Fic Post: Trost Und Freude (17/17)
Apr. 17th, 2008 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwendolyngraceTitle: Trost und Freude (Comfort and Joy) (Chapter 17/17)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gwendolyngrace
Recipient:celtic_cookie
Request terms: Sam and Dean of course, and I love John: Lots of John! A Pre-series Christmas Story! Familial bonding, maybe a holiday-themed hunt?
Summary: Saginaw, Michigan, 1990: Going holiday shopping may hold more hazards than just the insane crowds and parents hell-bent on the buying the latest toy. John goes undercover to look into a series of accidents at the local mall. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam respond to Christmas-season festivities at school with unexpected results.
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Wordcount (this chapter): about 6,860
Wordcount (total): 75,100
Spoilers: All three seasons through 3x08, may or may not be Origins-compliant
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended, not mine, just my fantasy.
Author’s Notes: Done! Done, done, done! I think the only person who’s happier than I am is my beta of awesomesauce. (Seriously, gang, she did a little happy dance in her comments on the last chapter: “la, la, la,” I was told. But she still re-read this chapter about six times to fix all the things that were nagging at her.) So here it is, complete and DONE. Now I can concentrate on my Big Bang fic. Oy!
Oh, and a little warning: there’s an image in this file that may not be friendly to dial-up users. My undying gratitude to etakyma for the use of her digital camera. Please don’t overanalyze the handwriting! It’s not very good.
From the Top
Then
Now:
Dean waited up for Sam so they could compare notes, but after Dad left, Sam asked so many questions that Dean had been tempted to duct tape his mouth shut.
“I don’t know where he went,” Dean told him for the third time. “Maybe he decided he needed to drink himself into a coma to get away from your whining.”
Sam ignored him. “He really didn’t say anything about Christmas to you?”
Dean sighed. As if he hadn’t already answered this one five times since Sam came to bed. “Not really. But I don’t expect much.”
“He basically told me he was gonna tell Santa not to bother with us,” Sam accused like the brat he was.
“Jesus, Sam. What’d you think he was gonna do?”
“I dunno. I didn’t think it’d mean no presents at all, though. Do you? Really?”
“Probably not no presents,” Dean conceded. “But not any damn toy, either.”
“Dean!” Sam sat up. “What’re you gonna do for your Secret Santa present? You didn’t get anything before Dad brought us home.”
“I know,” Dean said irritably. Secret Santas and Jill Hingenberg were the last things he cared about tonight. “I’ll think of something, though.”
“Is it Mike?”
“No. It’s a girl.” At Sam’s curled lip and scrunched up nose, he explained why he wasn’t worried about it. “I can probably just give her something gay like a flower or a handmade card and she’ll be gooey over it.”
Sam instantly saw the danger in the plan. “Won’t she like you, then?”
“Doesn’t matter. Friday’s the last day and we’re not coming back in January.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.” Sammy snorted, so Dean provided the logic behind his assertion. “Dad said we’re leaving soon. Probably we’ll stay until Christmas, ’cause it’s so close. But just wait; during the school break, we’ll move again.”
“Oh.” Sam went quiet and Dean held his breath. Maybe Sam would go to sleep, now that he had been “let in” on the plan? No such luck. Apparently, he was still intent on acting like Curious George. Three heartbeats later, Sam asked: “Would you want her to like you?”
“No,” Dean said in disgust, thinking that Sam should already know the answer to that particularly stupid question. “She’s a girl. Girls are gross, Sammy.”
“I know. Sally’s really gross.”
Dean grabbed on to the welcome change of topic. “Sally’s the one that always wants you to play tea party?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, screwing up his nose again like he smelled something rotten.
“Well, don’t worry,” he commiserated. “It’s almost over. Trust me, after this week, you’ll never have to see her again.”
Eventually he got Sam to go to sleep. Dean lay awake for a long time, thoughts spinning, waiting for Dad to get home. One of the things he disliked about this place was that Dad had to park so far away. He couldn’t hear the rumble of the engine the way he could when Dad parked right in front of a motel room. It took a lot of concentration to listen for the tiny click of the key in the lock and the creak of the door opening. He fell asleep long before early morning, when his father finally rolled in.
~*~
John slept the morning away. When he got up, he set Dean up cleaning and sharpening the knives in his room, starting with the knife he’d used on the Askefrue’s tree. It was sufficiently sticky with sap that Dean would have to put his shoulder into scraping it completely clean. He left Dean with oil, cloth, a bit of steel wool, and both a whetstone for the straight blades and a sharpener for the serrated edges.
He called Bobby while Sam was on laundry detail in the basement. He’d kept the boys separated more as punishment than anything, but letting Sam see the number and variety of his weapons in one place would inevitably lead to questions neither he nor Dean wanted to answer today. “Think I found something,” Bobby told him. “Black dog in Delevan, Wisconsin.”
“Great.” While John took down the details, Dean crossed into the bathroom to clean the knife under the sink. “Thanks, Bobby.”
“So you’re haring off already?” There was no attempt to mask Bobby’s disapproval.
“No reason to wait,” John replied coolly. “It shouldn’t take more than two days. And if it does, the boys’ll be done with school by then and I can move them closer over the weekend.”
“Leaving this close to Chr—”
“Swear to God, Singer, don’t say it.”
There was a pause. “Okay, I won’t.”
“I only called to find out if you had a line on a hunt,” John continued testily. “Not for a parenting lesson from a crusty bach—”
“Swear to God, Winchester, don’t you dare say it.”
It was as close to a death threat as John had ever heard Bobby get. “Fair enough,” he said, backing off. He’d hit some kind of nerve, which was a rare occurrence with Bobby. Come to think of it, he never had asked why Bobby had started hunting. Almost everyone in the line had some horror story to cite. He’d always assumed that a man’s tragedy was his own private affair. He rubbed his temple against a growing headache. He couldn’t think of a way to apologize without making things even more awkward, so he brought the conversation back to safe territory: shop talk. “Oh, the mistletoe thing didn’t quite work the way you thought.”
“Didja hafta kiss her, after all?” John could hear Bobby trying to hide his smile. As quickly as that, the man was back on good terms. John sometimes marveled at Bobby’s even temper. Made him all the more dangerous when he actually was pissed off.
“No,” he said, clearing his throat, “though I know you’d’ve liked the video for that. No. It didn’t do anything to bring her out, but it’s one helluva binding agent once she was in the branch.”
“Huh. Good to know.” Bobby paused. Then, carefully, as if treading around a sleeping rattlesnake, he ventured, “So, Ralph and Potsie—Jim gonna check in on them?”
“Yeah. I have a plan for that,” John said, tone business-like, even if his wince was not particularly stoic.
“Well, Hallelujah, John,” Bobby declared, full of sarcasm. “You have a plan.”
“Oh, kiss my ass.” That Bobby had bristled again so quickly didn’t surprise John; that he’d butt in so readily after they’d just sort of agreed to stay out of each other’s business not only caught him off guard, it pissed him off.
Bobby snorted, but the sound was anything but amused. “And a Merry Christmas to you, too, Winchester.” Bobby hung up on him.
John often thought the reason they got along so well was that they put up with each other’s moods. Or perhaps it was because they didn’t get permanently offended by each other’s moods.
Once he had his new hunt identified, John moved on to the next item on his to-do list. He pulled on his coat and hat, shaking the conversation with Bobby off with a promise that he’d remember to bring some of the good whiskey before the next time he dropped in on the old coot. Bobby meddled mostly because his own affection for the boys rivaled John’s. Surpassed it, sometimes, since Bobby had the luxury of not actually having to call them on the carpet when they’d just piddled there. That wasn’t entirely fair: Bobby did take care of them more often than John wished he had to; he’d even faced his share of Sam’s or Dean’s scrapes in John’s absence. Still, he could afford to be lenient in ways that John couldn’t, chalking it up to youthful indiscretion. John was all too aware that the wrong kind of youthful indiscretion could spell Family Services knocking on their door.
John suspected that Dean and Sammy never tested Bobby the way they tested him, either.
“Dean, going out,” he called, grabbing his keys and the ad from the paper.
Dean poked his head out from John’s room. “Yes, sir.”
He passed Sam on the stairs. Sam dragged the bags of laundry by their straps, pausing at each step to climb backward up the next one in a steady rhythm: step, heave, bump.
“Dean’s in my room. Fold the laundry and leave him alone to do his work.” He took a step, then turned back. “Remember, no TV.”
“Okay,” Sam said, in a voice that made it plain he didn’t need, or wish, to be reminded. Sam pulled on his load and continued on: step, heave, bump. If he was still pissed about losing out on his major Christmas present, it was hard to tell, but John knew his youngest son better than to expect anything else.
All the more reason, John told himself, to get back on a straightforward hunt without having to tiptoe around the boys to do it.
