FIC: A New Leaf (Gen - 2/3)

[twasadark]

Title: A New Leaf – (Gen 2/3)

Author:twasadark

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer:  I disclaim everything.  Forever.  And ever.  Amen.

Spoilers: Through the end of S2.

Words: 2,100

Summary: Dean decides to, well, turn over a new leaf and live the time he has left to him differently.

Notes: Written for LiveJournal’s Schmoopfest. Betaed by Harry Potter Fan Fic writing genius

dysonrules.

Part 1 

 

--

They pulled into Cambridge in the afternoon, and drove around through the narrow, cobbled streets looking for a motel or room for rent near Harvard’s library.  They found the right place right away, a one-bedroom with kitchenette and a frickin’ claw foot tub, for God’s sake. The building was nice and well-kept, for a change: a brownstone located a mere ten-minute walk from the Theological School’s library.

“See, it’s meant to be,” Sam said, smiling.

Dean sighed in exasperation, not wanting to tread that path again.  Sam had known what he was doing when he chose Pre-Law for his major, Dean reflected.  His baby brother had argued like a son-of-a-bitch for three straight days about how they needed a home base for a month or two.  All right, maybe three. 

“Or four or five or six?” Dean had asked snidely.

Sam simply shrugged and said, “Whatever it takes to save you.”

“Yeah?  What about all those things that escaped from Hell?  Who’s going to save the people who’ll be tortured and killed by them?”

“We’re not the only hunters out there, Dean.  We can still hunt, as long as that hunt is within driving distance so I can continue my research.  This library has the biggest – and oldest – occult manuscript collection in the U.S.  Which means there has to be something about deals with demons.  I need to be here for a while, Dean.  I’m not losing you.  I’m just not.”  He said it with finality, like that was the end of the discussion.

Dean complained, and bitched, and brought up the fact that something could turn up on a hunt to help them.  And blah blah blah blah.  None of it did a bit of good.  Sam could be as stubborn as hell when he wanted to. 

So in the end they went to Cambridge.  Sam seemed unusually happy about it, too.

“Man, look at this place.  There’s Harvard.  Frickin’ Harvard, dude.  The first college in the U.S., founded in 1636.  Right over there,” he pointed to a park, “is Cambridge Common, where George Washington took control of the army during the American Revolution.” It just looked like a park to Dean, with all the usual park things:  grass, trees, a few homeless guys sharing a sip of something from a brown paper bag on a bench.  What was so great about that?

Sam was still babbling on about how awesome this place was, how he couldn’t believe they’d never made it here before, and Dean don’t you even care about our history?  Dean was getting a headache from the effort it took to clench his mouth shut.  Damn, but he wanted to call Sam a geek.  And not just a geek, but a supercalifragilisticikspealidocious geek. 

On the other hand, he kinda liked seeing Sam excited about something.  Kinda liked seeing him at all, truth be told.  The whole death thing had made Dean grateful for everything to do with Sam.

Besides, Dean had to admit that it was a nice place.  Shops and bars and restaurants all in a neat little row, with old-fashioned awnings and shuttered windows and brightly painted signs.  All over the place he saw green leafy trees and flowering plants, fresh-faced college kids on bikes, and girls walking two by two … lots of girls with long hair and short skirts and those little spaghetti strap tops that bared their smooth shoulders …

Yeah, maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all.

--

Or not. 

Dean tried to help with the research.  He really did.  He planted his butt in one of the library’s soft fabric chairs and leaned over the table to carefully turn the pages of the old manuscripts that Sam kept dumping in front of him.  The hawk-eyed librarian, a skinny old guy wearing a cardigan for Christ’s sake, made he and Sam don plastic gloves to “protect the pages from the oil on your skin.”  And the old guy would absolutely, positively NOT allow Dean to drink his morning java while he looked at the books, even if he did manage to sneak it past the front door in Sam’s backpack without spilling a drop.

Anyhow.  Dean could help out for a few hours in the morning, as long as he could take five or six breaks and fidget enough (tapping his pencil on the desk, drumming his fingers on his thigh, jiggling his left foot to Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell), but beyond that his vision blurred and he thought his head would explode from sheer, agonizing boredom.  Just like school.  Except for shop class.  And mechanics when they rebuilt a Chevy 454.  But that was beside the point.

That first afternoon, right about the time when his head was in imminent danger of implosion, he cleared his voice and asked to ask nonchalantly: “How long do you want to be here today?”

“They close at 8:00.”

Dean’s poker face must have been on vacation then, because Sam took one look at him and snorted with laughter.

“Just get out of here, will you?  Research is my thing, not yours. Go have a beer or scope out some chicks or something.”

“No. I want to help,” Dean protested weakly.

“Dude, you’re not helping.  You’re distracting me.”

Oh.  He couldn’t have that.  He scratched his chin.  “Guess I’d better go, then.”

Sam quirked a grin at him.  He looked tired, dark shadows under his eyes and a strained look across his forehead.  “See you back at the room tonight.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He barely managed to keep from running out of the building.

Cambridge was the kind of place built for walking.  So that’s what he did, walked and walked and walked, learning the lay of the streets, noticing the bars he’d hit in the evenings, doing a circuit around that George Washington park, just thinking and moving and thinking some more. 

