Chapter Text
I told myself
from nothing
nothing could be taken away.
But can you love anyone yet?
When I feel safe, I can love.
But will you touch anyone?
I told myself
if I had nothing
the world couldn’t touch me
Louise Glück, “Mutable Earth”, Poems 1962-2012
-
five years earlier
“Hey, Benny!” Dean calls out from under the hood of a Mazda. “Do you have the manual for this thing? It might be a damn computer thing after all.” When no one answers, Dean straightens and drags his gaze across the empty garage. “Benny?” Nothing. As a last resort, he calls out for the new guy. “. . .Garth?”
Then, the door to the front opens and Benny leans out. “Hey, Dean?” He sticks his thumb over his shoulder. “The kid’s here for you.”
Dean drags his greasy hand over his forehead with a frustrated sigh. “What time is it?”
“Quarter to four,” Benny answers. “You want me to—”
“No,” Dean says before Benny can finish the question. He doesn’t fucking care where his father is. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
“Sure thing, Chief.” Then, Benny disappears into the front reception area.
Dean grabs an old rag off the cart behind him and tries to calm the hurricane storming in his chest, taking a deep breath so he won’t get pissed at Sammy. It’s not his fault Dean’ll miss the tail end of another shift, and Bobby always gets it. It just can’t stop him from docking him the hours, and Dean’s paycheques keep getting smaller the more of John’s messes he has to clean up. He wipes at his hands as he heads towards the door, and when he enters the waiting area, Sammy looks so small. He may have a good couple inches on Dean, but the way he looks at him now with those wide puppy dog eyes, Dean doesn’t feel like enough to fill the empty space.
“Didn’t show?” Dean asks.
Sam shrugs, just one shoulder, just a little, his backpack hanging off the motionless one. “Miller Time shift, I guess.”
Dean keeps his expression neutral. “All right. Meet me at the car. I gotta wash up.”
Sam smiles, like he wasn’t sure what Dean would do, and that always hits him square in the chest in a way he can’t explain. Sam swipes his hand over his forehead, his bangs tangling in his fingers, and says, “You got a little—” He smiles a little wider when Dean throws him the bird and leaves him in favour of the washing station.
Dean washes up with the special grease-cutting soap, scrubbing at his black-stained fingertips that’ll never get clean again. Long after the water runs clear and his hands burn scarlet, Dean scrubs, furious he has to keep his game face on instead of his father. When his skin finally cracks, and he can’t ignore the pink circling the drain, Dean grabs a paper towel and kicks over the trash on his way out, knowing it’s another mess he’ll have to clean up.
But at least this one is his.
---
The engine rolls noisily as Dean pulls the Impala into one of the far parking spaces, and Sam grumbles half-heartedly about the long walk to the recruitment-fair-slash-air-show since Dean always parks where Baby is least likely to get dinged. He’s still sweaty from the garage, but even though Sam apologized for not giving him more notice, he couldn’t blame his little brother for holding out for their dad as long as possible. Sammy’d had his heart set on going to the air show with their war-hero old man and all of them knew it.
“Listen,” Sam says for the third time since they’ve left the garage, “I just need to turn the application in at the booth. Then we can go, okay?”
“I told you to stop worrying about it, Sammy.” Dean says with a wave, though sweat is already beading at the nape of his neck. “We’re here. We can look at the planes and junk.”
Sam’s lips disappear into a single line, unsure whether to continue pushing, but then a fighter jet rockets overhead and his eyes light up.
“I mean, maybe just for a little bit?” he says with a half smile.
Dean’s gaze follows the jet across the field, lined up with the long landing strip, but it seems too fast to be landing. Just as he’s about to turn back to his brother, the jet shoots straight up into the sky with a loud crack, flips upside down, and on righting itself, touches its tires to the tarmac with a screech.
“Jesus,” Dean says in a whisper.
“That’s called an overhead break,” Sam says. “They do it to space out the landing, give more time to clear the runway and stuff.”