He found the store he wanted and asked a bunch of questions about his items of interest—range, battery life and power, signal strength, frequencies, plans—and made a selection: a matched pair. He could transfer the activation to Wisconsin next week, but he wanted Dean to have the thing now. John thought of it as a more reliable way to keep tabs on them when he wasn’t right on hand.
He headed back to the apartment and let himself into his room. Dean had the knives arranged methodically on the old blanket and was wiping the last blade with a tiny bit of oil. A scrap of leather lay on the bed next to him, scarred with dozens of small cuts.
“Got something for you,” John told him as he stepped around the bed. He picked up one of the knives and carefully shaved a forearm hair to test the edge.
Dean set aside the rag and the blade and looked up expectantly.
John nodded approval over the knife in his hand before putting it down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little bag of electronics. Sitting on the edge of the bed, carefully so as not to jostle the knives, he dumped out the bag. He picked up one of the two devices and handed it to Dean.
“It’s a pager,” he explained. “We’ll have to update it when we move, but this way, we can stay in touch a little better.”
Dean studied the pager. “Guess I really effed up, huh?” he said with a pathetic little laugh, a self-deprecating nod.
“Yeah, but that’s not what this is about,” John said evenly. He let his hands, cupped around one another, hang loose between his legs. “This is about me giving you a way to contact me. And me a way to contact you. So I don’t have to worry so much when I have to leave you alone.”
Dean ran his thumb over the tiny box. “How’s it work?”
A smile ghosted across John’s face. Dean loved machines, no matter what the circumstances. “You use your calling card to dial the pager number.” He turned the pager over to show him the small digits on the back. “Punch in the phone number where you can be reached. Then the dispatching agency sends that number to my pager. It beeps and shows me the number. And I call you.”
“Anytime?” Dean looked up at him. It was clear he hoped this meant he could be in contact instantly, whenever he wanted to talk about anything.
John let a corrective “Hm” precede his amendment, “Most of the time.” He twitched his eyebrows with a half-sorry smile. “We’ll still have check-ins, and I’ll try to be where the signal can reach me at least some of the time. There are places where I won’t get coverage. And it has a good range, but if I’m not where it can catch me, it won’t go through. The company has to activate it for the region we’re—I’m—in, so if you try and I don’t call back…try again in an hour or so.”
“Cool,” Dean said. He played idly with the clip on the pager holster and tapped the little display box on the end. “How will you know it’s me?”
“Well, we’ll need a code,” John said, noting Dean’s suppressed grin with satisfaction. He was still young enough that codes and passwords were more fun than strategic, even if he understood the necessity for them. John scratched his chin. “When you call me, add 124 to the beginning of the return number. If I’m calling you, I’ll add 89.”
“Why?”
John’s mouth quirked. “Birthdays.”
Dean nodded again. His hand found the nearest knife hilt and he turned his head to look back at the array of weapons. “Do you want me to take these to the car?”
“I’ll do that. I want you to practice hitting the dartboard with this toothpick.” John handed him one of the small throwing knives. He pointed to a foam dartboard tacked up on a plywood board, all of which was attached to the bedroom wall. He squared Dean off at ten paces, which put him basically against the opposite wall. John drew the shades to cover the window, although the neighbors could hardly see in through the filthy glass. “Fifty throws each, right and left, buddy. Y’never know when you’ll need to use your off-hand.”
“Yes, sir.” Dean waited for John to stand next to him before he took his first throw.
John made corrections after collecting the knife. “Less wrist. Just let it go half a second earlier. Don’t lean forward so much. That’s it.”
He watched Dean throw a few more times until the knife stuck each time. On the tenth throw, he told Dean that he’d be pulling out after taking them to school on Monday. “I’ll be back to get you at the end of the week at the latest. We’ll spend Christmas somewhere new.”
Dean paused. He pursed his lips tightly in resignation.
“You okay, son?” John asked.
Dean relaxed and let his disappointment go. “Yessir,” he said, and went back to throwing.
John had him switch hands, corrected his form, and then gathered the other knives in a duffel bag and left him to it. In the living room, he judged Sam’s progress on the laundry. Little piles of socks, underwear, t-shirts, jeans, and the like littered the furniture. The TV, true to John’s orders, remained off—part of the general punishment imposed on both boys.
“When you’re done, pack everything except three days’ worth for you and your brother,” John instructed. “You can do a last load on Friday when you’re off school.”
“Yessir,” Sam said, almost military in his exuberance.
John brought the knife bag down to the car. After a quick check around for witnesses, he opened the false bottom and stowed the weapons inside. He came back upstairs. Sam was stuffing the duffel bags with the piles.
“Done?” he asked Sam.
“Yup.”
“Good. Dean!” he called into the back room.
Dean came out. “Sir?”
“All finished?”
Dean’s eyes dropped down and to the right, as if John had asked because he’d figured out how much time it should have taken, and Dean had failed to complete the task in that amount. “Done on the right. Forty-five on the left,” he said sheepishly.
John nodded, careful to make his frown more about meeting expectations than any suggestion of disappointment. “Well, finish up then and we’ll go out for dinner.”
“Yessir.” Dean kept his face blank, but as he walked away, he pulled his elbow back in a pumping motion of victory.
After dinner, John made them push the furniture to the edges of the room. Then he drilled them: situps, pushups, and light sparring with himself as their punching bag. His one concession to Dean’s health was to set them both the same number of each exercise, instead of the usual 20% increase for Dean.
“Showers and bed,” he told them after half an hour of kickboxing with each boy. If they had anything to say about his harder, harsher attitude, they obviously guessed it would be unwise to voice the objections.
John clicked on the TV to cover the sounds of their whispered conversation in their room. Last night, he’d sat here waiting for Gina’s call, wanting a drink and unable to indulge. He needed that whiskey tonight; and tomorrow, he needed to give himself some distance.
~*~
Dad slept much of Sunday, but when he got up, he was all business. Dean hadn’t dared turn on the TV, since he was pretty sure that would be one of the privileges they both lost, but he hadn’t figured on Dad keeping them doing separate chores, either. Soon Dean was shut up in his father’s room sharpening a bunch of knives and Sam was banished to the basement laundry facility.
The first one was a real mess, covered in something gooey and stuck on. He’d wound up running the steel under hot water to loosen the stuff, then using another blade in addition to the steel wool to scrape it off. Dad must have been really wiped when he’d come in, to leave his knife all covered in crap like that. Dean wondered what Dad had been hunting that bled something so syrupy. It took him nearly half an hour just to get that one clean, and run through the serrated sharpener, but after that, things went faster.
Sharpening the knives was surprisingly calming. There was a soothing routine to oiling the whetstone, scraping the knife gently, twisting the wrist to get an even edge to both sides. It helped to know that Dad still trusted him with this, wanted him to help him prepare for the next job. Though it hurt a little that Dad wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t talk to him except to tell him what task to do next, Dean at least had the assurance that he hadn’t interfered with Dad’s work too terribly. And he’d rather clean weapons than clothes and dishes, any day.
Dean heard Dad on the phone with Uncle Bobby. A little while later, Dad went out and Sam came in.
“I’m in Dad’s room—don’t come in,” Dean called to the living room. He didn’t need Dad to tell him to keep Sam away from all the knives. Not that Sam wouldn’t know how to handle one, because he did, but the sight of them all laid out together would make Sam start a round of twenty questions Dean didn’t want to play.
“I know—Dad said,” Sam yelled back. “Wish we could watch TV,” he shouted a few seconds later.
“Wouldn’t chance it,” Dean warned.
“I didn’t say I was gonna,” Sam said petulantly. “What’re you doing?”
“Stuff.” He scraped a blade over the whetstone, taking satisfaction in the rhythm.
“Hey, Dean?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s this doing here?”
Dean paused. “Can’t see through walls, dumbass.”
“There’s a plant thing out here by the phone.”
Dean set the knife and whetstone kit aside and came out. Sam held up a sprig of something with green leaves and yellowish-white berries. “It was on the floor,” Sam explained, pointing under the little table for the phone.
Dean remembered Dad setting out a small parcel the night before. But it had been dark and he hadn’t seen what it was. “It’s mistletoe,” he said, now that he could see it clearly.
“What’s it doing here?”
“I guess Dad got some,” Dean said noncommittally. He was sure that the mistletoe had to do with whatever job Dad had finished last night, but of course, he couldn’t tell Sam that without a lot of questions resulting.
Sam was going to ask questions anyway.
“But why?” he asked, right on cue.
“I dunno. Give it.” He snatched it away, both to shut down the subject and to look more closely. Sam scowled, but surrendered without a scuffle. There had been more last night, so Dean guessed Dad had used what he needed. He was certainly acting like the hunt had ended, which made sense, since it was almost Christmas, and they’d planned to all be somewhere together like always. So if Dad didn’t need it, maybe…. He went into their room for the water glass. Sam followed him.
