Fic: Battle Cry (Supernatural) Chapter 9/10
This is chapter 9 of the fic Battle Cry. Materpost is here. Chapter 1 is here.
Title: Battle Cry
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Sam, Dean, John Bobby
Pairing(s): Gen
Prompt: Loss of Voice
Chapter Word Count: 2028
Rating: PG-13 for some cussing and a wee bit of violence
Disclaimer: Not mine. If you recognize it, I had no hand in making it. I do not own any piece of the Supernatural awesomeness. It all belongs to Kripke et. al. I’m just borrowing for a minute.
Warnings: None
Summary: It’s supposed to be a witch. It’s supposed to be easy. Sam and Dean shouldn’t have to do more than help burn the body. But, when they are faced with an unknown monster, the consequences will be life altering for all the Winchesters. Will they be able to fix the problem, or will Sam have to learn to adapt to the newest challenge in his life?
Chapter 9: The Conversation
It was about three days later that Sam finally screwed up his courage enough to talk to Dean about the thing that had been worrying him the most lately. They had been practicing with Bobby’s book and could now hold a rudimentary conversation, although it took time for both of them to think of the signs and process through what the other person said.
They were sitting on the bottom step of Bobby’s porch taking a break from their sparing. Sam had been cleared for training the day before by both Bobby and Dean and they were taking it slow. Sam chafed at the pace, but he understood he couldn’t rush Dean’s progression from mother hen to pain in the ass big brother after being sick. It was a slow transformation, one which was marked by the steady progression of Dean’s growing confidence that Sam would not in fact break into a hundred tiny pieces.
Sam hated this more than actually being sick. It took Dean ages to finally step back and let Sam go full tilt again. While Sam understood that he had recently been sick, he was fine. He would be perfectly capable of sparing for the full time. He might not get any laps in afterward, but he wanted there to be more than just short spurts of activity. Like the afternoon John had made them run, Sam wanted to just throw himself into something purely physical. It didn’t have to be running or sparing. He’d get out and climb every tree on the perimeter of Bobby’s land if he had to.
Sam brushed his hand along the back of his neck and up into his hair, trying to quell his nerves. He turned to Dean, eyes serious. When Dean was finally looking back at him, he strung two words together slowly.
‘Where’s Dad?’
Dean squinted at the signs, brow furrowed, trying to piece together what Sam had said.
“Dad’s-“
Sam reached over and laid a finger on Dean’s lips, looking pointedly toward his hands. Dean made a face. He raised his hands and made the sign for Dad and then for away. He was struggling a bit with the language. More so than Sam.
Sam rolled his eyes. He knew their dad wasn’t there. He wanted to know where he had gone.
‘Where?’ Sam drew down his eyebrows, trying to convey his curiosity and exasperation all in one motion.
“I don’t have the signs, Sam.”
Sam nodded. It was going to take time. Dean seemed to be reading Sam’s signs better than he was forming them for himself, which was a matter of practice, but they both had the important parts of the conversation down. Sam could tell Dean basic things without having to go find a pencil and paper, while Dean could understand and respond for the most part. That’s all they really needed.
When he didn’t continue, Sam jabbed Dean in the side. Dean let out a deep breath.
“He went to Kansas.”
Sam frowned in confusion. ‘Why?’
“I’m not sure. He said there was something urgent he had to take care of.”
So John had a hunt and he didn’t feel like hanging around his broken son. Sam didn’t sign any of that. Even if he had known how to, he knew it would have made things worse. But it still stung.
‘Say-when-come-home?’ Sam winced at the rough syntax. He had gathered, from what he read, that ASL dropped a lot of the in between words, the prepositions and such unless it was to emphasize meaning, but it had been lacking in any grammatical instruction. He knew he was butchering it, but he also knew Dean would understand.
Dean shook his head. “You know how these things go, Sam. He could be home tonight, it could be next week.”
‘Two now,’ Sam signed.
Dean tried to puzzle out what he meant by that but shook his head. “I don’t understand, Sam.”
Sam huffed. He didn’t know all the words he needed. He wanted to say that it had been almost two weeks since they’d seen him last. He knew three of those words.