Dean glances at his brother with pinched brows. “Who does?”
“The controllers,” Sam says, pointing towards the tall tower lined with windows in the field. “They’re the ones that keep all the planes away from each other.”
“You gonna be okay with being told what to do like that?” Dean says, punching his brother in the shoulder.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. It’s not quite like that.”
Dean wipes the sweat from his neck with the rough of his palm. “All right, let’s get that application in, okay? Being late isn’t going to give a good impression.”
They walk through the gates of the airshow and Sam dips his head. “Thanks, Dean.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, clapping his hand on his shoulder. “Just go kick ass, okay?”
“Okay,” Sam says quietly, head still dipped, and Dean ruffles his hair roughly.
“Where’re we going?”
Sam points to the right, still gripping his backpack strap, and veers that way. Dean follows, his boots heavy against the hot asphalt. Sam and Dean used to hang out at airports as kids, and Dean never got used to how the smell of jet fuel and tar never leaves the air, no matter whether they were trudging through the snow or, like now, with the summer heat radiating off the black apron. Their dad never actually got to fly anything, flunking out of flight school every chance they gave him, but they kept him around as a mechanic for the ground vehicles. Being good with his hands was one of the only worthwhile things his father passed down to Dean. Sammy gives him shit sometimes for sticking by their dad, but Dean knows he’s doing his best. He’s always tried his best. But when life deals you a shitty hand, sometimes you can only make so much of it.
Dean knows that better than anyone.
He doesn’t blame Sammy for both condemning and idolizing their father. Dean bears the brunt so his little brother never has to, but it means he gets less time with the man. He usually only gives Sam the time of day on days like this, days where John can peacock and act proud of his boys, and Sammy drinks it all in. Most days, Dean’s convinced Sam only wants to be a pilot because he wants to do the thing their dad never could. But then there are days like this, when Sam’s eyes light up so bright in the thick, noisy air, surrounded by the buzzing of engines and the whipping wind, where Dean can almost believe Sam wants this for real.
Sam shrugs his backpack further up onto his shoulder. “There they are.”
Dean follows Sam’s look to a bunch of jackoffs in flight suits sitting behind a long table, their combat boots laced tightly and stupid hats fitted onto their heads. “Well,” Dean says, nudging his brother with his elbow. “Go on then.”
“You’re not gonna come?” Sam asks, eyes wide.
“Nah,” Dean says. “You gotta fly the coup if you’re gonna be a Top Gun. Might as well start now, huh?” He flashes his brother a brazen smile and Sammy’s shoulders settle.
“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Yeah.” Then, with a tap with the back of his hand to Dean’s shoulder, Sam’s off to talk to the air force recruiters and Dean tries not to throw up.
He’s basically crawling out of his skin watching his brother talk to people who want him to risk life and limb for the privilege of an education their father never cared to think about. Hell, he could barely keep them housed and fed, let alone plan for a fancy university degree. Didn’t matter much for Dean—Sam got the balance of the brains between them—but this might be the only way Sam could get out of here. Dean’s body is already half wrecked from living in and under cars. He pops his shoulders, rolling them back, and starts scouting out the other booths to waste the time.
Dean walks past table after table of folks trying to tempt young vulnerable idiots into signing their lives away in various capacities. Medics. Training officers. Even fucking musicians. Then, he comes across a proper booth—not just some white plastic table—with a curtained off area. Curiosity appropriately piqued, Dean approaches the booth just as a dude in dress blues and a triangle hat comes out from behind the curtain.