“What’re you doing?”
“Secret Santa,” Dean muttered, putting the mistletoe in the water. “Maybe. Better go finish your chores.” He retreated into Dad’s room before Sam could pester him any more.
When Dad came home, he gave him a pager. Then he told Dean that he and Sam would be on their own for the rest of the week. Dean had known they’d be leaving, all of them, before the end of the year, but it was a little surprising to hear Dad say he’d be taking off so close to Christmas, and without them. It was typical of Dad to want to bug out as soon as he finished a job, move on to the next. But usually they went together.
On one hand, it felt good—normal, like Dad trusted him to take care of things while he was gone. This time, Dean figured it meant that and more. It meant Dad was giving himself some space. Dean had seen it in his father’s face during their talk the night before—he wasn’t as angry about the thing with Sam’s teachers as he was making it seem. But he was really angry, and maybe a little hurt, that they’d both deceived him about it all.
Probably, Dean realized, if Sam had asked about getting out of the dreaded pageant, Dad would have even helped them come up with something. Even if things had gone down the same, except that they’d just told him they’d fooled Sam’s teacher after it happened, Dad would have been okay with it.
Well, not okay. But at least he wouldn’t have been as upset. So upset that he couldn’t bear to be around them anymore, had to get away from them, had to leave them by themselves again. Dean wondered if Dad would have pulled them out early and dumped them with Pastor Jim or Uncle Caleb or even Uncle Bobby if it hadn’t been Christmas. Probably. He was only coming back to pick them up at the end of the week because then it would be Christmas and they were never not together.
“You okay, son?” Dad asked.
Dean snapped out of his thoughts, realizing that they must be showing on his face. He relaxed his shoulders. Dad needed him to be strong. Dad needed him to handle things on his own. He needed to prove that he could do it, that Dad’s faith in him wasn’t misplaced. “Yessir,” he said confidently. Dad seemed pleased. He told Dean to switch hands and moved in to correct his left-handed form. Dean leaned in a little bit, just so he could commit to memory the way Dad’s hand felt over his: rough, calloused, strong, gentle. Then Dad left him to throw, and think.
Next morning, Dad dropped him at school with a quick chuck on the chin and a reminder to be good, then left with Sam in tow to meet Sam’s doom. Dean felt bad for his brother—no one should have to go eat crow for a teacher, let alone twice in one day. Plus he was sure the other kids would take out their own envy and derision on Sam when they found out—and they’d find out. They always did.
~*~
Sam felt Dad’s hand on his shoulder steer him into room 305. “Miss Johnson?” Dad said in the doorway. “Sam had something he’d like to tell you.”
Miss Johnson came into the hallway and smiled a little crookedly. She was afraid of Dad, Sam could tell. Sam couldn’t blame her, but he knew that Dad was only dangerous and scary when he was angry. And right now, Dad wasn’t angry at her.
He’d spent most of Sunday sleeping, and when he hadn’t been sleeping, he’d been ordering them around. Sam and Dean had barely been able to stay awake that night, after the workout he gave them both after dinner. The one thing Dean had managed to tell Sam was that he’d been right: Dad was leaving again. Right after he made sure Sam apologized properly.
Sam was sure Dad was still ticked off at him and Dean both. He knew it because Dad had barely said three words to him that weren’t, “Fold the laundry” or, “You’re sweeping your leg too wide” or, “Get those knees up.” It wasn’t like he had to scold them, at least. They’d been on their best behavior. Fresh trouble did that—made them extra careful about doing things Dad wouldn’t like. Still didn’t keep him from finding a million things to correct.
“Sam?” Miss Johnson said, bringing him back to the task before him. Other kids were arriving; Dad pushed Sam further down the hall for a little privacy.
“I…I lied. M’sorry. We’re not Jonah’s witnesses.”
“Jehovah,” Dad muttered softly.
“Jehovah’s witnesses,” Sam corrected.
Miss Johnson looked over Sam’s head at Dad.
“I had a feeling something wasn’t adding up right,” Dad said. His hand felt heavy on Sam’s shoulder. “Took me a little while to track it down.” Dad explained that last to her like she’d asked for his help and he hadn’t jumped to respond, like he owed her an apology. It was bad enough to have to apologize to Miss Johnson himself; but the idea that Dad was going to have to eat crow on his behalf made him made him feel about six inches tall.
“But…Mr. Winchester, your son, Dean, he—”
“He lied,” Dad said. “If it makes you feel any better, they lied to me, too.”
“I don’t understand.” Miss Johnson crouched in front of Sam. “Sam, why would you do such a thing?” She reached out to touch his upper arm, rubbing it as if to reassure him she wasn’t mad so much as confused.
Sam wanted to back away, get some distance, but Dad was right there, so he had to stand his ground. “Dean was just…he knew I didn’t want to be in the pageant. So he made it up. An’ I let him.” He twisted around to look at Dad. If he expected a look of support or commendation, he was disappointed.
“I see,” Miss Johnson said sadly. She dropped her hand and stood up. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” she said to Dad.
“Boys tell lies,” Dad said. It was odd, the look that they exchanged. And Dad’s tone was like the voice he used when explaining something about the car to Dean, or showing Sam how to safely handle a pistol. “Took me a while to get to the bottom of it, seeing as how I didn’t have a lot of help on this end.” That wasn’t an apology; it was an accusation.
It didn’t surprise Sam that Dad would dress down his teacher in front of him. Dad’s barbs were bound to be close to the surface since he was so mad at him and Dean. “So I told Sam you’d have to tell him how to make up for his deception,” Dad continued.
“Oh.” Miss Johnson smiled her own apology. “Well, I’m afraid it’s far too late to add him back in to the pageant. Perhaps if I’d known—”
Dad cleared his throat.
“—If I’d listened last week,” she amended, with a weird look at Dad. “But the performance is Thursday. There’s just not enough time. Besides, Sam’s lines have all been reassigned. You understand we can’t take them away from the children twice, not after all the work—”
“I was thinking there might be something else Sam could do. To help, maybe,” Dad said. He had his fake-patient face on, the one he used when he was being just barely polite, but really he wanted to cut through the crap and just get on with it.
“Yes?” Miss Johnson wondered. “Oh, yes. I’m sure we can find something for Sam. Maybe backstage.”
“Good.” Dad squeezed Sam’s shoulder to move him out and they repeated the exercise with Mrs. Farnsworth. Her reaction was to bump Sam’s star count down to three red ones—the lowest color, but at least he was still ahead of Travis Strong, who only had one red star and spent even more time with Miss Nolan than anyone else in class.
“Mr. Winchester, I was going to tell you that we recommended counseling for Sam,” Mrs. Farnsworth told Dad. Sam gulped. “But under the circumstances, I think it’s clear what was leading him to misbehave in class.”
“Misbehave?” Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“Well…he took a little ribbing, you might say, because he wasn’t in the pageant. I think Sam may already understand that being on the outside looking in may not necessarily be its own reward.” She glanced down at Sam, who flushed.
“I’m pretty sure he’s figured that out,” Dad said. “Excuse us.” Sam felt him press on his shoulder again to take him a pace away into the hall. He bent over, facing Sam. “Misbehaving?”
“I didn’t, Dad,” Sam told him. “Jenner Martin threw a truck at me.”
Dad “humphed” like the Sour Kangaroo in that Horton book Sam had read while his class had been treated to cartoons. “Dean will pick you up this afternoon, remember?” His eyes flicked up to Mrs. Farnsworth and back to Sam—a warning to play it cool and normal.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a few days,” he said low enough that only Sam could hear. Mrs. Farnsworth was still kinda watching them, so Dad gave him a hug, trying not to make it look awkward. Then Dad pushed him away with a hand on his shoulder. Another manful squeeze and a solemn nod of his head, and Dad walked away.
“Sam?” Mrs. Farnsworth called him after Dad had hit the stairs. Sam could still hear his footsteps clatter and echo in the hall.
“Coming,” Sam told her.
Getting through that day was tough. The kids found out—who knew how—that he’d lied to get out of the pageant. Some of the fourth graders shoved him around at lunch and took his bag of Oreos. Kris and Sally wouldn’t talk to him. Jenner called him a phony and got about half the other kids to call him that too, behind Mrs. Farnsworth’s back.
After school he went to the auditorium with everyone else. “Sam, come with me,” Miss Nolan said. “You’ll be helping backstage.”
“Huh?”
“You’re going to help me with props and the curtain. Come on.”
While the others practiced, Miss Nolan showed him all the things he needed to do and remember. By the time they were done, Dean was there. “C’mon, short stuff,” Dean said, leading him out of the building.