He frowned and tried again. ‘Dad away two…’ Sam scrunched up his face, trying to remember if he’d learned the word for weeks. ‘W-E-E-K-S’ He spelled out the last word, having given up. He knew day and night, but otherwise his vocabulary of time words was almost non-existent. Maybe that would be next on his list.
“Dad’s only been gone a week and a half.”
Sam gave Dean a stern look. That was still a long time for him to be gone without checking in. Unless he’d been checking in with Dean while Sam had been down with the flu.
Sam held his right hand up, pinky and thumb extended and mimicked holding a phone. He had no idea what the sign for telephone was, but again Dean was likely to understand his meaning.
“Yeah, a couple of times. Not recently though. Said he’d be out of contact for no more than a week. That was three days ago. He’s fine, Sam.”
Of course he was. This was John Winchester. He’d be fine until the day he learned he wasn’t immortal. Sam wondered if he would bother coming back for them. Of course, Dean was nineteen. He could get himself a car and go meet up with their father. In fact, John might ask him to do just that.
Sam knew that John had been planning on giving Dean the Impala for his next birthday. He’d actually been expecting it to happen when Dean turned eighteen, but he got the impression that John didn’t want to hand over the car until Dean had proven he could handle it. He mentally rolled his eyes. Between John and Dean, one might think that car actually was a baby. Not that Sam wanted to see anything happen to it, it was the closest he’d ever had to a home at any point in his life. It was his one constant beyond Dean. He still didn’t see how those two could personify a car that much. As much as Sam loved her, she was a car. She was metal and working parts - a moving home, not a person.
He’d never say such things to his brother.
Sam drew in, the afternoon sun had gone behind a cloud and there was a nip to the air. He was only wearing a t-shirt since they had been training and the cool air was giving him chill bumps.
What if John didn’t want Sam anymore?
Sam looked over at Dean, who was still watching him from the corner of his eye in case he signed something else. Sam wanted to say something. There was a churning in his gut at the thought of John not returning, of leaving him behind.
‘Think Dad come…’ he gestured around at the salvage yard.
Dean leaned turned back to him fully. “Course he will. Why wouldn’t he.”
Sam shrugged. He stood up and gestured back towards the dirt ring they had drawn just beyond the porch. Dean leaned back so that he was staring up into the sky. “Nah. I think I’m done. Besides, Bobby said not to keep you out here more than a couple of hours. Probably time we went back in.”
Sam made a face. He was fine. F-I-N-E. Fine. It had been the flu. A short bought of it at that. He wasn’t dying of terminal cancer. He spied a pebble laying on the ground and stooped to pick it up. When he straightened, he made sure Dean was still reclining before flinging it at him so that it would ping straight between his eyes. He didn’t put much force behind it, but he still didn’t hang around to watch what happened next.
As he took off through the yard, he heard Dean leap to his feet. “You little bitch! I’m going to skin you alive.”
Sam kept running, grinning.
When they burst back through Bobby’s front door, Bobby glanced around from in the kitchen area. He took one look at them and shook his head. “You track that dirt through my house and you’ll be scrubbing the floors,” was all he told them. Sam grinned. He felt better for having run some of his energy off. He poked Dean in the ribs, ducked his brother’s wide swing, and darted up the stairs to claim the shower before Dean could get there.
That evening, he decided he could at least fix one of his problems and decided to find Bobby. The older man had been unbelievably patient with him this entire time, always willing to answer Sam’s questions. He had even taken to signing and talking at the same time. Sam rarely understood much of it, but it did help to see someone else signing. He had a feeling that was going to be a rare thing for him. He was using it to speak, but he technically didn’t need it to understand someone else. It made his brain hurt to realize he was technically having a conversation in two languages at once.
Sam approached Bobby carefully. He and Dean were out on the porch watching Rumsfeld chase something between the cars. Sam thought it might have been a rabbit, but it was getting rather late in the year for them to be out. Probably just a really fat squirrel,
He brought his notebook with him, a message already written out. He found that helped when he was asking involved questions. If he got out at least the first part of what he wanted to say before he was actually in front of the person, he didn’t have to wait as long. He sat on the top step beside Bobby and hesitantly held out the pad. Bobby took it from him and glanced down.