Part of him wants to laugh at the sight of this clean-cut guy with dark, slicked-back hair and broad enough shoulders to strain his dress shirt wearing that ridiculous cap, but when he shakes the hand of the other guy coming out, the muscles in his forearm ripple with the force of his grip even as he claps the kid’s shoulder in apology. Dean has to force his eyes back up and away from those hands, and then the strong lines of his neck, before anyone here catches him checking out another guy in public like some kind of freak. But before he can move his eyes away completely, the dude’s gaze catches his, and the shocking blue of his eyes almost causes Dean to stumble back. They’re at once the dark blue of his cap and the bright sky blue of his shirt, and Dean’s brain can’t quite settle on how that works before he calls out to him.
“Captain,” he says, tapping the stripes on his shoulder, and Dean realizes they guy thinks Dean was looking at his rank. The guy’s eyes narrow when he adds, “Where’s yours?”
“My what?” Dean calls back. They’re a little too far apart for normal volume, but he doesn’t come closer. He just crosses his arms across his chest, his own coveralls rolled to the elbows.
The man points near his sternum. “Rank.”
Dean’s eyes narrow a bit just for a moment before someone emerges from behind one of the banners and he realizes his dark coveralls aren’t that unlike the flight suits some folks are walking around in. On those, there’s a symbol attached to a lapel low on their chest, and this captain guy obviously thinks Dean’s ditched his.
“I don’t got one,” Dean says. “I’m a civilian.” He lets his arms drop to show him the rest of his get up. “See?”
The captain’s eyebrows jump, then he gestures for him to come over with a two fingered wave. He says something to the guy in the flight suit behind him with two chevrons on his chest instead of stripes while Dean hesitates, then relents.
When Dean gets to the table, the captain asks, “Where did you serve?”
It’s Dean’s turn for surprise, but he just chuckles and slips his hands into the pockets of his coveralls, the way that makes his dad furious. “Nowhere, man. Never been enlisted.”
“Really?” The captain doesn’t seem to believe him, but Dean takes a moment to glance down at his breast pocket and the navy placard that reads NOVAK in bright white font. “You hold yourself like a soldier.”
Dean shifts uncomfortably under his intense scrutiny. He doesn’t usually talk about his father, especially not to strangers, but this guy doesn’t seem like he’s going to let anything go. “My old man. He was a war hero.” War hero is far more generous than John Winchester deserves, but when you’re the only kid in your small town to come back, that’s what they call you.
“Would I know him?” Novak asks.
Dean can’t tell if it’s genuine curiosity or fact-checking, but Dean resists the urge to squirm. “Doubt it. It was a long time ago.”
Novak nods like he understands, so before he can get too chummy, Dean adds, “I’m just here ‘cause my baby brother is stupid enough to try to enlist, that’s all.”
Something flashes in Captain Novak’s eyes, and Dean would almost call it amusement except for what he actually replies. “You call serving your country and protecting it from threats foreign and domestic stupid?”
Dean smirks. “I do if it’s just ‘cause you’re poor and ain’t got no other options, yeah.” He rocks back on his heals. “Stupid for the kids, fucked up for the country.”
Captain Novak moves his hands to his hips. He’s not allowed to cross them lest they wrinkle his precious uniform and no hands-in-pockets either. Novak seems used to having to avoid both. “Well, that’s certainly an opinion you’re allowed to hold.” His index finger taps at the belt buckle coming untucked from its hiding place. “I’m sure that will keep our boys overseas warm at night.”
“And girls,” Dean adds with a fingergun. “Don’t forget you let them in now too.”
“Hmm.” That’s all Novak seems to want to offer back, but by the way his lips thin, Dean could swear he’s holding back a grin.
“What’d the kid do back there?” Dean asks, shoving his thumb over his shoulder at the guy wandering the other booths.
“A simulation,” he answers simply. “Just an evaluation of suitability.”
Dean’s eyes drop to Novak’s chest again, looking for the wings that show he’s a pilot, but the ones his gaze settles on aren’t like any he’s seen before. It’s a single wing instead of two with a shepherd’s crook where his technician designation goes. “Of. . . sheepherding?”
“Shepherds of the sky,” he says, pointing up to the clouds with the other hand remaining on his hip. “I suppose it was poetic once.”
