#handsliketruth

He pretends not to recognize her, but he’s not surprised. There’s a tendency, not unwelcome, in Chuck’s narrative matrix: familiar faces and events rising to the surface, slow-fate tapestry raveling and unraveling throughout universes, variables desperately elbowing to become constants. Pamela's the first of the supporting cast he’s glimpsed here, but she probably won’t be the last.

Pamela is also, predictably, no help at all.

("An address on file? No can do. Maybe look up his friends. They should know it," she says easily, like it's not a jab, and goes back to wiping down the bar. "How about I pour you a beer, and you just come on back and check on your favorite beer slinger another time?")

Chuck's clearly going to have to do the legwork here himself. And why can't he? It can't be that hard. He'll just— do what Dean would do. Hints. Clues. Intuition.

What Chuck does know for sure is that today’s Dean’s birthday, and Chuck refuses to miss their strange little anniversary.

Last year today, the bristling static snowstorm had been a plush moat against the rest of the world, nestling them snug and alone in the bar’s late-night warmth. 

This year, January’s late chill whips over the half-frozen shore, raking Chuck’s shoulders and biting at his nose with soft but deeply unpleasant little zaps that make Chuck feel like his hair’s standing on end. The snow crackles against Chuck’s thick jacket, delicate icy slush snapping under his sneakers. This fucking universe…

He twitches his nose and turns his senses down to ignore it as he crosses the street to approach Dean’s door— at least, what his best guess so far. It matches up with all the little notes and details Chuck’s painstakingly squirreled away over the months, throwaway comment by comment. He’d tried another apartment a few blocks over. But if he’s going by West Cibola-specific idioms— second time’s the charm, right? Besides. He’s got a good, solid feeling about this one.

Breath held for no reason, a plastic grocery bag crinkling on one arm and a painstakingly yet badly wrapped gift in his inside pocket, Chuck reaches out to knock. No answer.

Maybe Chuck’s luck would do better in a third-time’s-the-charm world.

He tries again, squinting at the rusty peephole as if it’d help. He’s considering if he can get high enough to peek inside the tall, horizontal sliver of a window on the alleyway side when he hears movement inside. The door still doesn’t open, though.

… Are they waiting for him to leave?

Chuck frowns and knocks again, harder.

“...Dean?” He calls out, tentatively.

It’s quiet just long enough for Chuck to start doubting again. Then he hears the metallic rustle of chains and locks clinking, the handle jiggling a couple times— is that cussing? Chuck perks— before the door creaks open a few scant inches, chain pulled tight across it. 

Dean looks like he hasn't slept in days. He also looks genuinely taken aback to see Chuck standing at his front door. He squints at him hard, and nearly knocks the liquor bottle he's holding against his own face when he holds an arm up, grimacing as if physically offended by the glaring winter light.

“Hi?” Chuck tests out.

Dean sways forward slightly, studying him through the narrow opening. Chuck can practically taste the alcohol. What the hell…?

 “...You don’t have my address,” Dean says finally, almost accusatory. His voice is rusty with disuse. There’s only a hint of a slur, but Chuck has seen many a Dean Winchester masterfully wasted; his verbal capacities are among the last to go. 

Chuck hems a little— but really, he’d done some actual human detective work on this one. He hadn't cheated an ounce. 

"I still don't, technically,” Chuck points out, then holds up a finger, “But! I knew what neighborhood, ish, that you're on the bottom floor, right across from that smoke shop you swear is a front, alley to the right, beat up yellow Harley on blocks out front…" He gives a pleased wave of his hand, "Et voila!”

"...Creepy," Dean says, "...But. Fair enough,” he allows. “Slippin' in my old age, I guess. Fuck.” He laughs once but there’s no humor in it. “My dad, man, he'd be pissed."

Dean’s eyes narrow, focus slipping past Chuck’s shoulder— at some guy walking their dog down the street. Dean takes a swig from the bottle that Chuck’s sure is pretty unnecessary judging by the booze fumes coming off him like a wall, looking up and down the block before he squints up at the sour sunlight.

"... 's too fucking bright out here,” Dean shifts aside resignedly, broad frame no longer blocking the door.  “In or out?"

It’s stale and a few degrees too cool for comfort inside Dean’s apartment, but it’s miles better than the blinding light and sharp static zip of the wind rattling the old building.

Behind Chuck, Dean kicks a shabby, useless-looking fabric draft back against the door, taking his time to nudge it into place with the toe of his boot and a dose of drunken precision. 

