the engine, the stream of the wind. Imagines his words thick like armor, careful as smoke. Spirals rising to meet the blue, blue sky.

Quiet and sad ending, but fitting. Dean really will sacrifice a lot for hunting. *hugs Dean*

Thanks for a good read.

I’m sure he had lots of crappy clothing and backpacks over the years, given what had to be their precarious financial situation.

Definitely. That's actually one of the things I'd love to read more fic about, because I see a lot about their being raised as warriors, a lot about what moving around cost them socially, but not a whole lot about the fact that they must have been just grindingly poor.

I’d love to find out onscreen if Dean ever really did consider college, if he applied to places.

Oh, me too. And that would be such a character-deepening revelation, because it would shed a lot of light on what Dean actually felt when Sam left for Stanford. I mean, we've created a lot of fanon on the subject, and the show does hint a lot, but there's not really a definitive story about what happened when Sam left.

Thanks for reading. :)

Ooh, pretty sunflower icon. :)

That's actually one of the things I'd love to read more fic about, because I see a lot about their being raised as warriors, a lot about what moving around cost them socially, but not a whole lot about the fact that they must have been just grindingly poor.

Yeah, that's true. Maybe we'll see more as the series progresses.

And that would be such a character-deepening revelation, because it would shed a lot of light on what Dean actually felt when Sam left for Stanford. I mean, we've created a lot of fanon on the subject, and the show does hint a lot, but there's not really a definitive story about what happened when Sam left.

Kripke seems pretty interested in focusing on the brothers' relationship as much as the supernatural stuff, so maybe we'll get some details at some point.

I really enjoyed this.

For some reason, I missed your comment the first time around, which was oh, only a month ago. Erm. Oops?

Thanks. :)

Oh, Dean. You moron. You stupid, self-sacrificing moron.

*sniff*

This goes along perfectly with canon. Excellent.

He is a moron sometimes, isn't he? Which is probably why we love him. Or at least why I love him.

Thank you.

Feel free to reply to none of my comments, I'll just be spamming as I read fic.

This is just ouch. Perfectly them, loved Dean's bit of rebellion with wearing black, that Sam had never thought about Dean maybe wanting something else. And while I don't think Dean really wants it, part of him does.

Lovely.

I'm a temporary reccer at

spnroundtable this month and I recced your fic under the theme of graduation. I always like fics where inadvertent stuff helps the brothers learn about each other, because it feels like you learn about your own family that way in RL.

I came over and read this because of the roundtable rec. I am very glad i did! You absolutly nailed the voices in this. Nicely done!

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Supernatural Fic: When They Stop Building Roads

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