Morgue Files

Their small establishment is a 45 minute walk outside of Lawrence during good weather, so of course Dean is forced to endure Charles's endless babbling the entire journey. The road is muddy from rain and the grass — what is left of it — looks defeated and stringy, and Dean cannot help but to curse the unrelenting downpour of a lingering Kansas winter, all the gleaming white of snow long-ago washed out of their fields and farms.

"I have heard that they are possessed of great fortunes," Charles confides, jogging to keep up with Dean's long strides. "Have you heard nothing yourself?"

Dean sighs. "I do not spend much time collecting gossip, Charles," he says, and Charles is, blessedly, and only momentarily, bullied into keeping the peace.

Up along the road, Dean can see the furthest stone wall, an outcropping of a much older structure inside which the Winchester house was built several generations ago and subsequently so heavily entailed and mortgaged it is everything he can manage to hold it together through will and work. It's a modest house with a wide porch in the back and pillars out front, incongruous as its tenants but well-loved, and although Dean is a confirmed black thumb, that is why he has a younger brother, and Sam has helped it flourish, for rosemary bushes to overflow their beds and roses to burst forth every spring and their apple trees to sag under rose-red fruit.

They are not wealthy, but Dean has never harbored much of a romantic soul, and he is happy with the small income they draw from the sharecropping their tiny acreage, with evenings spend arguing with his brother; if there is anything else he should want, he knows better than to want for it.

"I am sorry, Dean," Charles says finally, when they are already treading on the paving stones of the walk. "I always forget that — "

"It doesn't matter, Charles," Dean tells him, and overhead the thunder crashes, and he and Charles exchange a look before dashing the last distance to the house, the first downpour catching them in the last few yards — so that Sam is waiting for them with dry towels and a smug look when they shiver their way into the kitchen, seeking hot tea and dry clothes.

***

Throughout Lawrence, the Winchester boys are famous.

Their mother, Mary, bless her soul, passed when the younger boy was just an infant, and her husband, Mr. Winchester carried on as well as he could with two boys and very little spirit. Although most of Lawrence is too polite to note it, it is well known throughout the township that it is Dean, the older brother, who ran the house and kept the accounts and raised his sibling, who had grown tall and beautiful like a tree, and they'd run a bit wild without any real parental guidance. And goodness knows the well-meaning mothers and fathers in neighboring establishments tried, but there is something to that Winchester smile, and when Dean laughs, it's hard to keep a severe look.

They were never wealthy, but they are fine boys, and it's a terrible shame that is often whispered of that they've had no prospects since the Great Tragedy. It is always a grievous thing to lose a parent so young, much less both, of course, but so much the worse that Mister Winchester chose to expedite the process through the judicious application of whiskey and a shotgun long after the best hunting of the season had passed. No one ever mentions it of course, although there can be expected to be the occasional and inelegant reference to the Great Tragedy, but it is well known, and known so well it is a shadow cast over the remaining Winchesters — it is one thing to be without a settlement for one's future and another entirely to be the subject of such scandal on top of such a lack.

So Dean, because he has been pragmatic since he was just four, knows exactly the shape and size of his future and does what he can to economize and keep profitable their small property. And when their budget stretches enough, he can be found — very reliably — purchasing books for Sam, who hoards them jealously and consumes them like a fire.

He tries not to think of the day that won't be enough to keep his brother happy any longer.

***

Charles manages to hold his tongue long enough for Sam to settle them by the kitchen fire with tea and biscuits before he can contain himself no longer.

"Have you heard the news, Sam?" Charles bursts out. "Someone has taken Netherfield!"

Dean sighs and rolls his eyes in a manner Sam assures him is most unattractive.

"Netherfield?" Sam asks, looking surprised and setting down his teacup.

"Yes," Charles says, overjoyed to have found a compelled audience. "And I have heard that it is a Miss Jessica Moore, and I have also heard she has an income of — "

"Charles!" Dean pleads.

" — Five thousand a year," Charles concludes, looking overly pleased with himself.

Sam's eyes round. "Five thousand?" he repeats in a hush. "That is something."

"And I have heard also that Mister Zachariah, who is the younger brother of a baronet, is to hold a ball and has already invited her," Charles adds in a rush, and Dean stuffs a cake into his mouth because it seems like a more profitable avenue than attempting to keep Charles from filling Sam's head with nonsense from town.
"How diverting," Sam says, and his eyes are shining, of course, since their small estate and the small town nearby it are never such, and Sam all but lives in adventure stories.

Charles and Sam spend some time engaged in a frivolous discussion about what might Miss Jessica Moore be like, and who shall be her chaperone? And whether or not she will host a ball at Netherfield. Mrs. Haverstock — Mister Zachariah's cook — once worked at that fine estate as a girl and when it was last let and says the ballroom at Netherfield is exceedingly fine.

"A dance would be lovely, would it not?" Sam sighs, leaning back in his seat and curling his hands around his teacup. Dean is torn between wanting to accuse Sam of acting like a girl before she's out, dreaming of her Season, and regret that Sam won't have the opportunities he deserves — to travel, to study.

Dean likes to remind himself he is far too pragmatic for that sort of thing, so of course he has set aside his own fanciful thoughts, which are fine for daydreaming but useless when it comes to doing the monthly budget. There are always other concerns, beyond the things he might want: there are servants to be paid and food to put on the table, new clothes to be purchased, or when there is not enough money for that, old clothes to be darned, and the roof is ever-leaking.

"What are you thinking of?" Sam asks, later that night, when Dean is putting out the candles before bed. "When you look into the distance like that?"

Dean just makes himself smile at Sam, reassuring. "Nothing, Sammy, go to sleep," he says, and puts out the last candle, plunging the room into darkness.

***

Mister Zachariah does, indeed, host a dance to welcome Lawrence's latest residents, and it is a raucous, overwarm thing.

Sam spent the better part of the afternoon — with assistance from Becky — fluttering around the house pressing shirts and preparing clothes for the evening, and he soundly scolded Dean when he'd attempted to wear his second-best to the dance that night. He conscripted Becky and together they's press-ganged Dean into a fine white shirt, fawn colored breeches and a green frockcoat Sam claims suits the color of Dean's eyes. Then there is a minor skirmish regarding the tying of Dean's cravat that nearly ends in bloodshed, but Dean relents after a fair bit of shouting and allows Becky and Sam to do with his neckcloth what they will, complaining only every few moments it is ideal to allow the wearer to breathe in addition to looking fashionable.

There is an old and poorly-sprung carriage, and Dean's horses — among the finest in the county — but Mister Zachariah's home is but a two mile walk, and he and Sam — who is nearly quivering with excitement — had walked, enjoying the slight chill on the evening air, the way the sky fades from dark blue to pink at the horizon line.
People are fairly spilling out of the house when they arrive, all the windows light orange and glowing with candles, and music pours from the pianoforte in the drawing room. There is a dance already underway, matched sets twirling in mirror images across the dance floor, and girls in white muslin dash to and fro with glasses of lemonade, their laughter shrieking and high above the white noise of all of Lawrence's most prominent gossips. Sam and Dean pay their respects to Mister Zachariah and his wife, admire their latest grandchild and the fine carpets in the house. They take a turn about the dance floor and Sam vanishes to talk novels with one of the village girls.