“How’d it go?” Dean asked him as they walked.
“Sucked.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” He walked a few paces. “Sucked how bad?”
Sam shrugged. “I’m down to three red stars and I hafta be with Miss Nolan backstage. They’re letting me pull the curtain.” Sam half-smiled. “Actually that’s not so bad. Jimmy Drake took my Oreos at lunch—don’t worry,” he said quickly to stop Dean from getting protective, “I put a dead mouse in his lunch box while I was backstage. An’ Kris won’t talk to me—but neither will Sally, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What about you?”
“I didn’t have to explain to anyone,” Dean said simply. “Well, except Mike.”
“What’d he think?”
“He thought it was too bad we got caught. And he asked if Dad would lose his job. I told him it was a crap job in the first place, and anyway, he stopped the place from burning down.” Dean grinned, slapping Sam’s shoulder. “Mike said they should give Dad a medal instead of a pink slip.”
Sam agreed with Dean’s friend’s admiration. Dad was a hero for stopping the fire, even if he had left again and neither he nor Dean would say where he was going. Maybe he was going to the North Pole to narc on them. Then again, maybe the presents really had nothing to do with Santa. Maybe it was all Dad. He wanted to ask. But he could tell Dean was fishing for a reaction. “Mike’s kinda cool,” he said. He’d ask about Santa later.
“Yeah. M’gonna miss him, I guess.”
“I’ll be glad to get out of here.”
“Hah. Kinda backward, innit?” Dean kicked him lightly with the outside of his boot.
Sam retaliated with a kidney punch. It didn’t do much damage through all Dean’s layers.
~*~
The rest of the week passed pretty much without incident. Dad had stopped the papers, so there was no mail. Dean used down the food and they packed up to prepare to go. When Dean’s new pager went off or the phone rang for Dad’s check-ins, they turned off the TV.
Wednesday night, Dean’s pager went off with the 89 code. He took out his card and dialed the number. “Dean?” Dad answered the phone.
“Hey, Dad. What’s up? Are you okay?”
Dad hummed in the affirmative. “I’m fine. I’ll be in late Thursday night,” he said sharply.
“Okay,” Dean said with optimism.
“Okay, listen up: You have a half-day Friday, but Sam’s home,” Dad told him briskly. “So I want you both to pack up Thursday after school before I get in. Friday, I’ll pick you up directly from school with Sam and we’ll leave right from there, so make sure you’ve got everything before you go to school that day.”
“Got it,” Dean assured him.
“Everything all right?” It was an invitation to talk, but Dean didn’t want to show any sign that he couldn’t take care of things without Dad around.
“Yeah. We’re fine,” he said confidently.
“Good. Be sure you and Sam do 100 sit-ups before bed tonight.” Dad had been stepping up the training all week, even long-distance.
“Yes, sir.”
Dad’s voice turned gentler. “Tell Sammy I’m sorry I won’t be back for the pageant.”
“He’s pulling the curtain, Dad, he doesn’t care.”
“Tell him anyway, ” Dad said quietly.
“Yes, sir.” Dad didn’t ask about Dean’s Secret Santa, so Dean didn’t tell him what he had planned.
Thursday was trash night in the building, so after they’d packed up everything but the week’s dirty laundry, Dean went down to the basement in search of some colored paper or old comics as wrapping for the mistletoe. He found some leftover pieces of wrapping paper in Mr. Harvey’s trash. It smelled a tiny bit like aftershave, which Dean thought was kind of appealing.
Dad hadn’t come home by the time they went to bed, but Dean heard him snoring when he got up in the morning. He moved around quietly so that Dad and Sam could both sleep in. Dad had left a note in the kitchen, reminding Dean to make sure anything he wanted to take was packed, because Dad and Sam would be packing up the car without him.
Dean put the wrapped mistletoe in his bag and walked to school the direct way, straight up Elm Street, which cut about five minutes off the time it was out in the cold. Right after English class, just before the end of the half-day, they exchanged presents.
“Class, listen!” Mrs. Fontana demanded. “When I tell you and not before, Jason Cartwright, those of you who are participating in the exchange will all get out your presents—no talking!—and sit at your desks. You will go and come back quickly with no talking and no dawdling, Emily Summers. Once you return to your desks you will close your eyes. No peeking! That includes you, Rebecca. Does everyone understand so far?”
They all nodded or said, “Yes” to confirm the orders.
“When I call your name, you may open your eyes and place your gift on the desk of the person whose name you drew. Then go back to your desk and close your eyes again. Once all the gifts are distributed, I will tell you all to open your eyes and you may then open your presents.”
Dean raised his hand.
“Yes, Dean?” Mrs. Fontana said, a touch testily.
“We don’t get to find out…I mean, we don’t give them to each other just…normal?” He’d been counting on explaining the mistletoe to Jill.
“If you want to reveal yourself to your recipient, Dean, that’s up to you. But after the exchange.” She adjusted her glasses. “Any more questions? No? Good. All right, everyone: Go get your presents.”
The room erupted. Dean didn’t move. He reached into his bookbag for the mistletoe. He was pleased that the corners of the paper were only slightly bent, and that the aftershave smell had stayed. He also pulled out a piece of notebook paper and scribbled a hasty note:
He folded the note and closed his eyes.
Mrs. Fontana went in order, of course. He found himself drifting off as the names were called. It wasn’t that he meant to zone out, but he’d been up late packing, and waiting for Dad to make it home…. “Dean. Dean, wake up. It’s your turn.”
He opened his eyes and there was a wrapped present on his desk already, next to his pretty sad-looking gift. Not surprising; there was only one other kid after “Winchester.”
He took the note and the herb and set them on Jill’s desk. Then he sat back down. He heard Steve Wolcott move around and then settle.
“All right. You may all open your eyes.”
The class began talking as soon as they could see again, as if their mouths and their eyes were spiritually connected. Dean tore open the wrapping on his present. Inside were two Matchbox cars: a Mustang convertible and the 1968 Camaro he’d admired in the toy store. Dean looked over at Mike, who grinned at him.
“Cool,” Dean called. Mike gave him the thumbs-up.
Dean looked over at Jill. She stared at the mistletoe, read the note, and stared at the mistletoe again. She looked up and over the two rows to Dean’s desk.
Dean shrugged, as if to apologize for the lameness of his present. But Jill blushed and smiled at him shyly. Dean found that odd, but maybe she was reading more into the note than he meant.
When class ended and they were released from school, Jill came to find him in the hall. He was stacking up his books in his locker and pulling out the two or three personal items he’d stashed there.
“Dean! I had no idea you could be so romantic!” she said breathily. She held up the mistletoe over their heads and kissed him. On the lips.
“Ycch,” Dean said, wiping his mouth. “What’d’ja do that for? It’s just mistletoe.”
“Exactly!” Jill said.
“Huh?”
“Well, isn’t that the special thing about mistletoe you were going to explain to me?” She twisted one ankle inward, batting her eyelashes at him.
“Uh. No,” Dean said, bewildered by her flirting. “Mistletoe’s protective and it’s a good luck charm. If you wear it pinned inside your jacket, you won’t get hurt. And if you hang it on your hearth all year, it’ll keep you safe from fires.”
Jill laughed at him. “Duh. That’s not what it’s for. People kiss under it, silly!”
“They do?” Dean’s eyes slid side to side in disbelief.
“Uh…yeah,” Jill said, like it was obvious. “I’ve never heard of any of that other stuff.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve never heard of…oh,” he stopped, remembering the words to some Christmas songs, and Christmas specials on TV. “Oh, yeah. I guess. I guess people do kiss under it. Kinda. Yeah.” He scratched his head, wondering what to do with the information, and whether Jill would make a scene or something.
“Wanna try again?”
Dean bit his lip. He hadn’t really noticed before how blue Jill’s eyes were, or the way her nose curved up at the tip. Maybe if she didn’t take him by surprise this time, kissing her wouldn’t feel as gross. “Okay.”
Jill held up the mistletoe and closed her eyes. Dean pressed his mouth against hers and their lips interlocked. Dean tried to move his lips experimentally, like he’d seen in movies in between the good parts. Jill giggled and they broke apart.
“That was weird.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed, all too happy to pull away. He cleared his throat. “Well, I gotta go,” he told her before it could get any more awkward. “Bye, Jill.”
“Bye, Dean. Merry Christmas!” she called as he walked away. “Hey: See you next year!”
He twisted to wave over his shoulder and didn’t correct her.
Dad and Sam were waiting for him in the car.
~*Fin*~
Author:
gwendolyngraceRecipient:
celtic_cookieRequest terms: Sam and Dean of course, and I love John: Lots of John! A Pre-series Christmas Story! Familial bonding, maybe a holiday-themed hunt?
