Tuesday October 1st, 2018

Heat of the moment, heat of the moment

Heat of the moment

Heat of the moment, heat of the moment

Smack!

Heat of the moment, heat of the moment

Smack! Smack!

Heat of the moment

"Oh for God's sake.." Dean mumbled, slithering his way across his comfy bed to make a grab for his phone, wishing that just this once he could burrow under the blankets and sleep the day away. He really should change his alarm tone, but for some weird reason that song reminded him of Sam (one of the last pranks Sam had played had been to rigg everything Dean owned that could play music to repeat that damn song over and over again..) and Dean didn't have the heart to change it. That was back in better (well, better than what came after) days, before they had their huge brawl and his baby brother told him to get out of the small apartment they shared. Then Sam walked away from him and didn't look back.

Heat of the moment

"Oomph!" In his partial coma-tose state he heaved himself forward to silence the annoying (ok, secretly he kinda liked it) croon of Asia and found himself sprawled halfway onto the floor with his poor back bent like a pretzel. He'd be feeling that the rest of the day. His legs were still tangled in the blankets on the bed and his face smashed into something soft and warm.

And wet…

Very wet.. And moving..

Oh, come on!.

Heat of the moment

"Uuuuunnn…" Dean groaned. "Come on Banner, it's too early for your stinky dog kisses!" He pushed the lovable German Shepard away and slid the rest of his body to the floor. His two year old pup, always eager for playtime, leapt joyfully onto his back.

"Ow! Ow! Ok ok! Get off! I'm getting up. Jeez dog, ease up would ya. My body hurts too much to be used as a trampoline! Sit, sit! Stay. Good boy..." Dean sat up and gave him a good rub,

He had never really been much of a pet person, but Banner had come along at the suggestion of his therapist, Meg, a smart mouthed little devil of a woman who really didn't fit the norm for a psychologist. He'd started seeing her about three years ago at the urging of his Quarry boss, Luke, who invited him out for drinks only to have Dean get smashed and have a drunken breakdown of massive proportions. Luke (who's real name was Lucifer, by the way) was a recovering drug addict who had been seeing her to treat his depression and to help stir him in the right direction (away from the drugs he got hooked on in High School).

After a few visits himself, Meg had diagnosed him with Persistent Depressive Disorder, and after some extreme psychotherapy suggested he get himself a furry companion to help combat his feeling of loneliness. His friend and coworker Benny happened to have some German Shepard puppies to give away and that's how he now found himself being pounced on by eighty pounds of pooch.

"Hey buddy.. Time for a pee break, yeah?"

Heat of the moment

Smack! Ugh, finally. Direct hit!

"Alright, come on. Outside!"

Dean zombied into his tiny kitchen flipping the coffee pot on as he passed. Coffee, coffee was priority, without coffee he was as useless as a gun without ammo. Every morning was the exact same routine, fight the alarm, start coffee, let pooch out, feed pooch, feed himself coffee and a shower then off to work. Every day, six days a week.

Well seven if Mrs. Summers down the street needed any work done. Lately though, his elderly neighbor hadn't had much for him to do. A few weeks ago he had been so exhausted that he fell asleep underneath her car while repairing a brake line. He nearly gave the old woman a heart attack when she came out calling for him and he didn't move. She thought he'd been crushed to death.

Her high pitched shrieks had finally roused him from his peaceful bliss, just as she was dialing 911. In his haste to get out from under the car he cracked his forehead on the undercarriage and got a minor concussion for his trouble. Mrs. S added to it by giving him a hearty slap to his bleeding head, then hugged him and gave him pie, grateful he wasn't dead.

Dean adored her, she was the first and really the only friend he made in the first six months he found himself in the little town of Jackpot, population 1,003.. He wasn't really sure how he wound up here five years ago, maybe it was his low funds, a low gas light, Hell it could have been that episode of CSI he watched years ago..

Maybe he had just been tired of fleeing the past in his rear-view.