“Buddy, that does not clear things up.” Dean’s arms find their way across his chest again, suddenly feeling like he needs the space.
“It’s Captain, or Captain Novak, if you’re feeling familiar.” He leans down a little and taps a brochure, a wedding ring glinting in the summer sun. “Air traffic control. The one back there is tower control specifically.”
“You mean the people looking out all those windows?” Dean asks, genuinely curious and thinking back to the overhead break Sam pointed out earlier.
“Yes, I suppose that’s it.” Novak’s hands join at the small of his back, and Dean huffs out a breath at the memory of his old man snapping Dean to like that. “What’s so funny?” Novak asks, mistaking Dean’s meaning. But he isn’t about to explain being made to stand at-ease for hours as a kid by his dishonourably discharged father for some random mistake he doesn’t even remember anymore.
They all kind of run together now.
That familiar prickle of antagonism crawls up Dean’s spine. The entertainment value of trying to break Novak’s straightlaced pretense fades pretty quick after Dean’s reminded of all the things he stands for in his stiff dress blues and stupid chapped lips he definitely shouldn’t be noticing, and not just because he’s got a ring. “Just that you get people to play a video game before you give them the privilege of signing their lives away.”
“Air traffic control is a very complex profession,” Novak says, his hands still firmly behind him, which just makes Dean more twitchy. “We like to give people a chance to see what it’s like and if they have the aptitude before they commit to the very long, rigorous training.”
Dean scoffs. “How hard can it be telling the planes where to fly?”
“Very difficult.” Novak raises an eyebrow, like he’s considering how much weight to put into Dean’s statement. Like he’s trying to figure out if Dean’s worth it. “Not only does it require highly specialized knowledge and study, but also the ability to plan many steps into the future and predict possible conflicts, all within a dynamic 3D-model of the airspace in your head.”
Dean grips his biceps harder as Novak lists off all the things you have to be, each one making him feel smaller and smaller. He knows he’s not smart like Sammy, but he always had the better memory and Sam can’t draw for shit compared to Dean. Sometimes Dean has to picture things 3D in his head so he can figure out how to slot a part into an unseen section of an engine. But the way Novak looks at him while flinging all those fancy terms around just makes his fists itchier.
“I dunno, man.” Dean feels the shoe dropping before he even clocks what he’s doing. “Doesn’t seem that complicated to me.”
Whatever Novak was regarding Dean with before falls away, his features hardening and turning blank. His gaze drops to Dean’s hands, then back up. “It would probably be difficult for a mechanic to understand, yes.”
There it is. Dean dips his head, licks his lips. The inevitable shoe smacking the pavement is deafening. When he meets Novak’s too blue eyes again, Dean swallows hard at what he can only interpret as the distain he finds there.
“All right,” Dean says, starting to unbutton his coveralls. Novak looks startled and Dean reveals in surprising him. “Lemme in there. Let’s see what a knucklehead mechanic can do in your little video game.” Dean shrugs out of the top of his coveralls, trying to ignore Novak staring at the sweat and grease-stained t-shirt he has underneath, and ties the sleeves in front.
“This activity is really for those who are interested in the air force,” Novak says, his eyes still passing along his worn and dirty clothes and the callused and stained hands he uses to secure his coveralls along his waist. Novak may look at him like he’s trash, but lots of guys have made the same mistake and regretted it. Just this time, for Sam’s sake, he won’t use his fists about it.
“Maybe you’ve changed my mind, Cap. Ever think of that?” Dean plasters on the cocky smirk that got him out of a dozen situations—and into three dozen more. If Dean’s anything, he’s adaptable.
“Whatever you say, Mr. . .” Novak says, opening the curtain but realizing too late he never actually got Dean’s name.
Dean hesitates for a moment. His name’s uncommon enough that if Novak wanted to be a prick, John Winchester would be an easy enough find among military records, and Dean has John Winchester’s legacy heavy enough on his shoulders. Besides, he doesn’t want his fat mouth hurting Sammy’s chances at anything.