Summary: Saginaw, Michigan, 1990: Going holiday shopping may hold more hazards than just the insane crowds and parents hell-bent on the buying the latest toy. John goes undercover to look into a series of accidents at the local mall. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam respond to Christmas-season festivities at school with unexpected results.
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Wordcount (this chapter): about 6,860
Wordcount (total): 75,100
Spoilers: All three seasons through 3x08, may or may not be Origins-compliant
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended, not mine, just my fantasy.
Author’s Notes: Done! Done, done, done! I think the only person who’s happier than I am is my beta of awesomesauce. (Seriously, gang, she did a little happy dance in her comments on the last chapter: “la, la, la,” I was told. But she still re-read this chapter about six times to fix all the things that were nagging at her.) So here it is, complete and DONE. Now I can concentrate on my Big Bang fic. Oy!
Oh, and a little warning: there’s an image in this file that may not be friendly to dial-up users. My undying gratitude to etakyma for the use of her digital camera. Please don’t overanalyze the handwriting! It’s not very good.
From the Top
Then
Now:
Dean waited up for Sam so they could compare notes, but after Dad left, Sam asked so many questions that Dean had been tempted to duct tape his mouth shut.
“I don’t know where he went,” Dean told him for the third time. “Maybe he decided he needed to drink himself into a coma to get away from your whining.”
Sam ignored him. “He really didn’t say anything about Christmas to you?”
Dean sighed. As if he hadn’t already answered this one five times since Sam came to bed. “Not really. But I don’t expect much.”
“He basically told me he was gonna tell Santa not to bother with us,” Sam accused like the brat he was.
“Jesus, Sam. What’d you think he was gonna do?”
“I dunno. I didn’t think it’d mean no presents at all, though. Do you? Really?”
“Probably not no presents,” Dean conceded. “But not any damn toy, either.”
“Dean!” Sam sat up. “What’re you gonna do for your Secret Santa present? You didn’t get anything before Dad brought us home.”
“I know,” Dean said irritably. Secret Santas and Jill Hingenberg were the last things he cared about tonight. “I’ll think of something, though.”
“Is it Mike?”
“No. It’s a girl.” At Sam’s curled lip and scrunched up nose, he explained why he wasn’t worried about it. “I can probably just give her something gay like a flower or a handmade card and she’ll be gooey over it.”
Sam instantly saw the danger in the plan. “Won’t she like you, then?”
“Doesn’t matter. Friday’s the last day and we’re not coming back in January.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.” Sammy snorted, so Dean provided the logic behind his assertion. “Dad said we’re leaving soon. Probably we’ll stay until Christmas, ’cause it’s so close. But just wait; during the school break, we’ll move again.”
“Oh.” Sam went quiet and Dean held his breath. Maybe Sam would go to sleep, now that he had been “let in” on the plan? No such luck. Apparently, he was still intent on acting like Curious George. Three heartbeats later, Sam asked: “Would you want her to like you?”
“No,” Dean said in disgust, thinking that Sam should already know the answer to that particularly stupid question. “She’s a girl. Girls are gross, Sammy.”
“I know. Sally’s really gross.”
Dean grabbed on to the welcome change of topic. “Sally’s the one that always wants you to play tea party?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, screwing up his nose again like he smelled something rotten.
“Well, don’t worry,” he commiserated. “It’s almost over. Trust me, after this week, you’ll never have to see her again.”
Eventually he got Sam to go to sleep. Dean lay awake for a long time, thoughts spinning, waiting for Dad to get home. One of the things he disliked about this place was that Dad had to park so far away. He couldn’t hear the rumble of the engine the way he could when Dad parked right in front of a motel room. It took a lot of concentration to listen for the tiny click of the key in the lock and the creak of the door opening. He fell asleep long before early morning, when his father finally rolled in.
~*~
John slept the morning away. When he got up, he set Dean up cleaning and sharpening the knives in his room, starting with the knife he’d used on the Askefrue’s tree. It was sufficiently sticky with sap that Dean would have to put his shoulder into scraping it completely clean. He left Dean with oil, cloth, a bit of steel wool, and both a whetstone for the straight blades and a sharpener for the serrated edges.
He called Bobby while Sam was on laundry detail in the basement. He’d kept the boys separated more as punishment than anything, but letting Sam see the number and variety of his weapons in one place would inevitably lead to questions neither he nor Dean wanted to answer today. “Think I found something,” Bobby told him. “Black dog in Delevan, Wisconsin.”
“Great.” While John took down the details, Dean crossed into the bathroom to clean the knife under the sink. “Thanks, Bobby.”
“So you’re haring off already?” There was no attempt to mask Bobby’s disapproval.
“No reason to wait,” John replied coolly. “It shouldn’t take more than two days. And if it does, the boys’ll be done with school by then and I can move them closer over the weekend.”
“Leaving this close to Chr—”
“Swear to God, Singer, don’t say it.”
There was a pause. “Okay, I won’t.”
“I only called to find out if you had a line on a hunt,” John continued testily. “Not for a parenting lesson from a crusty bach—”
“Swear to God, Winchester, don’t you dare say it.”
It was as close to a death threat as John had ever heard Bobby get. “Fair enough,” he said, backing off. He’d hit some kind of nerve, which was a rare occurrence with Bobby. Come to think of it, he never had asked why Bobby had started hunting. Almost everyone in the line had some horror story to cite. He’d always assumed that a man’s tragedy was his own private affair. He rubbed his temple against a growing headache. He couldn’t think of a way to apologize without making things even more awkward, so he brought the conversation back to safe territory: shop talk. “Oh, the mistletoe thing didn’t quite work the way you thought.”
“Didja hafta kiss her, after all?” John could hear Bobby trying to hide his smile. As quickly as that, the man was back on good terms. John sometimes marveled at Bobby’s even temper. Made him all the more dangerous when he actually was pissed off.
“No,” he said, clearing his throat, “though I know you’d’ve liked the video for that. No. It didn’t do anything to bring her out, but it’s one helluva binding agent once she was in the branch.”
“Huh. Good to know.” Bobby paused. Then, carefully, as if treading around a sleeping rattlesnake, he ventured, “So, Ralph and Potsie—Jim gonna check in on them?”
“Yeah. I have a plan for that,” John said, tone business-like, even if his wince was not particularly stoic.
“Well, Hallelujah, John,” Bobby declared, full of sarcasm. “You have a plan.”
“Oh, kiss my ass.” That Bobby had bristled again so quickly didn’t surprise John; that he’d butt in so readily after they’d just sort of agreed to stay out of each other’s business not only caught him off guard, it pissed him off.
Bobby snorted, but the sound was anything but amused. “And a Merry Christmas to you, too, Winchester.” Bobby hung up on him.
John often thought the reason they got along so well was that they put up with each other’s moods. Or perhaps it was because they didn’t get permanently offended by each other’s moods.
Once he had his new hunt identified, John moved on to the next item on his to-do list. He pulled on his coat and hat, shaking the conversation with Bobby off with a promise that he’d remember to bring some of the good whiskey before the next time he dropped in on the old coot. Bobby meddled mostly because his own affection for the boys rivaled John’s. Surpassed it, sometimes, since Bobby had the luxury of not actually having to call them on the carpet when they’d just piddled there. That wasn’t entirely fair: Bobby did take care of them more often than John wished he had to; he’d even faced his share of Sam’s or Dean’s scrapes in John’s absence. Still, he could afford to be lenient in ways that John couldn’t, chalking it up to youthful indiscretion. John was all too aware that the wrong kind of youthful indiscretion could spell Family Services knocking on their door.
John suspected that Dean and Sammy never tested Bobby the way they tested him, either.
“Dean, going out,” he called, grabbing his keys and the ad from the paper.
Dean poked his head out from John’s room. “Yes, sir.”
He passed Sam on the stairs. Sam dragged the bags of laundry by their straps, pausing at each step to climb backward up the next one in a steady rhythm: step, heave, bump.
“Dean’s in my room. Fold the laundry and leave him alone to do his work.” He took a step, then turned back. “Remember, no TV.”
“Okay,” Sam said, in a voice that made it plain he didn’t need, or wish, to be reminded. Sam pulled on his load and continued on: step, heave, bump. If he was still pissed about losing out on his major Christmas present, it was hard to tell, but John knew his youngest son better than to expect anything else.
All the more reason, John told himself, to get back on a straightforward hunt without having to tiptoe around the boys to do it.
He found the store he wanted and asked a bunch of questions about his items of interest—range, battery life and power, signal strength, frequencies, plans—and made a selection: a matched pair. He could transfer the activation to Wisconsin next week, but he wanted Dean to have the thing now. John thought of it as a more reliable way to keep tabs on them when he wasn’t right on hand.