It takes Chuck a second for his eyes to adjust to the dim inside. There’s not much to see: a one-room studio that unwinds into a longish box, with an unmade pullout near the middle and a bathroom at the far end. The small window just over the bed has a towel pinned crookedly over it; the gap sends a sharp angle of light shearing across the room, the only light aside from the faint glow of a muted TV, its small, blocky shape sitting on the floor in front of the bed but turned for some reason to face the wall away from it instead, shoved right up close. The flickering light scatters silently off a chipped coat of medium-gloss beige.

It’s strange; the space smells like Dean, warm skin and clear morning air— but it’s stripped down to parts like Dean just got here (or hasn’t been here for years), like he’s still just living out of the olive-drab duffle flopped open by the bed instead of the plainly empty closet set into the back wall. 

Dean's apartment is both exactly what Chuck had pictured— and nothing like him at all. It asks way more questions than it answers.

When Chuck turns back, Dean’s watching him oddly, shifting his weight on his heels. Dean himself isn’t looking much better than anything else in this strange space. He’s flushed, bundled up against the chill air, boots laced up like he might walk out the door any second. Chuck isn’t so sure about sick, but there’s something— majorly off, even under the alcohol. There had to be; this isn’t how Dean operates.

 Dean tips another sip back from the cheap plastic bottle of bourbon in his hand, and sways just a little as he makes the three whole steps to what seems to constitute his kitchen: an ancient fridge, humming loudly, with couple narrow feet of yellow floral vintage countertop beside it, nesting a shallow sink. There’s a small space cleared away for a hotplate that’s probably older than Dean himself.

"Sorry ‘bout the mess.” Dean twitches the bottle against his thigh with a soft slosh. “Coulda just called, buddy.”

"I kinda did,” Chuck points out, “Couple times, actually.”

Dean glances at him in a way that clearly (and somewhat belligerently) says bullshit. Chuck doesn’t blink once.

Frowning, Dean pats his pockets, then twists to look around the room, the motion lopsided. He angles toward the counter, digging his phone from under a discarded six-pack liner and holding it out to Chuck as if to prove it, showing off the pristinely empty notification window.

“See? Nada,” Dean says, snapping it shut with a hand.

“That’s not your phone,” Chuck points out, because it isn’t.

—Dean pauses mid-motion to stare at him beadily.

“Yeah it is,” Dean argues— and then pauses. He looks at Chuck, then at the phone, turning it around in his hand to frown at it like he’s not so sure either, just for a second before something clicks.

“....Fuck.” Dean closes his eyes with a sigh, digging the pad of his thumb against his eyelid until it smudges red and sore. “Uh. Yeah. Had to grab a new one. New number.”

“What happened to your old one?”

“Threw it in the lake,” Dean replies, not missing a beat. Tossing the phone onto the kitchen counter with a dull clatter, he takes another drink. “Kidding. Dropped it.”

Chuck studies the mess of him, pensive. There’s no reason for this Dean to be acting like this— flipping into a ditch somewhere between hunt gone wrong and last night on earth levels of spinout. Hell, this Dean has it great, comparatively.

“...Are you okay?” Chuck tests, ignoring the look Dean levels at him in response. “The bar said you called in sick.”

“Jesus, it’s been one day—”

“One day? Nobody’s seen you since like, Sunday,” Chuck points out.

“Yeah? And?”

“It’s Wednesday?”

Dean’s brow scrunches hard. He opens his mouth, turning towards Chuck, but nothing comes out.

“...No it ain’t,” he mutters even as he twists his arm to check his well-worn Casio.  It takes him a couple tries to focus on it, movement glitching between lifting his wrist closer and leaning down. The shadows under his eyes seem to grow longer as he stares. He gives up.

“Feel like them telling you things like that has gotta be…” Dean waves his empty hand, something gone out of him despite the joking tone. “Is that allowed? Like— hippocratic— no, but— fuck. There’s a work thing, isn’t there?” He shifts to lean back against the fridge heavily. “‘I’m fine. Can’t a guy just… fuck off for a minute?”

He lapses again, gaze drifting along the counter, slowing over Chuck until he comes to a stop at the bag hanging on Chuck’s elbow.

“...‘S that?” Dean asks. Chuck blinks down at it, having forgotten a minute himself. 

