Chapter Text
“Wow, that’s beautiful!”
Dean doesn’t even have to look up from his book to know what this customer is talking about. Winchester General Store has a lot of things; food, beer, toiletries, camping gear, used books and more, but the only thing that could be considered “beautiful” in this store is the hand-carved, ornate wooden house sitting in a display case mounted on the wall behind Dean. Actually, “house” isn’t the right word. It started as a house in Dean’s mind, but by the time he was done carving, sanding, polishing, and in some places hot gluing the white oak structure, it had become a mausoleum. A beautiful, inviting mausoleum, but a mausoleum nonetheless. Dean had even borrowed some acrylic paints from Charlie to color the climbing ivy painstakingly carved onto the sides.
“Thanks, man,” Dean says, setting his book down. Might as well let the guy know this was his hard work.
The man’s eyes widen. “You made this?”
“Sure did. Worked on it for two months.” Dean nods toward the twelve pack of Mountain Dew the customer is holding. “You all set?”
The man puts the case on the counter by the register, and Dean rings it up. “How much?”
“Eight ninety-nine for the Dew.”
The man shakes his head. “No, I mean the sculpture. My wife and I just bought a place up in Cougar Falls, and that would look great in the front room.”
Dean blinks, surprised. He’s gotten a lot of compliments on the mausoleum in the past ten or so months, but no one’s ever assumed it was for sale before.
“Sorry, man, not for sale.”
“Come on. Name your price.” Dean gets all sorts of customers here. Locals, people out in the area for camping, people up here to go rafting down Filbert River, and of course, people just passing through on their way to some place bigger and better. This guy falls into the last category.
“No can do, that thing’s got something important inside. Can’t part with it.”
“Important? Like what?”
Dean shrugs. “My parents.”
“W… what?” the man stammers.
“Yeah. There’s an urn inside. Kinda had to glue the top of the building on to get the urn in there, but you can’t really tell unless you’re real close and looking at just the right angle.”
“Both of your parents?”
“Well, my mom died ages ago, and my dad kept her ashes the rest of his life.” Dean turns to look at his carving fondly. “And when my dad died, we had him cremated too. One night I got real drunk, I was still kind of in mourning, and I decided my parents should be together. So I dumped my dad’s ashes into my mom’s urn, and then I gave the urn a good shake,” Dean says, shaking an imaginary urn. “My brother was pissed when I told him, but he’s over it now. Anyway, I made this here structure to keep them in. Sort of an apology gift.”
The bell over the front door jingles, and Dean turns back to see the customer has taken off. “Don’t you want your Mountain Dew?” he yells, even though the guy’s already outside.
Jeez. What a wimp. Dean reaches into the display case, patting the top of the mausoleum gently. “What a baby. Am I right, guys?”
The urn full of Winchester ashes stays silent of course. Dean snickers, picks his book up off the counter, and gets back to reading.