Happy Birthday
adelheide!!
Because you requested it! But, surprise, I'm guessing it's not exactly what you expected!
Title: There was this one time...
Author:
deirdre_cDisclaimer: Sam and Dean belong to the CW.
Rating: PG, Gen
Word Count: 912
Summary: Five Times the Winchesters Were Wrapped in Bubble Wrap
Notes: This is for
adelheide, on the occasion of her birthday. Adel wanted me to do one of my Top Ten lists to the salacious prompt of “Winchesters wrapped in bubble wrap.” But, because I am just that perverse, instead of being kinky, I wrote her gen fic.
I'm so grateful to
ignipes for the wonderful last-minute beta! Thank you, hon.
You may not remember this, but there was a time when Dean was six and Sammy was only a toddler when everything Sammy did just bugged the heck out of Dean. So when John, who was working in a warehouse at the time, had to take the boys to work with him because the babysitter was sick with walking pneumonia- in July, for Chrissakes!-Dean got an idea. Instead of playing quietly with Sammy in the back office until the end of John’s shift, like he was told, Dean decided he was going to mail his brother to Austria. Or was it Australia? Somewhere far away.
Dean went and scavenged a good-sized cardboard box and some packing tape from the warehouse. Then he discovered a huge roll of bubble wrap while he was exploring the back of the storage closet. Sammy cried when Dean shut the closet door to keep Sam out, which I imagine is pretty much the reason Dean went in there in the first place.
He unrolled the bubble wrap flat out on the floor and coaxed Sammy into lying down on it. Then he rolled Sam right up like a pig-in-a-blanket, stiff as a board, with Sammy giggling the whole time.
I hate to think what might have happened- asphyxiation and all that- but as it turns out Dean couldn’t figure out how to stuff him into the box, what with little Sam all straight-legged and unbendable like he was. By the time John came back to check on them, Sam was unwrapped and they were both sprawled on the floor, laughing from the belly and popping bubbles.
***
Then there was that Halloween when Dean was eleven and not all that into dressing up anymore, but, boy, Sammy sure was. It was one of those rough times when they were sharing a can of Chunky Soup over boiled rice for dinner every night and John walked everywhere to save gas money and the boys got their school shoes from Goodwill instead of K-Mart. Dean knew for sure there wasn’t going to be any cash doled out for costumes that year, no way.
So after school he went trashpicking- hey, it’s a venerable Winchester tradition!- to maybe score something that would pass muster with Sam. He didn’t find much, mostly trash, no surprise there, right? But after two hours bare-handed, bare-headed in the cold, he stumbled on a dumpster full of boxes of unopened office supplies that someone must’ve thrown out by mistake: colored tape and paper clips and twelve-packs of ballpoint pens and bubble wrap.
That’s how Sammy ended up trick-or-treating as a superhero, wearing blue pajamas with bubble wrap armbands and wristbands accented with red and yellow tape and a big “S” taped onto his chest, and a bubble wrap cape that made these awesome farting noises every time Sammy sat down.
***
Once, on a summer afternoon when they were living in an old abandoned farmhouse miles from the nearest town, John was off hunting and Dean was in charge and Sam was climbing this monster tree in the back yard when he fell and broke his leg, bad. Not a compound fracture this time, but really, no one’s shin should ever bend at that kind of angle.
So there's Dean with Sammy- white-as-a-ghost and about to puke but not crying, God bless him- and no phone, no car, no neighbors, and no idea what to do. Dean had enough first aid training (and field experience, too) to know he wasn’t going to be able to fix Sam with some Tylenol and a couple days forced bed rest, and he knew he had to stabilize Sam’s leg and get him some real medical attention, real fast.
Dean squeezed Sam’s shoulder and told him he’d be right back and ran into the house, his feet barely touching the stairs in his mad dash. Looking, looking around for something to use as a splint, he couldn’t find a goshdarn thing. So he grabbed one of the kitchen chairs and broke the leg clean off, believe it or not, with a sharp downward kick and grabbed a wad of bubble wrap out of a box that had come in the mail with some old books for John. Then back out to the yard and to Sam. Dean wrapped that leg lightly but firmly and hoisted Sammy up on the handlebars of his bike to tow him- and maybe Sammy was crying a little now, silently- the long, hot six miles to the doctor's office in town.
***
I would tell you about the time when Sam was a high school freshman and made the varsity basketball team, and there was this one night of hazing where all the seniors… but, no. I think Sam’d kill me if I told you that one.
***
I mean, really, it was Dean’s fault for starting up the prank war again after they called a truce back in Texas after that thing with the tulpa. So it shouldn’t have been any surprise when he woke up one morning with his legs swathed in bubble wrap and bound with so much tape it took him half an hour to saw through it -- that is, once he had humped himself across the room like a beached seal to his duffle because that sneaky son-of-a-gun had slipped the Bowie knife out from under Dean’s pillow.
Where the heck had Sam gotten bubble wrap, anyway?