In hindsight, it’s a little embarrassing. Chuck had just wanted an excuse to show up. Deans don’t get sick; that’s a basic element of Chuck’s coding (he can’t stand the extended melodrama of human recovery). Although Dean, hunched into himself and flushed too bright for just the alcohol to explain away, wavering white-knuckled between listless and keyed-up tight, looks… He might not be sniffling and sneezing, but he looks worse than just some weekend bender, exhaustion burning as bright and unsustainable as the liquor.

“I—uh– soup?” Chuck holds the bag out sheepishly.

Dean blinks at him, albeit surprisingly openly; puzzle pieces turning clumsily in real time.

“...You brought me soup?” Dean repeats slowly, in a tone Chuck can’t read. 

Chuck should just rewind right on outta here. Right about now. Oh, and while he’s at it, he can strip the mortifying human flaw of turning red from his own framework, because he’s pretty sure he’s doing it right now and it feels—

Wow. Wow, it feels bad. So bad. 

Chuck fidgets in place, touching his cheek because it’s a little on fire, and he can feel his mouth trying to find the words to fill the silence, opening and closing once before finally just blurting out, “The lady at the corner mart said that’s what you get sick people.”

“... And the little… stop-sign crackers?”

“Gatorade, too.” Dean seems like he could probably use that right now, actually; Chuck rummages through the bag to present it to Dean.

“It’s blue. Best kind,” Chuck says quickly.

Dean looks at the bottle a little owlishly, then back up to Chuck. He reaches out to take it. 

“—Yeah,” Dean admits, scrubbing a hand through the back of his hair quickly, then “Uh, I mean, if you don’t have, like, any other flavors for like. A couple miles at least.”

Dean’s wrong, but Chuck’s not about to argue with him— and anyway, there’d been no bite to his tone and it’s not like Dean’s giving the gatorade back, either, orange-capped bottle tucked snugly into his arm right by the bourbon, chin up a little as he collects the bag from Chuck and empties it out, setting the matched red-striped cans of Campbell chicken noodle soup carefully on the barren counter, bag of crackers next to them, before cracking open the gatorade to tilt a couple sips back. Then a couple more, like he didn’t realize he was thirsty.

He wipes a drop of blue from the corner of his mouth with a thumb, and blinks at Chuck like he almost forgot he was there.

“Fuck,” he announces, “look who’s a goddamn bad host, huh? You want a drink?” he sniffs, opening the fridge to peer inside, grabbing the top of the door for balance. Inside is a jar of Value Village mayo, a scattered handful of packaged cheese slices, and an open beer bottle laying on its side in a small puddle. (It kinda makes Chuck’s fridge feel pretty exemplary.)

Dean keeps talking, regardless, voice muffled and echoing slightly,  “I’ve got, uh… A couple beers. Lukewarm, ‘cause they’re… over there somewhere, not in here. If you’re hungry I got, uh.” He pushes the mayonnaise aside to poke at a wrapped leftover shape and then pulls a face, “No, you don’t want that. Nobody wants that. …Frozen burrito?”  He straightens, bumping the fridge shut with his side, wavering a little as he leans against it. 

“I’m— I’m gonna sit down,” he says. He does not. 

“I’m good,” Chuck assures him, taking a careful step forward, but Dean seems set on staying upright despite himself. He doesn’t lift his head, forehead pressing against the cool yellowed plastic.

“What, y’ gonna make me drink alone?” Dean says back, muffled against the fridge as if joking, but there’s a bitter note under it. Or is it just brittle? “If you’re gonna be here, might as well fit the theme.”

Dean does not expound upon this theme. It might just be “drunk”.

“Hey,” Chuck says, leaning in just a little closer, trying to keep his voice light, casual. “Dean. I can get out of your hair, y’know. No harm, no foul.”

Dean lifts his head almost sharply, then blinks at him.

“No— I mean,” Dean waves the bottle in his hand, “If you want. Fuck. I don’t know why you’d wanna—” he takes another sip, something miserable shining through the cracks before hiding away again.

Dean finally straightens up from the fridge but only to lumber to the pullout instead. He sits down on the side of it heavily, bootheel knocking an empty beer bottle into another with a soft clink he doesn’t seem to notice, puddling down into twisted sheets and an unzipped sleeping bag turned comforter that he drags around his shoulders. Chuck’s fairly sure that’s where he’d been before Chuck knocked.

Chuck follows him, leaning down to pick up a stray unopened beer along the way. He sits down to join him, carefully. The beer’s a twist-off; Chuck kinda wishes it wasn’t, so he could pass it over for Dean to pop with his ring. Some reminder of their normal.

Dean gestures a little haplessly at— himself, the room, all of it, bottle sloshing faintly. 