Would you teach me some of the grammar? I’ve been through the book, but it doesn’t really talk about that. I want to do it properly.
Dean wandered over from where he’d been leaning on the railing and read the note over Bobby’s shoulder, ruffling Sam’s hair in the process. Sam batted his hand away and glared up at him.
“Aw man,” Dead said, looking at Sam, then Bobby. “There’s grammar too?”
“Course there is. What did you think?”
When Dean shrugged, Bobby continued, “ASL is a separate language technically. It has its own syntax and grammatical structure.”
“But, do we have to?”
Bobby shrugged. “Not really. There’s plenty who use a sort of bastardize mix of English and ASL, and most people can make themselves understood either way, but it’s certainly not the same thing.”
“So why learn one over the other?”
Sam pinched Dean on the knee. He had his own questions here. “Ow! What was that for?”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Yes, Sam. I’ll teach you what I know.” He craned his neck back to look at Dean. “As far as your question goes, it’s a cultural thing more often than not.”
“Cultural?”
“Yes, Dean. Cultural. ASL is primarily the language of the deaf. There are plenty who base their identity around that. In the Deaf community it is a matter of pride to use actual ASL. It’s typically those who come to it later in life, who aren’t taught from childhood or whose native language is English that use the pidgin version. There are all sort of nuances. Do you want a lecture on that, or can I help Sam now?”
Dean looked down, but didn’t quite look abashed. “Whatever. How do you know all this, anyway?” He narrowed his eyes. “You aren’t deaf are you Bobby?”
“What kind of stupid question is that?” Bobby demanded. “Do I seem deaf to you?”
“No, I -“
“Don’t answer that,” Bobby said. Sam could tell he was trying to keep from grinning. “No, Dean. My old man was though. Grew up on it.” He shrugged. And Dean was too embarrassed to ask any more questions. Instead, he pushed past them and sat down in the dirt at the bottom of the stair facing them so he could see.
<<< Chapter 8 Masterpost Chapter 10>>>
Title: Battle Cry
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Sam, Dean, John Bobby
Pairing(s): Gen
Prompt: Loss of Voice
Chapter Word Count: 2028
Rating: PG-13 for some cussing and a wee bit of violence
Disclaimer: Not mine. If you recognize it, I had no hand in making it. I do not own any piece of the Supernatural awesomeness. It all belongs to Kripke et. al. I’m just borrowing for a minute.
Warnings: None
Summary: It’s supposed to be a witch. It’s supposed to be easy. Sam and Dean shouldn’t have to do more than help burn the body. But, when they are faced with an unknown monster, the consequences will be life altering for all the Winchesters. Will they be able to fix the problem, or will Sam have to learn to adapt to the newest challenge in his life?
Chapter 9: The Conversation
It was about three days later that Sam finally screwed up his courage enough to talk to Dean about the thing that had been worrying him the most lately. They had been practicing with Bobby’s book and could now hold a rudimentary conversation, although it took time for both of them to think of the signs and process through what the other person said.
They were sitting on the bottom step of Bobby’s porch taking a break from their sparing. Sam had been cleared for training the day before by both Bobby and Dean and they were taking it slow. Sam chafed at the pace, but he understood he couldn’t rush Dean’s progression from mother hen to pain in the ass big brother after being sick. It was a slow transformation, one which was marked by the steady progression of Dean’s growing confidence that Sam would not in fact break into a hundred tiny pieces.
Sam hated this more than actually being sick. It took Dean ages to finally step back and let Sam go full tilt again. While Sam understood that he had recently been sick, he was fine. He would be perfectly capable of sparing for the full time. He might not get any laps in afterward, but he wanted there to be more than just short spurts of activity. Like the afternoon John had made them run, Sam wanted to just throw himself into something purely physical. It didn’t have to be running or sparing. He’d get out and climb every tree on the perimeter of Bobby’s land if he had to.