“It’s Dean,” he says as he steps around the table and under Novak’s arm to the simulator beyond. He gets why the curtain is necessary now. Back here, there are screens surrounding a simple office chair for a hundred-and-eighty degrees around, with a few extra monitors on the desk the chair faces. The large screens are lit up with the model of an airport—landing strips and asphalt litter the landscape as if you’re a couple hundred feet above, looking out. Dean’s heart squeezes, though he’s not sure why. He’d say it was beautiful if that wasn’t the dumbest thing he’d ever thought. But growing up, he’d always been down there among the rubber and the tar and the noise. Seeing it from this perspective makes his gut tumble in a way he can’t place.
“Welcome to Sabre Airport,” Novak says, pushing a few buttons on the keyboard in front of the monitors. They light up, displaying the more typical radar Dean expected, the concentric circles with the little icons he always sees on television. “It’ll just be a moment to get set up.” Then, Novak puts on a headset and a long cable which has some sort of switch. He presses at it and speaks some instructions to a guy Dean can’t see. “Let’s do simulation Delta Niner.” Novak releases the switch in a gesture Dean isn’t sure is habit or for show the way his fingers spring back as he listens, then he grips tightly again. “Yeah, let’s just start it off there.”
Suddenly, planes start to appear on the large displays—a small single-engined plane on the tarmac closest to their fictional tower, a large cargo plane at the far end of the airport, and five fighter jets in a V-formation flying high in the clouds. Then, Novak motions Dean over and swivels the chair for him to take a seat. Refusing to betray either his nerves or that he’s impressed, Dean cracks his knuckles and drops into the chair like this is all one big inconvenience.
“All right, hotshot. What’do I gotta do?”
Novak hands Dean another headset and waits for him to put it on. Once Dean returns his thumbs up, Novak speaks. “This headset connects you to the driver who’s in the vestibule behind us. He’s going to be playing the role of all your pilots today, so when you hit your switch like this—” Novak demonstrates with a few clicks, which Dean can hear as small pops over the headset “—you’ll be talking to one of these aircraft.” Novak gestures along the screen. “Give it a try. Ask him how he reads you.”
Dean feels a little silly but complies. When he hits the switch, he understands why Novak’s gestures are so pronounced: It’s actually pretty stiff. “Uh, hey dude, how do you read?”
“Read you five-by-five,” the voice replies simply.
Dean glances up at Novak. “That good?”
“Yes,” Novak says, seemingly a little irritated. “That means he hears you clearly.”
“Cool.” Dean spins the switch a little in his hand, surprised at how natural it seems to fit.
“You won’t be calling anyone ‘dude’ over the radio, though,” Novak says as he leans over Dean to input a few numbers into the computer. Dean tries not to notice he doesn’t smell anything like tar and jet fuel. “If you’re not willing to take this seriously—”
“Hey,” Dean interjects. He might’ve started this because he has something to prove, even to a stranger he’s never going to see again, but now he’s mesmerized. He didn’t know something like this even existed. “I’m here, all right? I don’t do things I don’t wanna do and I don’t do ‘em by halves. If I’m here, I’m here.”
Novak narrows his eyes, and Dean is familiar with the look. Novak’s trying to puzzle him out, figure out what his fucking deal is, but just like everyone else, he’s going to guess wrong. The heat rising up Dean’s neck only stokes the fire burning in his ribcage. Because, for the first time in a while, Dean doesn’t want Novak to guess wrong, and he refuses to pick at why.
“All right,” Novak says with less edge. Then, he takes Dean through how the simulation is going to work. There’s a lot of technical stuff they’re not going to bother with, the kind of stuff you’re only going to know after you’ve gone through the training, but the basics are: each plane has an identifier to use when you give instructions and the general goal is to get the planes on the ground into the sky and the planes in the sky onto the ground.