“I don’t know why you’re here,” he admits tiredly, a note of abject misery to it under the slur. “... I never know why you’re here. Or why I keep letting’ you— or— all of this, y’know?” 

Chuck, notedly, does not know, but he lets Dean keep talking. 

“Hell, I’m not even supposed to be here. But every time I try to leave, I hit this… wall. I’ve been here in this shitty town since— Jesus, it’s been years now, Chuck.” 

Dean looks up at Chuck, eyes bloodshot but startlingly clear, and Chuck must be feeling transparent today because it’s like Dean’s looking straight through him. Blank and accusing, as if he knows somehow. 

For a second, Chuck even wonders if it is his fault; some remnant of the universal programming dooming Dean to linger right here at the starting line of West Cibola’s real narrative, dragging Dean’s heels in the metaphysical black tar quicksand of their ordained meet-cute—

But that thought doesn’t linger. Chuck isn’t Dean’s problem— at least, not this problem. Whatever the hell it is. 

“It’s just… I don’t know, man, lately, this last year or so, it’s just been…” Dean lifts a hand, as if trying to explain, rubbing his palm against his chest instead. He shakes his head hollowly instead. “Look,” he tries again, “I’m over it. At least— I thought maybe I was gettin’ over it, and then— I heard about Dad’s appeal and all this shit and I just— I couldn’t stand in that goddamn bar one more second, I just… I couldn’t, man.” 

Chuck’s brow shoots up.

“You told me he was dead.”

Dean’s eyes jolt belatedly to his. He grimaces.

“Oh. Uh. Yeah, I lied,” Dean says, rubbing his nose hard. “I, uh, I do that,” then, “sorry.”

It’s true, Chuck has to agree. But he can’t be that annoyed by stumbling into yet another picture-perfect Dean-ism wrapped up in this Dean, can he? If Dean’s admitting a lie, he’s a step closer to unveiling a truth.

Chuck studies him.

“...I’ll accept your apology. On one condition,” he declares, pointing a finger at him. Once and only once Dean’s looking at him, he continues. “You are gonna have to elaborate, buddy. No, seriously. You… remember how, an hour ago, I had to go all gumshoe and walk half of Cibola just to figure out where you lived even though we’ve been hanging out at my place every week for ages now?”

Dean works his lower lip between his teeth slowly as Chuck speaks, red tinging his cheeks. He nods reluctantly before tilting back yet another drink— Chuck should probably take that from him but it’s all fairly harmless; Dean’s incapable of achieving anything close to alcohol poisoning. Maybe a few blackouts if he really pushed it. And, of course, the occasional narratively demonstrative bitch of a hangover. 

(Chuck can sense that one looming closer, hovering ominously in the wings.)

“We, uh. Me and my dad, we left off on a bad note,” Dean seems to force it out, strangled, quiet enough that Chuck has to lean in to hear him. He swallows, but keeps going, to Chuck’s surprise. “A real bad one. And I saw it coming, man, I could have— I shoulda stopped it before anybody got hurt.” He studies the floor subduedly rather than looking Chuck’s way. “...He’s been in the pen. Few years, now. Killed a guy.”

Chuck opens his mouth— and closes it again, not so surprised. Modern AUs aren’t Chuck’s general milieu— stifling, banal slices of life sitting out under the heatlamps, congealing oh-so-cozily into place— but if anybody’s going to run up hard against the bumper rails, it’s John Winchester.

“If I acted sooner… I knew something was wrong,” Dean continues like Chuck’s not even there, faraway and bitter. He watches the turned-around TV static bouncing off the wall. “With him. I knew. I think about that. All the time, I think about it, about what I coulda done different…” Dean buries his head, fingers lacing tightly behind his head.

“I’d started to have all these… doubts,” he says, and he sounds so fucking small. “Seein’ things that didn’t line up with what he told me… And instead of standing up, figuring out how to fix it like’s always been my job— my only goddamn job— nah, when it was most important, I choked. It was already too late. And no matter what he did— what he’s done— that’s on me.”

Dean exhales a soft, drained fuck, taut— and swallows, mouth twitching up in a bitter laugh, “...So if you wanna help, how about you throw me a direction? Because I need to get outta here, man. Flip a coin. Blind pick a zipcode once a month and send it my way. I’ll send a postcard.” 

…Fascinating.

Chuck mulls on this. He trades the rest of his beer for the cheap whiskey’s Dean’s been steadily depleting and lets it burn unpleasantly on his tongue because it’s burning on Dean’s tongue right then at that moment, too, and something about that solidarity helps him puzzle it through.