He headed back to the apartment and let himself into his room. Dean had the knives arranged methodically on the old blanket and was wiping the last blade with a tiny bit of oil. A scrap of leather lay on the bed next to him, scarred with dozens of small cuts.
“Got something for you,” John told him as he stepped around the bed. He picked up one of the knives and carefully shaved a forearm hair to test the edge.
Dean set aside the rag and the blade and looked up expectantly.
John nodded approval over the knife in his hand before putting it down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little bag of electronics. Sitting on the edge of the bed, carefully so as not to jostle the knives, he dumped out the bag. He picked up one of the two devices and handed it to Dean.
“It’s a pager,” he explained. “We’ll have to update it when we move, but this way, we can stay in touch a little better.”
Dean studied the pager. “Guess I really effed up, huh?” he said with a pathetic little laugh, a self-deprecating nod.
“Yeah, but that’s not what this is about,” John said evenly. He let his hands, cupped around one another, hang loose between his legs. “This is about me giving you a way to contact me. And me a way to contact you. So I don’t have to worry so much when I have to leave you alone.”
Dean ran his thumb over the tiny box. “How’s it work?”
A smile ghosted across John’s face. Dean loved machines, no matter what the circumstances. “You use your calling card to dial the pager number.” He turned the pager over to show him the small digits on the back. “Punch in the phone number where you can be reached. Then the dispatching agency sends that number to my pager. It beeps and shows me the number. And I call you.”
“Anytime?” Dean looked up at him. It was clear he hoped this meant he could be in contact instantly, whenever he wanted to talk about anything.
John let a corrective “Hm” precede his amendment, “Most of the time.” He twitched his eyebrows with a half-sorry smile. “We’ll still have check-ins, and I’ll try to be where the signal can reach me at least some of the time. There are places where I won’t get coverage. And it has a good range, but if I’m not where it can catch me, it won’t go through. The company has to activate it for the region we’re—I’m—in, so if you try and I don’t call back…try again in an hour or so.”
“Cool,” Dean said. He played idly with the clip on the pager holster and tapped the little display box on the end. “How will you know it’s me?”
“Well, we’ll need a code,” John said, noting Dean’s suppressed grin with satisfaction. He was still young enough that codes and passwords were more fun than strategic, even if he understood the necessity for them. John scratched his chin. “When you call me, add 124 to the beginning of the return number. If I’m calling you, I’ll add 89.”
“Why?”
John’s mouth quirked. “Birthdays.”
Dean nodded again. His hand found the nearest knife hilt and he turned his head to look back at the array of weapons. “Do you want me to take these to the car?”
“I’ll do that. I want you to practice hitting the dartboard with this toothpick.” John handed him one of the small throwing knives. He pointed to a foam dartboard tacked up on a plywood board, all of which was attached to the bedroom wall. He squared Dean off at ten paces, which put him basically against the opposite wall. John drew the shades to cover the window, although the neighbors could hardly see in through the filthy glass. “Fifty throws each, right and left, buddy. Y’never know when you’ll need to use your off-hand.”
“Yes, sir.” Dean waited for John to stand next to him before he took his first throw.
John made corrections after collecting the knife. “Less wrist. Just let it go half a second earlier. Don’t lean forward so much. That’s it.”
He watched Dean throw a few more times until the knife stuck each time. On the tenth throw, he told Dean that he’d be pulling out after taking them to school on Monday. “I’ll be back to get you at the end of the week at the latest. We’ll spend Christmas somewhere new.”
Dean paused. He pursed his lips tightly in resignation.
“You okay, son?” John asked.
Dean relaxed and let his disappointment go. “Yessir,” he said, and went back to throwing.
John had him switch hands, corrected his form, and then gathered the other knives in a duffel bag and left him to it. In the living room, he judged Sam’s progress on the laundry. Little piles of socks, underwear, t-shirts, jeans, and the like littered the furniture. The TV, true to John’s orders, remained off—part of the general punishment imposed on both boys.
“When you’re done, pack everything except three days’ worth for you and your brother,” John instructed. “You can do a last load on Friday when you’re off school.”
“Yessir,” Sam said, almost military in his exuberance.
John brought the knife bag down to the car. After a quick check around for witnesses, he opened the false bottom and stowed the weapons inside. He came back upstairs. Sam was stuffing the duffel bags with the piles.
“Done?” he asked Sam.
“Yup.”
“Good. Dean!” he called into the back room.
Dean came out. “Sir?”
“All finished?”
Dean’s eyes dropped down and to the right, as if John had asked because he’d figured out how much time it should have taken, and Dean had failed to complete the task in that amount. “Done on the right. Forty-five on the left,” he said sheepishly.
John nodded, careful to make his frown more about meeting expectations than any suggestion of disappointment. “Well, finish up then and we’ll go out for dinner.”
“Yessir.” Dean kept his face blank, but as he walked away, he pulled his elbow back in a pumping motion of victory.
After dinner, John made them push the furniture to the edges of the room. Then he drilled them: situps, pushups, and light sparring with himself as their punching bag. His one concession to Dean’s health was to set them both the same number of each exercise, instead of the usual 20% increase for Dean.
“Showers and bed,” he told them after half an hour of kickboxing with each boy. If they had anything to say about his harder, harsher attitude, they obviously guessed it would be unwise to voice the objections.
John clicked on the TV to cover the sounds of their whispered conversation in their room. Last night, he’d sat here waiting for Gina’s call, wanting a drink and unable to indulge. He needed that whiskey tonight; and tomorrow, he needed to give himself some distance.
~*~
Dad slept much of Sunday, but when he got up, he was all business. Dean hadn’t dared turn on the TV, since he was pretty sure that would be one of the privileges they both lost, but he hadn’t figured on Dad keeping them doing separate chores, either. Soon Dean was shut up in his father’s room sharpening a bunch of knives and Sam was banished to the basement laundry facility.
The first one was a real mess, covered in something gooey and stuck on. He’d wound up running the steel under hot water to loosen the stuff, then using another blade in addition to the steel wool to scrape it off. Dad must have been really wiped when he’d come in, to leave his knife all covered in crap like that. Dean wondered what Dad had been hunting that bled something so syrupy. It took him nearly half an hour just to get that one clean, and run through the serrated sharpener, but after that, things went faster.
Sharpening the knives was surprisingly calming. There was a soothing routine to oiling the whetstone, scraping the knife gently, twisting the wrist to get an even edge to both sides. It helped to know that Dad still trusted him with this, wanted him to help him prepare for the next job. Though it hurt a little that Dad wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t talk to him except to tell him what task to do next, Dean at least had the assurance that he hadn’t interfered with Dad’s work too terribly. And he’d rather clean weapons than clothes and dishes, any day.
Dean heard Dad on the phone with Uncle Bobby. A little while later, Dad went out and Sam came in.
“I’m in Dad’s room—don’t come in,” Dean called to the living room. He didn’t need Dad to tell him to keep Sam away from all the knives. Not that Sam wouldn’t know how to handle one, because he did, but the sight of them all laid out together would make Sam start a round of twenty questions Dean didn’t want to play.
“I know—Dad said,” Sam yelled back. “Wish we could watch TV,” he shouted a few seconds later.
“Wouldn’t chance it,” Dean warned.
“I didn’t say I was gonna,” Sam said petulantly. “What’re you doing?”
“Stuff.” He scraped a blade over the whetstone, taking satisfaction in the rhythm.
“Hey, Dean?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s this doing here?”
Dean paused. “Can’t see through walls, dumbass.”
“There’s a plant thing out here by the phone.”
Dean set the knife and whetstone kit aside and came out. Sam held up a sprig of something with green leaves and yellowish-white berries. “It was on the floor,” Sam explained, pointing under the little table for the phone.
Dean remembered Dad setting out a small parcel the night before. But it had been dark and he hadn’t seen what it was. “It’s mistletoe,” he said, now that he could see it clearly.
“What’s it doing here?”
“I guess Dad got some,” Dean said noncommittally. He was sure that the mistletoe had to do with whatever job Dad had finished last night, but of course, he couldn’t tell Sam that without a lot of questions resulting.
Sam was going to ask questions anyway.
“But why?” he asked, right on cue.
“I dunno. Give it.” He snatched it away, both to shut down the subject and to look more closely. Sam scowled, but surrendered without a scuffle. There had been more last night, so Dean guessed Dad had used what he needed. He was certainly acting like the hunt had ended, which made sense, since it was almost Christmas, and they’d planned to all be somewhere together like always. So if Dad didn’t need it, maybe…. He went into their room for the water glass. Sam followed him.
“What’re you doing?”
“Secret Santa,” Dean muttered, putting the mistletoe in the water. “Maybe. Better go finish your chores.” He retreated into Dad’s room before Sam could pester him any more.
