handsliketruth

a happy place to dream about (slice of life horror, multi-chaptered)

Dean's rudderless when he limps ashore in West Cibola. 23, with nobody and nothing but a couple bucks and a broken-down old car to his name. It's October. Nothing's been right for a long time.

He turns 24 in a rundown long-stay motel room with an under the table turned actual job at an washed-up dive bar— the only place that'd take him without a real job history or a permanent address. It’s way off the tourist strip and the money’s terrible, but it’s steady.

Two years and some change later, just as the restlessness really starts to seep in, he meets Chuck Shurley for the first time.

That he knows of.

[Read on AO3]

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CHP 8 UP!

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April. The air’s humid, heavy on the skin, on and off rain thick enough to taste.

Dean's crouched down awkwardly at the lowest shelf behind the bar, clipboard under one arm and pen jammed between his teeth as he rustles at the back, counting and recounting bottles of triple sec and sour mix— he keeps losing track halfway, headache kneading at his skull. The dead out nap that’d eaten his lunch break between one blink and the next barely dented it.

Still, he feels the eyes on his back like a target.

He works his jaw, staying put. Makes a few purposeful-looking marks that don’t mean anything before he heaves up to his feet, tossing the clipboard on the shelf. He tilts against the counter, plastering on a smile at the vaguely familiar man across the bar — infrequent repeat customer, tall, intense, radiates cop in a way that makes Dean twitchy— but they get those sometimes, off-duty guys just after a drink.

Off-duty isn’t he’s clocking from him right now, though.

Alarm bells rattle his back molars but Dean keeps smiling, plastic. Wishes he’d held onto the clunky metal clipboard. There’s an empty beer bottle to his left. Mostly useless plastic trays of lime wedges and violent red maraschino cherries to his right. Capped marker in his pocket—

“What’s your poison?”

“I’m more interested in you, Dean Harrison,” the cop says, sliding a gleaming badge across the counter.

Dean–

not Dean Harrison, he hasn’t been Dean fucking Harrison in years–

stalls out.

And— no, not cop, agent. Federal agent. What the fuck?

Outwardly, Dean just raises a brow.

“I wasn’t gonna card you, but sure.” He makes a show of glancing over the badge, “Good news is, you’re legal for that drink you’re not after, but other than that…” Pressing two fingers against the badge, he slides it right back over to him crisply. “Kinda feel like you got the wrong idea here, Mister Henderson.”

“It’s Henriksen.”

“Oh, I figured getting your name wrong was part of the game.”

“I’m sure I got yours right— didn’t I, Harrison?”

“It’s Winchester,” Dean corrects shortly.

Henriksen just laughs, low and surprisingly real.

“Yeah, I heard that— it’s cute, ‘cause I’ve got Dean Winchester’s death certificate on my wall.” He leans forward on an elbow, waving a hand, “But hey— nobody’s looking for a kid that died way back in ‘95, right? Pretty clever for a corpse.”

Dean stares at him, flat. The fed crooks a smug grin at him. Dean’s not even sure either of them has blinked.