Sam brushed his hand along the back of his neck and up into his hair, trying to quell his nerves. He turned to Dean, eyes serious. When Dean was finally looking back at him, he strung two words together slowly.
‘Where’s Dad?’
Dean squinted at the signs, brow furrowed, trying to piece together what Sam had said.
“Dad’s-“
Sam reached over and laid a finger on Dean’s lips, looking pointedly toward his hands. Dean made a face. He raised his hands and made the sign for Dad and then for away. He was struggling a bit with the language. More so than Sam.
Sam rolled his eyes. He knew their dad wasn’t there. He wanted to know where he had gone.
‘Where?’ Sam drew down his eyebrows, trying to convey his curiosity and exasperation all in one motion.
“I don’t have the signs, Sam.”
Sam nodded. It was going to take time. Dean seemed to be reading Sam’s signs better than he was forming them for himself, which was a matter of practice, but they both had the important parts of the conversation down. Sam could tell Dean basic things without having to go find a pencil and paper, while Dean could understand and respond for the most part. That’s all they really needed.
When he didn’t continue, Sam jabbed Dean in the side. Dean let out a deep breath.
“He went to Kansas.”
Sam frowned in confusion. ‘Why?’
“I’m not sure. He said there was something urgent he had to take care of.”
So John had a hunt and he didn’t feel like hanging around his broken son. Sam didn’t sign any of that. Even if he had known how to, he knew it would have made things worse. But it still stung.
‘Say-when-come-home?’ Sam winced at the rough syntax. He had gathered, from what he read, that ASL dropped a lot of the in between words, the prepositions and such unless it was to emphasize meaning, but it had been lacking in any grammatical instruction. He knew he was butchering it, but he also knew Dean would understand.
Dean shook his head. “You know how these things go, Sam. He could be home tonight, it could be next week.”
‘Two now,’ Sam signed.
Dean tried to puzzle out what he meant by that but shook his head. “I don’t understand, Sam.”
Sam huffed. He didn’t know all the words he needed. He wanted to say that it had been almost two weeks since they’d seen him last. He knew three of those words.
He frowned and tried again. ‘Dad away two…’ Sam scrunched up his face, trying to remember if he’d learned the word for weeks. ‘W-E-E-K-S’ He spelled out the last word, having given up. He knew day and night, but otherwise his vocabulary of time words was almost non-existent. Maybe that would be next on his list.
“Dad’s only been gone a week and a half.”
Sam gave Dean a stern look. That was still a long time for him to be gone without checking in. Unless he’d been checking in with Dean while Sam had been down with the flu.
Sam held his right hand up, pinky and thumb extended and mimicked holding a phone. He had no idea what the sign for telephone was, but again Dean was likely to understand his meaning.
“Yeah, a couple of times. Not recently though. Said he’d be out of contact for no more than a week. That was three days ago. He’s fine, Sam.”
Of course he was. This was John Winchester. He’d be fine until the day he learned he wasn’t immortal. Sam wondered if he would bother coming back for them. Of course, Dean was nineteen. He could get himself a car and go meet up with their father. In fact, John might ask him to do just that.
Sam knew that John had been planning on giving Dean the Impala for his next birthday. He’d actually been expecting it to happen when Dean turned eighteen, but he got the impression that John didn’t want to hand over the car until Dean had proven he could handle it. He mentally rolled his eyes. Between John and Dean, one might think that car actually was a baby. Not that Sam wanted to see anything happen to it, it was the closest he’d ever had to a home at any point in his life. It was his one constant beyond Dean. He still didn’t see how those two could personify a car that much. As much as Sam loved her, she was a car. She was metal and working parts - a moving home, not a person.
He’d never say such things to his brother.
Sam drew in, the afternoon sun had gone behind a cloud and there was a nip to the air. He was only wearing a t-shirt since they had been training and the cool air was giving him chill bumps.
What if John didn’t want Sam anymore?
Sam looked over at Dean, who was still watching him from the corner of his eye in case he signed something else. Sam wanted to say something. There was a churning in his gut at the thought of John not returning, of leaving him behind.
‘Think Dad come…’ he gestured around at the salvage yard.