“That seems okay,” Dean says after Novak gives him a breakdown of procedure.
“Remember,” Novak says, maybe trying to be reassuring, “we aren’t asking for the perfect wording or tactics. We’re just looking to see how you’d take to this.”
“Yeah, ‘course,” Dean says. “Let’s do it.”
Novak hesitates for a moment, tapping the switch with his wedding ring several times before opening the line. “Okay, we’re good to go.”
“Wilco,” the driver says over the radio. Then, he radios in as the first plane wanting to take off.
Novak gestures to the map of the airport on one of the smaller monitors. “Tell him how to get there using the taxiways in green.”
Dean nods and studies the map for a moment before giving instructions for the plane to go from Delta to Bravo to Alpha until he makes it to runway zero-niner. He wants to resist looking up at Novak for confirmation—or perhaps praise—but he can’t help himself. Novak probably isn’t surprised a military kid knows the phonetic alphabet, but the look he gives Dean when he looks up isn’t one he can place. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Novak looks sad.
It goes on like that for a bit. Dean and the pilots talking back and forth, kind of like adding more and more puzzle pieces until the picture becomes clear. Dean’s just getting into the groove of things once he gets the formation of jets on the ground without incident and lines up the last plane—a Herc on troop transport—to take off the crossing runway, when the pilot crackles over the radio with a new id Dean doesn’t know.
“Mayday mayday mayday, Sabre airport, this is United 4653, reporting an emergency. I say again, United 4653, mayday mayday mayday.”
“Wait, what the fuck?” Dean says, mostly to himself. “I didn’t know—” He glances up again at Novak, finding a total wall, then back down at his radar. He finds the UA4653 box on his screen, but it doesn’t have any of the information he’d need to do anything with it—no altitude, no aircraft type, not even a direction. “What—” His shoulders tense, and he doesn’t even bother looking to Novak again. He’s probably giddy at Dean’s panic.
Dean hits the switch and starts shooting questions at the pilot who dutifully answers, but the simulation obviously has distorted the radio and Dean only gets every other word. The 3D puzzle Dean had constructed in his mind of all the planes in the air and on the ground starts to fall away as he tries to slot in this new emergency. He’s got a few planes in the area doing training, one who’s waiting to land but is obviously going to get skipped, and of course that Herc idling on the crossing runway waiting for the go ahead. But it’s way too slow to get off before that emergency comes in—
Dean jerks roughly when something taps his shoulder, and Novak just gestures to his watch. “You’re almost at the end of your time. What’s next?”
He steals his jaw. Fuck this guy, Dean can get this plane down, and he won’t even need his help. Dean quickly spits a few instructions into the mic, redirecting the plane already wanting to land to go around and, even though he has to repeat it a few times, he gets the United flight on the ground just as an engine bursts into flames on the screen. Dean huffs a breath of surprise, a strange victory surging in his chest.
“Holy fuck,” he breathes, then Novak reaches over and pauses the sim.
“Thank you, Corporal Tran,” Novak says with a last click, then he pulls his headset off.
Dean follows suit and gingerly lays it on the table in front of him, nervous in a way that scares him. This was cool. Really cool. Even that last wrench in the works was the most interesting thing to happen to Dean in months. Hell, years. And in that way, he doesn’t actually want to hear what Novak has to tell him. Dean can feel this disappointment is going to dig at him in a different way than all the others. Novak didn’t think he was good enough from the outset; Dean barely getting a plane on the ground before it blows up won’t change that.
“The Herc burned most of its fuel waiting its turn.” Novak says, leaning back against the table. “It’s going to have to taxi back for refueling now.” Before Dean can even respond, Novak continues. “And that plane you redirected is on its way to its alternate since you’ve rendered your active runway unusable.”