But the first couple months after he'd rolled into town (the eight hundred dollars he had left when he fled Sioux Falls practically gone) he had lived out of the back of his dad's (now his) Impala, desperate for some kind of employment. The fake credentials he'd cooked up not doing him any favors. Taking whore's baths in gas stations and trying to stretch his last hundred dollars so he wouldn't starve.

A wing and a prayer didn't get you very far..

It was at one of those gas stations where he met Mrs. S. He had been sitting on the rear of the Impala scrolling the job sites, worrying he'd never find anything and wouldn't be able to keep footing the bill for his dad's prolonged stay in the psychiatric hospital. He'd used all of his savings from his job at back in Sioux Falls to ensure John's stay for the first year, (so much for Dean's retirement) had a huge blowout with Sam and Bobby about it, after which he went on a three day bender which caused him to miss work for a week, thus resulting in his immediate case of unemployment.

Angry and embarrassed he had fled his home with his tail between his legs.

Maybe he should just suck up his pride and go running back, (maybe Bobby would welcome him home, maybe he'd slam the door in his face) but anyway, he was sitting there when a huge, bright blue Escalade flopped onto the lot with a flatulating tire.

The shortest woman Dean had ever seen (seriously, the woman barely came up to Dean's waist) climbed (yes, she climbed) out of the driver's seat. She had a blinding white pixie cut and hot pink coke bottle glasses that nearly covered her entire face. Every finger was cloaked in gold costume jewelry that clashed horribly with her leopard yoga pants and black knee-high boots. She topped it off with a gold glittery wrap thing around her shoulders.

She stalked right up to him, gave him a long lascivious look and offered him five hundred bucks to fix her tire, even though the gas station he was parked at had a service center. Too excited at the thought of filling up his Baby and getting a decent meal that night he accepted. She ogled his ass the entire time and told him her life story in the span of an hour (it took that long to dig the spare out from her collection of feather boas and sequined jackets) .

Dean learned she owned a casino and three wedding chapels down in Vegas, she was four times a widow and moved up here after her last husband mysteriously disappeared somewhere near Area 51. She pulled over when she saw him because her psychic told her that very morning there was a handsome man in leather in her future that needed her.

And that yes, while he was handsome and he looked dashing in his leather jacket he was about thirty years (I have a granddaughter near your age) too young for her.

She had no problem making comments on his (mmm mm mmmh, gorgeous) ass as she watched him work though. Mrs S handed him five crisp hundreds, then randomly offered him a place to stay in her old RV in her backyard, because the psychic told her to. When Dean mentioned something about being total strangers and he could be some kind of a psycho she laughed and said 'The name's Ivy, now we aren't strangers, and sweetie if you fuck with me I live with Smith, Wesson and a rottweiller named Thor, I'm not worried, I'm from Vegas you know, was down there turning tricks before you were born'.

That was how he found himself living in a 1970's RV over on Lady Luck Drive, (with a disco ball and a high heel shaped chair) for his first year in Nevada. He'd snagged his first job as a stocker that same day (God was apparently on his side) at a Ridley's Market three days a week about a half hour away in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Over the next few weeks he found three other jobs that fit perfectly around his stocker schedule. He found a job at a local garage in need of a new mechanic three days a week, and three days at a rock quarry in Rock Creek. Dean took another part time job as a motel desk clerk on the days he wasn't at the market and earned enough to keep his dad in the nuthouse. By some miracle he made enough to put a nice down payment on a dilapidated old house just up the street from Mrs S.

The shitty house had been on the market for years according to her, and with her cunning business sense she haggled with the realtor to get the price to a mere twenty grand. He had nearly half that for a down payment and thanks to a low finance rate (courtesy of his co-signer) and his working four jobs his home was nearly paid for. Every penny he could scrape together, well every one that didn't go toward paying for dear old dad or his utility bills, went into fixing up his very own home.