He passed the visitor center two times before a thought occurred to him and he went inside to chat the attendant up.  By the time he emerged, he had a plan.  Now, if he could just keep it secret from Sam …

--

Three days later, Dean woke at 4:20 am and dressed as quietly as possible, trying not to wake his brother.  Dean had barely seen Sam since they took up residence in Cambridge.  Sam opened the library and closed it every day, walking home by 8:30 pm and trolling the Internet until 2 or 3 am each morning.  Sam had never been able to handle loss of sleep very well, so Dean figured there was no way in hell he’d wake up.

Except that he did, just as Dean was reaching for the doorknob, Impala keys clutched in his hand. 

“Dean?” Sam asked, voice gravelly from sleep.  He sat up, rubbing his eyes.  “Where are you going?”

“Uh … couldn’t sleep,” he improvised.  “I’m going out to get breakfast:  I’ll bring something back for you.”

Sam squinted at the curtains.  “Breakfast, now?  It’s still dark.  It’s … 4:32 am.  No place is going to be open this early.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll find something.  Go back to bed.”

Instead, Sam swung his long hairy legs off the bed, ran his fingers through hair that looked even wilder than usual.  “No, s’okay.  I’ve got stuff to do.  I’ll come with you.”

Dean felt his stomach drop.  He cleared his throat, trying to modulate his tone to keep it casual.  “You need your sleep, dude.  You’re still a growing boy.”

Sam peered at him, always looking for the meaning behind Dean’s words.  Even while half awake.  “You don’t want me to come?”

Damn it all to hell.  It was friggin’ 4 am.  Dean couldn’t think of an excuse that wouldn’t make Sam suspicious.  And now that he’d dragged his own sorry ass out of bed, he sure as hell wasn’t going to try to do this another day.  It was now or never.

He sighed.  “Come on.  No talking, though.  And no asking why.”

Sam opened his mouth to ask just that, then closed it again.  Now he really was suspicious.  Oh, hell. 

Outside, Sam slid obediently into the Impala’s front seat and stayed silent as Dean drove them down the darkened streets, following directions the visitor center attendant had given him.  He took the freeway for a short jog before taking the Arlington exit and tooling down the Fresh Pond parkway, turning here and there.  Sam crooked a thumb at a street sign labeled ‘Winchester Avenue,’ and grinned at Dean.  The area was heavily wooded and peaceful, with sleeping houses whose colors and lines were slowly sharpening in the lightening grayness.  Dean parked the car on a side street just down the block from the Mount Auburn Cemetery, and walked along the street with Sam trailing.  When he found a suitably secluded part of the street, he wedged his foot in the cemetery’s wrought iron fence and vaulted over it.  Sam stood on the other side, looking puzzled.

“Isn’t is the wrong time of night for us to be breaking into a cemetery?” he asked. 

“No questions, Sammy,” Dean reminded him.  Then, to Sam’s worried expression, he said, “We’re not here on a hunt.”

“We’re not here for breakfast either,” Sam said.  His eyebrows drew together.  “Are we?”

Dean guffawed.  His brother was such an idiot sometimes.

Sam clambered over the fence and they walked together through the forest of oaks, cedars and beeches so huge and gnarled they must have been a hundred years old, and down winding little paths and through hidden groves and gardens containing hundreds of species of flowers, shrubs and plants.  The place must have been hundreds of acres big.  All along the way little clusters of elaborately carved gravestones populated the grounds, appearing more like works of art than monuments to the dead.  When they passed a small gothic-style chapel with intricately sculpted turrets and elegantly patterned windows, Sam’s breath caught.  Dean pretended not to notice. 

At last they came to a glassy-sheened lake.  Dean found a bench a few dozen yards back from the shore that afforded a perfect view of the lake and the round-Greek-columned monument peeking out of the trees on the other side.

Sam sat next to him tentatively, glancing at Dean every few moments, apparently expecting a zombie to claw its way out of a nearby grave.  Dean leaned back, feet crossed at the ankles in front of him, the back of his head resting on the bench.

“Chill, Sam,” Dean advised.  “All we have to do now is wait.”

It didn’t take long until the sun rose, rays splaying out to pass through tree branches, illuminating leaves dozens of shades of green, making the crisp green grass glow, and painting the lake with silver highlights.  Everything around them was so still, like the earth itself was holding its breath.  But as the sun rose, it began to awaken.  Birds chirped and darted back and forth, fish jumped, and a family of foxes peeked from behind a tangle of ferns.  Everything seemed fresh and new and alive.  Ironic for a cemetery.

When Dean rose at last, Sam joined him reluctantly.  The walk back through the grounds to the Impala seemed totally new, the light revealing details and depths that had been hidden in the darkness.  They didn’t speak as they hopped the fence and climbed into the Impala. 

Sam didn’t say anything about what they had done, didn’t even give Dean a sly sidewise grin, or laugh to himself about his bad ass brother getting up early just to watch the sunrise.  In gratitude, Dean took him to Starbuck’s and bought him the biggest mocha frappa grande thing they had.  He didn’t even bitch about it.

--

Part III

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Note: BTW, I’ve never been to Cambridge, so I may have gotten some of the details horribly wrong.  But I did research Harvard and the Mount Auburn Cemetery, which is supposed to be a lovely place to visit.  It’s also the first cemetery in the U.S.  Yeah, I dig graveyards.  Pretty weird, eh?  Oh, well …