FNL/SPN Crossover: Like This

[xaara]

Title: Like This
Author: xaara
Rating/Pairing: PG, gen, crossover
Timeline: Stanford-era Dean, post-1.08 Tim. Yes, I realize these don't quite line up. Work with me here.
Characters: Dean Winchester, Tim Riggins
Summary: He's good at that, the not thinking. He sleeps carefully and forgets his dreams.
A/N:Remember how I said I wanted to either write or read Dean/Tim Riggins fic? Well, I couldn't find any. So I wrote something that, while not technically Dean/Tim, does have both characters.

Like This

Some kid's dad gone missing and it's like the entire town suddenly cares about not-football. Kinda freaks Tim out, he thinks about it too hard, so he doesn't. Downs generic cheapass shit beer and shoulders his brother to one side so they can watch TV. Their gazes parallel like train tracks, two lines of steel or whatever the fuck they make train tracks out of, and you look long enough, seems like they intersect. Tim figures their gazes hit Katie Couric and pretty much stop right the fuck there. Nothing metaphorical about it.

First time Tim sees him, the new guy's picking up a burger and curly fries to go. Wearing leather and jeans, and it's way too hot for that shit. Tim watches a bead of sweat form at the guy's hairline, slip down the back of his neck. "Heard you had some disappearing dude," says the guy, and Trish, serving today, says Yeah, Mister Parks, called his wife to tell her he'd be home for dinner and never showed.

"Huh," says the guy. Tim watches the way his shoulders bend towards Trish. He's cutting her off and including her in his circle of two. He wants something.

She's been in the business long enough to read that, read men. Tim knows because of the one time he tried to hit on her. Honey, she'd said, honey, I'm twelve years older than you and when was the last time you washed your hair?

He hadn't tried again.

But Trish is listening to this guy, smiling at him. As Tim watches, she tips her chin down and her eyes up while the man leans a little farther forward, lowers his voice. "You aren't worried?" he asks.

Trish laughs and tells him that all she's got to worry about is her next mortgage payment, especially what with Billy growing like a weed and no child support in sight, nosir, that sonofabitch.

New guy shakes his head and agrees with her. Hands her a twenty and waves off his change, says he expects to be compensated in saturated fat and anyway what's the point, arteries are probably so clogged by now it'll be all he can do to spend his cash before he checks out. Trish laughs again and commands him to have a nice day, y'hear? Come back anytime.

"Don't expect to be in town long," says the man, "but I'll stop by before I leave."

When the man turns around, Tim whips his eyes back to his food, gone grease and gristle in front of him. Still, he feels the man's stare like sunlight on the back of his neck, hot. Threatening to burn if he doesn't do something about it.

He doesn't do anything, takes a sip of his drink. Picks at the edge of the table where the laminate's peeling.

Yeah, he thinks, yeah, come over here, start shit.

The man doesn't do anything, just walks past Tim's table without pausing. It takes Tim three nauseating bites of his burger to notice the note—try again. -dean—ripped from receipt paper and curled like a parenthesis on the table.

--

The next day, Tim takes the truck out to the range, shoots until his shoulder aches. Hits target after target, pump, set, weight of the trigger against his grip, squeeze. Jason, he thinks, hands steady. Sight, shoot. Shred the target, recoil so strong he can't think, can't breathe for a second. His heart beats thickly inside his earmuffs.

Gun empty, Tim crouches, curls his finger over the trigger guard, studies the dirt beneath his feet. When he stands up, the new guy is leaning against a car behind him.

Tim hooks his muffs around his neck. "Hey," he says.

"Nice shooting," says the guy.

Tim shrugs. "Yeah."

"Dean," the guy says by way of introduction. He's lost the jacket, replaced it with a grey t-shirt ripped at the hem.

"Tim."

"Okay," Dean says. He pauses for a second, squints out over the range. "It always this fucking hot?"

Tim half-smiles, relaxes his grip on the rifle. "Yeah," he says.

"Super," says Dean. "Well. See you around."

Sweet car, Tim thinks as Dean climbs in and growls the engine to life, gravel crunching as he pulls slowly from the parking lot.

--

Dean has a black eye and a limp the next time Tim sees him. These correspond with Mister Parks' reappearance, but Tim doesn't think about it. He's good at that, the not thinking. He sleeps carefully and forgets his dreams.

"I'm telling you, it was something straight out of the tabloids," Parks tells the paper. "Looked like bigfoot or something."

Tim hears the car before he sees it, and he steps out onto the porch, flags Dean down. He notices the injuries when Dean stops and gets out, says, "What?"

"You got room for one more?" Tim asks, and he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Thinks he doesn't have a helluva lot to lose.

"Hitchhiking with strangers? What would your—"

"She's gone," Tim says, cutting Dean off. "You gonna give me a ride or what?"

Dean lends him a thoughtful look and seems to come to a decision. He jerks his chin towards the car. "Hop in."

--

"Heard about the quarterback," Dean says once they've ridden in silence three, four miles outside town. High-tension wires against the sky like yard lines. He imagines running across them, shocks jolting him forward with each step.

"Got a name," says Tim. "Street."

"Yeah, I figured. Heard you and him were close."

Close, Tim thinks. Living the land, nothing but Texas stretched out forever in front of them. "Yeah," he says.

"Sorry," says Dean. "It's tough, losing that."

Tough, right. Losing your best friend and your dreams and your future and on top of it, "I slept with his girl," Tim says, eyes front.

Dean doesn't say anything for a while. Nods, finally. "Lemme guess," he says. "QB got wind of it and won't talk to you."

"Pretty much." The car seems tiny. Tim has nothing to do with his hands.

The sun's beginning to set by the time they pull over onto the shoulder, stop and get out. Tim stretches his arms above his head until he feels his shoulders pop. The fields are daunting in their silence. Dean faces the nightfall, last light slippery against his back. Tim closes his eyes against the sun. "What brings you to Dillon?" he asks.

"'m an investigator," Dean says, "looking into the Parks case." It's bullshit, but Tim lets it slide. He doesn't care, really, doesn't want to know.

"Leaving soon?" he asks.

"Yeah."

Dean turns around until the sun illuminates both of them and Tim sees clear green eyes and freckles. And something else. "Wasn't your fault," he says before he realizes it, before he's sure.

He's sure, though, when Dean turns to him, frowning. "What?"

"Whatever it was," says Tim. He digs his toe into the ridge between grass and blacktop. "It wasn't your fault."

"Done a lot of things," says Dean.

"Me too," says Tim. Thinks, You don't know the half of it, man, you know jack shit.

They stand in silence until the sun sets. Lightning crawls in from the west, but it won't bring rain. Tim thinks about darkness and giving birth to something so pure it tears the sky open.

"Should probably get going," Dean says at last, voice startling. "I need to make Albuquerque by noon."

The car has grown in the darkness. Like a pumpkin, drive you home as long as you're in bed by midnight.

"Thanks," he says when Dean drops him off in front of the sign. Riggins. 33. Running back.

"Yeah," says Dean. He leans over and up in the absurd contortion people make to see out the passenger window. "Look. Good luck with the season."

It's over, Tim thinks, don't you get that? He forces a smile. "Yeah, thanks."

Dean smiles back, his eyes unreadable in the shadows. "Wasn't your fault, either," he says.

"Yes," says Tim, "it was."

He pushes off the car and up the front walk and doesn't turn around, not even when he hears the engine grumble away down the block. The door is unlocked. He goes inside.

Hey, his brother says from his sprawl across the entire fucking couch. Where you been?

Tim looks at him, feels the failure like always, high and sharp in his chest. He grabs a beer. "Nowhere."