When Dad came home, he gave him a pager. Then he told Dean that he and Sam would be on their own for the rest of the week. Dean had known they’d be leaving, all of them, before the end of the year, but it was a little surprising to hear Dad say he’d be taking off so close to Christmas, and without them. It was typical of Dad to want to bug out as soon as he finished a job, move on to the next. But usually they went together.
On one hand, it felt good—normal, like Dad trusted him to take care of things while he was gone. This time, Dean figured it meant that and more. It meant Dad was giving himself some space. Dean had seen it in his father’s face during their talk the night before—he wasn’t as angry about the thing with Sam’s teachers as he was making it seem. But he was really angry, and maybe a little hurt, that they’d both deceived him about it all.
Probably, Dean realized, if Sam had asked about getting out of the dreaded pageant, Dad would have even helped them come up with something. Even if things had gone down the same, except that they’d just told him they’d fooled Sam’s teacher after it happened, Dad would have been okay with it.
Well, not okay. But at least he wouldn’t have been as upset. So upset that he couldn’t bear to be around them anymore, had to get away from them, had to leave them by themselves again. Dean wondered if Dad would have pulled them out early and dumped them with Pastor Jim or Uncle Caleb or even Uncle Bobby if it hadn’t been Christmas. Probably. He was only coming back to pick them up at the end of the week because then it would be Christmas and they were never not together.
“You okay, son?” Dad asked.
Dean snapped out of his thoughts, realizing that they must be showing on his face. He relaxed his shoulders. Dad needed him to be strong. Dad needed him to handle things on his own. He needed to prove that he could do it, that Dad’s faith in him wasn’t misplaced. “Yessir,” he said confidently. Dad seemed pleased. He told Dean to switch hands and moved in to correct his left-handed form. Dean leaned in a little bit, just so he could commit to memory the way Dad’s hand felt over his: rough, calloused, strong, gentle. Then Dad left him to throw, and think.
Next morning, Dad dropped him at school with a quick chuck on the chin and a reminder to be good, then left with Sam in tow to meet Sam’s doom. Dean felt bad for his brother—no one should have to go eat crow for a teacher, let alone twice in one day. Plus he was sure the other kids would take out their own envy and derision on Sam when they found out—and they’d find out. They always did.
~*~
Sam felt Dad’s hand on his shoulder steer him into room 305. “Miss Johnson?” Dad said in the doorway. “Sam had something he’d like to tell you.”
Miss Johnson came into the hallway and smiled a little crookedly. She was afraid of Dad, Sam could tell. Sam couldn’t blame her, but he knew that Dad was only dangerous and scary when he was angry. And right now, Dad wasn’t angry at her.
He’d spent most of Sunday sleeping, and when he hadn’t been sleeping, he’d been ordering them around. Sam and Dean had barely been able to stay awake that night, after the workout he gave them both after dinner. The one thing Dean had managed to tell Sam was that he’d been right: Dad was leaving again. Right after he made sure Sam apologized properly.
Sam was sure Dad was still ticked off at him and Dean both. He knew it because Dad had barely said three words to him that weren’t, “Fold the laundry” or, “You’re sweeping your leg too wide” or, “Get those knees up.” It wasn’t like he had to scold them, at least. They’d been on their best behavior. Fresh trouble did that—made them extra careful about doing things Dad wouldn’t like. Still didn’t keep him from finding a million things to correct.
“Sam?” Miss Johnson said, bringing him back to the task before him. Other kids were arriving; Dad pushed Sam further down the hall for a little privacy.
“I…I lied. M’sorry. We’re not Jonah’s witnesses.”
“Jehovah,” Dad muttered softly.
“Jehovah’s witnesses,” Sam corrected.
Miss Johnson looked over Sam’s head at Dad.
“I had a feeling something wasn’t adding up right,” Dad said. His hand felt heavy on Sam’s shoulder. “Took me a little while to track it down.” Dad explained that last to her like she’d asked for his help and he hadn’t jumped to respond, like he owed her an apology. It was bad enough to have to apologize to Miss Johnson himself; but the idea that Dad was going to have to eat crow on his behalf made him made him feel about six inches tall.
“But…Mr. Winchester, your son, Dean, he—”
“He lied,” Dad said. “If it makes you feel any better, they lied to me, too.”
“I don’t understand.” Miss Johnson crouched in front of Sam. “Sam, why would you do such a thing?” She reached out to touch his upper arm, rubbing it as if to reassure him she wasn’t mad so much as confused.
Sam wanted to back away, get some distance, but Dad was right there, so he had to stand his ground. “Dean was just…he knew I didn’t want to be in the pageant. So he made it up. An’ I let him.” He twisted around to look at Dad. If he expected a look of support or commendation, he was disappointed.
“I see,” Miss Johnson said sadly. She dropped her hand and stood up. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” she said to Dad.
“Boys tell lies,” Dad said. It was odd, the look that they exchanged. And Dad’s tone was like the voice he used when explaining something about the car to Dean, or showing Sam how to safely handle a pistol. “Took me a while to get to the bottom of it, seeing as how I didn’t have a lot of help on this end.” That wasn’t an apology; it was an accusation.
It didn’t surprise Sam that Dad would dress down his teacher in front of him. Dad’s barbs were bound to be close to the surface since he was so mad at him and Dean. “So I told Sam you’d have to tell him how to make up for his deception,” Dad continued.
“Oh.” Miss Johnson smiled her own apology. “Well, I’m afraid it’s far too late to add him back in to the pageant. Perhaps if I’d known—”
Dad cleared his throat.
“—If I’d listened last week,” she amended, with a weird look at Dad. “But the performance is Thursday. There’s just not enough time. Besides, Sam’s lines have all been reassigned. You understand we can’t take them away from the children twice, not after all the work—”
“I was thinking there might be something else Sam could do. To help, maybe,” Dad said. He had his fake-patient face on, the one he used when he was being just barely polite, but really he wanted to cut through the crap and just get on with it.
“Yes?” Miss Johnson wondered. “Oh, yes. I’m sure we can find something for Sam. Maybe backstage.”
“Good.” Dad squeezed Sam’s shoulder to move him out and they repeated the exercise with Mrs. Farnsworth. Her reaction was to bump Sam’s star count down to three red ones—the lowest color, but at least he was still ahead of Travis Strong, who only had one red star and spent even more time with Miss Nolan than anyone else in class.
“Mr. Winchester, I was going to tell you that we recommended counseling for Sam,” Mrs. Farnsworth told Dad. Sam gulped. “But under the circumstances, I think it’s clear what was leading him to misbehave in class.”
“Misbehave?” Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“Well…he took a little ribbing, you might say, because he wasn’t in the pageant. I think Sam may already understand that being on the outside looking in may not necessarily be its own reward.” She glanced down at Sam, who flushed.
“I’m pretty sure he’s figured that out,” Dad said. “Excuse us.” Sam felt him press on his shoulder again to take him a pace away into the hall. He bent over, facing Sam. “Misbehaving?”
“I didn’t, Dad,” Sam told him. “Jenner Martin threw a truck at me.”
Dad “humphed” like the Sour Kangaroo in that Horton book Sam had read while his class had been treated to cartoons. “Dean will pick you up this afternoon, remember?” His eyes flicked up to Mrs. Farnsworth and back to Sam—a warning to play it cool and normal.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a few days,” he said low enough that only Sam could hear. Mrs. Farnsworth was still kinda watching them, so Dad gave him a hug, trying not to make it look awkward. Then Dad pushed him away with a hand on his shoulder. Another manful squeeze and a solemn nod of his head, and Dad walked away.
“Sam?” Mrs. Farnsworth called him after Dad had hit the stairs. Sam could still hear his footsteps clatter and echo in the hall.
“Coming,” Sam told her.
Getting through that day was tough. The kids found out—who knew how—that he’d lied to get out of the pageant. Some of the fourth graders shoved him around at lunch and took his bag of Oreos. Kris and Sally wouldn’t talk to him. Jenner called him a phony and got about half the other kids to call him that too, behind Mrs. Farnsworth’s back.
After school he went to the auditorium with everyone else. “Sam, come with me,” Miss Nolan said. “You’ll be helping backstage.”
“Huh?”
“You’re going to help me with props and the curtain. Come on.”
While the others practiced, Miss Nolan showed him all the things he needed to do and remember. By the time they were done, Dean was there. “C’mon, short stuff,” Dean said, leading him out of the building.
“How’d it go?” Dean asked him as they walked.
“Sucked.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” He walked a few paces. “Sucked how bad?”
Sam shrugged. “I’m down to three red stars and I hafta be with Miss Nolan backstage. They’re letting me pull the curtain.” Sam half-smiled. “Actually that’s not so bad. Jimmy Drake took my Oreos at lunch—don’t worry,” he said quickly to stop Dean from getting protective, “I put a dead mouse in his lunch box while I was backstage. An’ Kris won’t talk to me—but neither will Sally, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What about you?”