Dean leaned turned back to him fully. “Course he will. Why wouldn’t he.”
Sam shrugged. He stood up and gestured back towards the dirt ring they had drawn just beyond the porch. Dean leaned back so that he was staring up into the sky. “Nah. I think I’m done. Besides, Bobby said not to keep you out here more than a couple of hours. Probably time we went back in.”
Sam made a face. He was fine. F-I-N-E. Fine. It had been the flu. A short bought of it at that. He wasn’t dying of terminal cancer. He spied a pebble laying on the ground and stooped to pick it up. When he straightened, he made sure Dean was still reclining before flinging it at him so that it would ping straight between his eyes. He didn’t put much force behind it, but he still didn’t hang around to watch what happened next.
As he took off through the yard, he heard Dean leap to his feet. “You little bitch! I’m going to skin you alive.”
Sam kept running, grinning.
When they burst back through Bobby’s front door, Bobby glanced around from in the kitchen area. He took one look at them and shook his head. “You track that dirt through my house and you’ll be scrubbing the floors,” was all he told them. Sam grinned. He felt better for having run some of his energy off. He poked Dean in the ribs, ducked his brother’s wide swing, and darted up the stairs to claim the shower before Dean could get there.
That evening, he decided he could at least fix one of his problems and decided to find Bobby. The older man had been unbelievably patient with him this entire time, always willing to answer Sam’s questions. He had even taken to signing and talking at the same time. Sam rarely understood much of it, but it did help to see someone else signing. He had a feeling that was going to be a rare thing for him. He was using it to speak, but he technically didn’t need it to understand someone else. It made his brain hurt to realize he was technically having a conversation in two languages at once.
Sam approached Bobby carefully. He and Dean were out on the porch watching Rumsfeld chase something between the cars. Sam thought it might have been a rabbit, but it was getting rather late in the year for them to be out. Probably just a really fat squirrel,
He brought his notebook with him, a message already written out. He found that helped when he was asking involved questions. If he got out at least the first part of what he wanted to say before he was actually in front of the person, he didn’t have to wait as long. He sat on the top step beside Bobby and hesitantly held out the pad. Bobby took it from him and glanced down.
Would you teach me some of the grammar? I’ve been through the book, but it doesn’t really talk about that. I want to do it properly.
Dean wandered over from where he’d been leaning on the railing and read the note over Bobby’s shoulder, ruffling Sam’s hair in the process. Sam batted his hand away and glared up at him.
“Aw man,” Dead said, looking at Sam, then Bobby. “There’s grammar too?”
“Course there is. What did you think?”
When Dean shrugged, Bobby continued, “ASL is a separate language technically. It has its own syntax and grammatical structure.”
“But, do we have to?”
Bobby shrugged. “Not really. There’s plenty who use a sort of bastardize mix of English and ASL, and most people can make themselves understood either way, but it’s certainly not the same thing.”
“So why learn one over the other?”
Sam pinched Dean on the knee. He had his own questions here. “Ow! What was that for?”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Yes, Sam. I’ll teach you what I know.” He craned his neck back to look at Dean. “As far as your question goes, it’s a cultural thing more often than not.”
“Cultural?”
“Yes, Dean. Cultural. ASL is primarily the language of the deaf. There are plenty who base their identity around that. In the Deaf community it is a matter of pride to use actual ASL. It’s typically those who come to it later in life, who aren’t taught from childhood or whose native language is English that use the pidgin version. There are all sort of nuances. Do you want a lecture on that, or can I help Sam now?”
Dean looked down, but didn’t quite look abashed. “Whatever. How do you know all this, anyway?” He narrowed his eyes. “You aren’t deaf are you Bobby?”
“What kind of stupid question is that?” Bobby demanded. “Do I seem deaf to you?”
“No, I -“
“Don’t answer that,” Bobby said. Sam could tell he was trying to keep from grinning. “No, Dean. My old man was though. Grew up on it.” He shrugged. And Dean was too embarrassed to ask any more questions. Instead, he pushed past them and sat down in the dirt at the bottom of the stair facing them so he could see.
<<< Chapter 8 Masterpost Chapter 10>>>