And fix it up he did.. Every Sunday, his only day off, was rehab day. All by himself, he pushed forward. The place was horrible, it looked like one of those houses in a horror movie. You know, the kind the crazy chainsaw murdering undead guy hides in. Dog shit brown with boarded windows, leaky roof, stained carpets, the creepy red stain on the kitchen floor.. Dead grass that made you think of a crack house.

He bought a tiny mattress and slept on the floor for the better part of its rehab, concentrating on the exterior first. New roof, windows, happy yellow paint with blue trim, he even added an attached garage for his Baby.

He worked the inside over one room at a time, the master suite first so he could have somewhere to lay his aching body at night. Slow but steady, he turned every room in the trash dump into something worthy of an HGTV show. It would never be a mansion, 3 beds and 2 baths all small as a bird nest but it was his home now, for better or worse.

Sammy if you could see me now , he thought.

But Sam probably wouldn't care, if he did, Dean wouldn't have been met with a 'number no longer in service' when he tried to call Sam up a few weeks after he left, he'd never tried calling Bobby. He was too hurt and ashamed at the way he left things with Bobby (why would you try and help him Dean! After all the shit he put you boys through, Hell, put me through! And now he goes and does something like this! He should go to jail Dean and you're still taking up for him! If you do this, you can walk your ass right out that door boy, cause you're dead to me..) to reach out.

Dean had manned up his first night in the RV and tried reaching out to Sam, but was met with a disconnected number. It couldn't be a coincidence, Sam had used the same number for years and then out of the blue, nothing. Sam must have been hella pissed at him.

A few days after that failed attempt Dean's own POS prepaid phone bit the dust, by the time he had money for a new phone with an actual monthly plan his old number was rendered obsolete. He supposed it didn't matter, it's not like anyone wanted him around anyway.

"Here ya go Banner," Dean opened the door to the backyard and Banner shot out like a rocket. He left the door open to let the cold air of a desert morning flow inside. It was always so cold here at night he never needed AC. Every night here felt like a Sioux Falls winter.

He poured his coffee and went to sit on his tiny back porch, his mind full of thoughts of Sam. Thinking of him always made his heart ache.

Dean had done everything he could for that kid, hell he practically raised him. Having a father who couldn't hold down a job for more than a few months and had them treading all over the Midwest and even a few trips coast to coast was harsh. They lived out of cheap motel rooms or on one horrible occasion they had slept in the back of the Impala for the better part of six months, Sam stretched across the backseat, Dean twisted like a rope on the floor.

After the unexpected death of his wife, Mary, in a house fire, John Winchester had gone a little crazy. He swore his wife had been killed by demons, even going so far as telling the police he saw her on fire on the ceiling the night she died. Naturally, his rantings made the Lawrence P.D. think John was involved in her death and they arrested him that night on suspicion of murder. Dean and Sam were shipped off to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to live with their Uncle Bobby, one of his mom's close friends, until the situation could be sorted out.

After about a week the police found no evidence linking him to Mary's death, so they had to let him go. John showed up at Bobby's door at three in the morning demanding his children. He packed up a four year old Dean and a sixth month old Sam into his 67' Impala, ignoring Bobby's pleas, and set out on an outrageous quest to snuff out every demon who had a hand in his wife's death.

Of course they never found anything. The only thing John managed to find was the bottom of a whiskey bottle. Leaving Dean, still a baby himself, to care for his infant brother. By the time Dean turned five he was a pro at changing diapers and could make a three-course meal out of mac and cheese and some can veggies on a hot plate in a motel room.

Dean was the one who made sure Sam was clean and fed, even if Dean wasn't. He taught Sam to read, to walk, to ride a bike. He made sure Sam always had new clothes while Dean made regular visits to the closest Salvation Army, grateful for anything he could find without holes. When he got his first job after graduating (Bobby laid down the law about education) he blew his entire paycheck on new jeans..

On more than a few trips John would chauffeur them back to Bobby's and disappear for months at a time. No one had any idea where he ran off to but when he finally showed back up he kept telling them he was getting closer to finding the demon that killed their mom. Bobby tried valiantly to get custody of the boys, but in the 80's it apparently took an act of God to get CPS to help..