“I didn’t have to explain to anyone,” Dean said simply. “Well, except Mike.”
“What’d he think?”
“He thought it was too bad we got caught. And he asked if Dad would lose his job. I told him it was a crap job in the first place, and anyway, he stopped the place from burning down.” Dean grinned, slapping Sam’s shoulder. “Mike said they should give Dad a medal instead of a pink slip.”
Sam agreed with Dean’s friend’s admiration. Dad was a hero for stopping the fire, even if he had left again and neither he nor Dean would say where he was going. Maybe he was going to the North Pole to narc on them. Then again, maybe the presents really had nothing to do with Santa. Maybe it was all Dad. He wanted to ask. But he could tell Dean was fishing for a reaction. “Mike’s kinda cool,” he said. He’d ask about Santa later.
“Yeah. M’gonna miss him, I guess.”
“I’ll be glad to get out of here.”
“Hah. Kinda backward, innit?” Dean kicked him lightly with the outside of his boot.
Sam retaliated with a kidney punch. It didn’t do much damage through all Dean’s layers.
~*~
The rest of the week passed pretty much without incident. Dad had stopped the papers, so there was no mail. Dean used down the food and they packed up to prepare to go. When Dean’s new pager went off or the phone rang for Dad’s check-ins, they turned off the TV.
Wednesday night, Dean’s pager went off with the 89 code. He took out his card and dialed the number. “Dean?” Dad answered the phone.
“Hey, Dad. What’s up? Are you okay?”
Dad hummed in the affirmative. “I’m fine. I’ll be in late Thursday night,” he said sharply.
“Okay,” Dean said with optimism.
“Okay, listen up: You have a half-day Friday, but Sam’s home,” Dad told him briskly. “So I want you both to pack up Thursday after school before I get in. Friday, I’ll pick you up directly from school with Sam and we’ll leave right from there, so make sure you’ve got everything before you go to school that day.”
“Got it,” Dean assured him.
“Everything all right?” It was an invitation to talk, but Dean didn’t want to show any sign that he couldn’t take care of things without Dad around.
“Yeah. We’re fine,” he said confidently.
“Good. Be sure you and Sam do 100 sit-ups before bed tonight.” Dad had been stepping up the training all week, even long-distance.
“Yes, sir.”
Dad’s voice turned gentler. “Tell Sammy I’m sorry I won’t be back for the pageant.”
“He’s pulling the curtain, Dad, he doesn’t care.”
“Tell him anyway, ” Dad said quietly.
“Yes, sir.” Dad didn’t ask about Dean’s Secret Santa, so Dean didn’t tell him what he had planned.
Thursday was trash night in the building, so after they’d packed up everything but the week’s dirty laundry, Dean went down to the basement in search of some colored paper or old comics as wrapping for the mistletoe. He found some leftover pieces of wrapping paper in Mr. Harvey’s trash. It smelled a tiny bit like aftershave, which Dean thought was kind of appealing.
Dad hadn’t come home by the time they went to bed, but Dean heard him snoring when he got up in the morning. He moved around quietly so that Dad and Sam could both sleep in. Dad had left a note in the kitchen, reminding Dean to make sure anything he wanted to take was packed, because Dad and Sam would be packing up the car without him.
Dean put the wrapped mistletoe in his bag and walked to school the direct way, straight up Elm Street, which cut about five minutes off the time it was out in the cold. Right after English class, just before the end of the half-day, they exchanged presents.
“Class, listen!” Mrs. Fontana demanded. “When I tell you and not before, Jason Cartwright, those of you who are participating in the exchange will all get out your presents—no talking!—and sit at your desks. You will go and come back quickly with no talking and no dawdling, Emily Summers. Once you return to your desks you will close your eyes. No peeking! That includes you, Rebecca. Does everyone understand so far?”
They all nodded or said, “Yes” to confirm the orders.
“When I call your name, you may open your eyes and place your gift on the desk of the person whose name you drew. Then go back to your desk and close your eyes again. Once all the gifts are distributed, I will tell you all to open your eyes and you may then open your presents.”
Dean raised his hand.
“Yes, Dean?” Mrs. Fontana said, a touch testily.
“We don’t get to find out…I mean, we don’t give them to each other just…normal?” He’d been counting on explaining the mistletoe to Jill.
“If you want to reveal yourself to your recipient, Dean, that’s up to you. But after the exchange.” She adjusted her glasses. “Any more questions? No? Good. All right, everyone: Go get your presents.”
The room erupted. Dean didn’t move. He reached into his bookbag for the mistletoe. He was pleased that the corners of the paper were only slightly bent, and that the aftershave smell had stayed. He also pulled out a piece of notebook paper and scribbled a hasty note:
He folded the note and closed his eyes.
Mrs. Fontana went in order, of course. He found himself drifting off as the names were called. It wasn’t that he meant to zone out, but he’d been up late packing, and waiting for Dad to make it home…. “Dean. Dean, wake up. It’s your turn.”
He opened his eyes and there was a wrapped present on his desk already, next to his pretty sad-looking gift. Not surprising; there was only one other kid after “Winchester.”
He took the note and the herb and set them on Jill’s desk. Then he sat back down. He heard Steve Wolcott move around and then settle.
“All right. You may all open your eyes.”
The class began talking as soon as they could see again, as if their mouths and their eyes were spiritually connected. Dean tore open the wrapping on his present. Inside were two Matchbox cars: a Mustang convertible and the 1968 Camaro he’d admired in the toy store. Dean looked over at Mike, who grinned at him.
“Cool,” Dean called. Mike gave him the thumbs-up.
Dean looked over at Jill. She stared at the mistletoe, read the note, and stared at the mistletoe again. She looked up and over the two rows to Dean’s desk.
Dean shrugged, as if to apologize for the lameness of his present. But Jill blushed and smiled at him shyly. Dean found that odd, but maybe she was reading more into the note than he meant.
When class ended and they were released from school, Jill came to find him in the hall. He was stacking up his books in his locker and pulling out the two or three personal items he’d stashed there.
“Dean! I had no idea you could be so romantic!” she said breathily. She held up the mistletoe over their heads and kissed him. On the lips.
“Ycch,” Dean said, wiping his mouth. “What’d’ja do that for? It’s just mistletoe.”
“Exactly!” Jill said.
“Huh?”
“Well, isn’t that the special thing about mistletoe you were going to explain to me?” She twisted one ankle inward, batting her eyelashes at him.
“Uh. No,” Dean said, bewildered by her flirting. “Mistletoe’s protective and it’s a good luck charm. If you wear it pinned inside your jacket, you won’t get hurt. And if you hang it on your hearth all year, it’ll keep you safe from fires.”
Jill laughed at him. “Duh. That’s not what it’s for. People kiss under it, silly!”
“They do?” Dean’s eyes slid side to side in disbelief.
“Uh…yeah,” Jill said, like it was obvious. “I’ve never heard of any of that other stuff.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve never heard of…oh,” he stopped, remembering the words to some Christmas songs, and Christmas specials on TV. “Oh, yeah. I guess. I guess people do kiss under it. Kinda. Yeah.” He scratched his head, wondering what to do with the information, and whether Jill would make a scene or something.
“Wanna try again?”
Dean bit his lip. He hadn’t really noticed before how blue Jill’s eyes were, or the way her nose curved up at the tip. Maybe if she didn’t take him by surprise this time, kissing her wouldn’t feel as gross. “Okay.”
Jill held up the mistletoe and closed her eyes. Dean pressed his mouth against hers and their lips interlocked. Dean tried to move his lips experimentally, like he’d seen in movies in between the good parts. Jill giggled and they broke apart.
“That was weird.”
“Yeah,” Dean agreed, all too happy to pull away. He cleared his throat. “Well, I gotta go,” he told her before it could get any more awkward. “Bye, Jill.”
“Bye, Dean. Merry Christmas!” she called as he walked away. “Hey: See you next year!”
He twisted to wave over his shoulder and didn’t correct her.
Dad and Sam were waiting for him in the car.
~*Fin*~
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Date: 2008-04-18 11:42 pm (UTC)i like the way you have Bobby react to 'batchelor'
Yep. I actually wrote that scene - complete with Bobby's reaction - just before we learned that his tragic past was a wife who died. I was so proud!
I thought about the pager (it actually appears in some other fics, where Sam and Dean both carry them) because I think that John would have been an early adopter of any tech that allowed them to stay in contact while also mobile.
you pack in a lot of detail
What a lovely ending!
Thank you! I'm still surprised by how dense some of these chapters are. When I go back and re-read, I think, "Dude. I wrote that?"
And thanks, too, about the ending. I knew the moment I was writing toward, so when I got there, I was so pleased that it felt right.