It all has to come back to John Winchester. Doesn’t everything, eventually, with a Dean? John’s alive, and Dean’s not with him. Dean’s guilty, Dean’s stressed, he’s climbing up the walls about it— of course he is, if it’s ugly as Dean’s implying. On top of that, Chuck didn’t build Dean for picket fences and playgrounds; Deans are creatures of the open road, haunting the highways at a hundred miles per hour, arsenal in the trunk and classic rock spilling out the windows. Staying anywhere must just be clashing against that instinct — that’s got to be it.

But Chuck can’t have Dean just up and leaving Cibola, not now. They’re at a singularly frustrating point where Chuck knows him well enough for don’t go but not enough for I’ll go with you.

“...North, then. I mean, if you’re so keen to turn tail.” Chuck says.

Dean blinks at him for a second, taken aback. He scowls, “oh fuck you—”

“You are, though, aren’t you? And you’re freaking yourself the fuck out,” Chuck points out, priming himself for the rewind as Dean’s expression darkens. “All this talk about running, man, hiding— you don’t sleep, you lost time, you tossed your phone, I’m pretty sure you’ve cleared out the bottom shelf of every liquor store in town— Dean,” he says, as if willing him to listen. “Why? What’s going to be so different anywhere else? Look around you. Have you actually tried to settle in here? Because I’ve known you for a while now, and I’m gonna be honest: you’ve made it pretty damn hard.”

Dean’s jaw bunches up hotly. Chuck can practically see him simmering, buried under the lumpy sleeping bag, radiating all that misery and tension. But as far as Chuck’s concerned? West Cibola is Dean's home.

And Dean’s going to need to realize that too, sooner or later.

Chuck’s braced for the snap, but Dean’s silent. Chuck doesn’t know what cut his anger down at the knees, and he doesn’t particularly care for it. It feels weak in a way he doesn’t like on him.

When Dean finally speaks, it’s brittle.

“Pretty the last couple years already proved I can’t hack it here, man.”

“Yeah? And what’s going to be different up north?”

Dean flinches, minutely.

“Dean,” Chuck tries again, gentler. “Listen. Sure, you’ve given all this a try. I’ll give you that. But have you considered that Cibola’s got something nowhere else does?”

Dean huffs out a breath. “...Lemme guess. You?”

“Ding ding ding, somebody get the man a prize— yeah, come on. Me, thanks.”

“So,” Dean clears his throat, eyes darting to catch Chuck’s gaze, finally, “To recap, I’ve got a shitty under the table job, a shitty drafty studio, and—”

“Me. Here. Two thumbs, shitty friend— that’s this guy,” Chuck says with a grin.

Dean shakes his head. “Sure. And one… alright friend, with pretty shitty taste in friends. And that’s my prize for sticking around, huh?” He’s bitterly quiet for a long moment, jaw working slowly. 

Chuck lets him stew. If Dean comes to the wrong conclusion— well, Chuck’s ready to rewind and try again. He’s already mapping out angles, branching action and conversation and—

“Fuck it,” Dean says abruptly.

“—What?”

Dean’s a little flushed and a little too pale. His jaw juts into place so stubbornly it might stick.

“I said, fuck it. Fuck,” Dean throws a hand up, “Fine. I’ll stick it out. For now."

Chuck just grins at him, and he’s inordinately pleased at the upward twitch of Dean’s mouth in response. 

He straightens up, pausing at the faint crinkle from his pocket— Dean’s present, wrapped in local funnies and scotch tape, a completely out of context panel of Marmaduke that’d had both of them wiping away tears laughing last week angled carefully onto the front. He’ll save it for a less… fraught moment, of course, already kinda nervous about his choice. Still—

“Hey, uh… so you know how it’s Wednesday?”

Dean pauses wrestling with the cap of the sports drink, raising an eyebrow. “What, you’re gonna start takin’ potshots now?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Happy birthday’, actually?”

Dean fumbles half the Gatorade down his shirt. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LATER:

“I just realized I don’t know– when’s yours, anyway? Your birthday?” Dean asks, and the question catches Chuck off guard. It’s true, he would have one here, wouldn’t he? He hadn’t thought about it—

“It’s not exactly a trick question,” Dean says, brow raising as Chuck digs out his wallet, flipping it open to check his license.

Chuck rewinds.

—“I just realized I don’t know– when’s yours, anyway? Your birthday?” Dean asks, glancing over at him.