Dean’s eyebrows bounce in understanding. Yep, just one great big failure after the other. “Ah well,” he says, burying the disappointment deep in his ribs where he can ignore it with the rest of his worthlessness until he can punch or drink it away. “You’d think a mechanic would remember better about gas, huh?” Dean stands, but Novak doesn’t move.
“I wasn’t done,” Novak says, folding his hands in front of him. “You also saved the lives of all the people on that aircraft.” Novak tilts his head towards the plane, paused mid-fire on the runway. It’s not a military plane, it’s a civilian one. “We can always refill fuel tanks. Pilots plan alternates for a reason. But you can’t bring people back from the dead.”
Dean’s breath catches in his lungs, and he keeps Novak’s unwavering gaze. They stand like that for a moment too long, then Novak straightens up and claps Dean’s shoulder quickly. He jerks away before he can catch himself, and Novak stops for a split moment before, mercifully, sailing right past it.
“Maybe we should target more mechanics if they can all route a map like you,” Novak says finally, guiding him back out into the fair.
“It’s really not that hard—” Dean starts to explain when the corporal he was talking to emerges from the back.
“This the guy?” he asks Novak. When he nods curtly, the corporal holds out his hand to shake Dean’s. “Really nice run. You sure this is your first time?”
“Yeah,” Dean says with a chuckle, accepting the handshake. “It really wasn’t that big a deal.”
“Pfft,” Corporal Tran says, then apologizes quickly when he gets a stern look from Novak. “Sorry. But, I mean, the captain already gave you the hardest sim. Most folks don’t even make it to the mayday, let alone land it.”
Dean’s gaze shoots to Novak, who gives him a casual shrug. “It’s still going to cost an awful lot of money to refuel that Herc.”
Corporal Tran waves Novak off. “Don’t worry about him. That’s high praise. You would’ve aced it if that redirected flight was gonna make it to it’s alternate.”
Dean’s eyebrows pull together. “What?”
Novak deflates a little. “While flights take the possibility of having to reroute to an alternate airport into account, you had that one in a circuit long enough that it will likely run out of fuel before it reaches it.”
Dean’s jaw steals. “So I still fucked over a plane.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the corporal says. “There are more airports between here and there. Or a highway in a pinch.”
“He’s right, Dean,” Novak says. “The flight you got down has hundreds of people. Your jet has a better chance.” When Dean doesn’t answer, Novak adds, “You wouldn’t have known to check the fuel levels with the pilot.”
“Totally. You rocked it.” Corporal Tran turns sideways to get past the two of them and back into the simulator. On his way, he turns to Novak. “I’ll get everything reset. Make sure he signs the roster!”
“The roster?” Dean asks.
Novak opens a binder on the far side of the table. “It’ll expedite your application if I sign it.” He pulls a sheet out. “Which I will do if you’d like me to.”
Dean takes the paper and scans it. The number of digits in the salary alone is enough to send shivers across his tense shoulders. His mind is moving too fast to really figure it all out. The garage. Their house. What Bobby would think, and the guys, how they’re depending on him. His dad too.
“Hey, Dean!”
Dean’s head snaps around to find Sam approaching to booth, wide smile on his face. Sammy. What is he thinking? Sam’s the one who makes it. Dean’s already exactly where he should be. With the cards he’s been dealt, he’s been lucky to get this much.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” Dean balls the form in his fist, Novak’s elegant signature disappearing between the creases. “You’ll just have to find some other sucker.”
“If that’s what you want.” Novak fixes his hands on his hips again, and Dean’s eyes can’t help but catch on his ring again. This guy has fucking everything. Who is he to judge Dean for needing to protect the little he has? As if he has the luxury of just blowing his life up on a whim because some fucking jackoff with too-knowing eyes tells him he did good once.
“That’s what I want,” Dean replies, tossing the balled-up paper into the waste basket. “Have a nice life shepherding and shit.” Then, he shoots a two-fingered salute he hopes comes off as sarcastic and returns to his little brother and the only life he can let himself hope for.