The older they got, the longer John left them. Dean and Sam were able to attend high school in Sioux Falls until they graduated. Dean took some classes at the community college that made him a certified mechanic. He wanted to go farther and become certified in classic vehicle restoration and maybe get a degree in mechanical engineering but Sam, the little genius, had been accepted to Stanford so Dean put those dreams on hold so he could help Sam pay for his apartment and food when he went to Cali.

Who would have thought the long haired hippie would become a friggin lawyer.. Dean couldn't have been more proud.

Dean moaned into his coffee. Four thirty was just too damn early, even though he'd had the same routine for about five years now his aging body wasn't that spry anymore. Continuing to work two full time and two part time jobs six days a week at the age of forty, plus random jobs for his elderly neighbor on Sunday was taking its toll.

Not to forget the online college courses he enrolled this past semester. In two years he would finally be certified in classic auto restoration, he hoped.. Luckily one of his jobs was manning the front desk at a motel three evenings a week, so Dean could use that time to finish all his lessons. He knew he was a bit old to try and fulfill his dream of college but well, better late than never, right?

But damn, he was tired. Maybe he should think about quitting one of his evening shift jobs. He barely had time to eat a decent meal as it was. Mrs S. had been pointing out a lot lately that he was looking a little peaked and needed to take better care of himself. He wasn't hurting for money anymore, his day jobs paid near $20 an hour and his evening shifts weren't shabby either, he was just paranoid about losing everything. But pulling 90 hours a week for four years was getting old.

"Alright Banner, come on boy." The shepherd was rolling gleefully in the grass, "Clock's a tickin." Today was Tuesday, and Tuesdays were always a never ending pile of shit for him. He had to drive up to Boise to pick up parts for the garage on Tuesdays, meaning he couldn't drive Baby to work.

Last year he splurged on a second car, he loved his Baby but the wear and tear he had been putting on her doing those supply runs for Crowley's garage was terrible. She wasn't made for pulling a trailer stuffed with car engines, tires and cases of oil. The garage didn't have a work use vehicle so he sucked up his pride and bought himself an SUV. He thought about getting a truck but well, he just wasn't a truck person. And he could always sleep in an SUV if he needed, so..

He sighed, finishing off his coffee. Would he ever not be afraid of being basically homeless again? Mrs S told him he worried about the most useless things but his childhood and half of his adult life taught him different. That Impala was the only real home he had growing up, and again later after his life went to Hell.. It was a legitimate fear.

Dean rubbed at his sore back, today was going to be bad, he just knew it. He wished he could take a break. Maybe after he finished college he would, take a road trip back home.. Go visit Chuck, go fishing with old Rufus, maybe swing down to Omaha and visit his dad…

Crawl back to Bobby and Sam and beg for forgiveness.. Maybe…

Maybe not, that ship had likely sailed out to sea been struck by lightning and sank to the depths in a fiery blaze.. But Dean couldn't help it.. He missed them, Sam, Bobby, Jody.. He missed his family, so, so bad. Even if they didn't miss him..

Yeah, ship definitely sailed..

He took his empty mug to the sink and fed his rowdy dog, dragging his feet in a small show of defiance. Maybe he should call out sick, let somebody else make that long trip to Boise today but that would just make him feel guilty. So he'd tough it out just like he did every week, go through his morning routine, drop off Banner at Mrs S. so he could frolic with her dog Thor, hop in his second hand Durango, clock in and spend his entire shift fighting with their parts supplier, Enrique, about how his Impala was way more badass than that shit 69' Talladega the douche drove.

Yep, typical bad Tuesday, he thought as he headed for the shower.

If only he could have known how bad this particular Tuesday would be. He would have called in and stayed in bed. He would have called Bobby and apologized for everything. He would have found a way to talk to Sam and tell him that he was sorry, that he made a mistake.

He would have done everything different, because this particular Tuesday wasn't just bad..

It was Hell..

Literal flaming, metal twisting, glass shattering, crushing Hell...