SPN Fic: 4 Times ... The Lost Myth of Normal (Gen, Pre-Series)
Title: Four Times the Winchesters Had to Move (And Once They Didn't): The Lost Myth of Normal
Author: Dodger Winslow
Genre: Gen, Pre-series
Rating: R for language
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while ...
Summary (The Lost Myth of Normal): "I just wanted to stay in one place for awhile. It’s really hard to make friends - especially girlfriends - when you move every time you get to know anybody well enough for them to start liking you that way." Sammy looked up at John, blinked tears out of his eyes. "I’m not complaining or calling you a crap dad. I just really wanted to stay in one place for awhile. Can’t I just tell you that without it being me being selfish or not caring if kids die? Because every time I do, you think I’m calling you a crap dad. But I’m not. I’m just trying to tell you what I want because sometimes I don’t think you and Dean even know what a normal life is. I don’t think you and Dean even realize that nobody else moves around all the time, that nobody else can pack up everything they own and shove most of it in the car without it getting too crowded to drive. I know that’s the way we do it, but that’s not the way everybody else does it, Dad. Most people stay in one place their whole lives. Or if not for their whole lives, then at least for more than a couple of months. That’s the way that’s normal, Dad. Most people don’t move around that much at all, probably because its so hard to make any friends if you’re always moving to someplace new, even if you do have a good reason for doing it.
Four Times Times the Winchesters Had to Move (and Once They Didn't)
1) Run
2) See Me. Know Me. Remember Me.
3) Failure is Not an Option
-4-
The Lost Myth of Normal.
Sammy had been bitching non-stop for three hours, and he wasn’t showing any signs of letting up in the near future. The basic theme of his thesis was what a crap dad John was; and he was hell-bent on offering an endless laundry list of evidence in support of that thesis, every check point featuring examples of why they shouldn’t move, how unfair having to move again was to him, and how much his dad didn’t give a rat’s ass about anybody but himself because he was always making them move.
There was some school play he wanted to be in. He’d just made the soccer team, and they were going to start him in the first game. He had perfect attendance so far, and if he could keep that for the whole quarter, he’d get some kind of certificate. He had the top grade in his science class, and his science teacher wanted him to make an entry for the science fair. He’d been elected secretary (secretary?) of his chess club, and they were counting on him to take notes every week. They’d already moved twice this year, and John had promised him God-knows-when that they’d never move more than twice in any one school year. He’d just-
And John snapped. He just snapped.
"You selfish little bastard." Turning away from the box he was packing, John grabbed Sammy by the biceps, shook him hard enough to make his teeth rattle. "Do you think I’m doing this because it’s fun? Do you think I enjoy dragging you boys all over hell’s half acre while I bust my ass in a different town every four or five months so I can get beat to shit trying to kill monsters I don’t understand to save people I don’t even know? Because if you do, you’re wrong, Sammy. It isn’t fun, and I don’t want to do it; but there are already eleven dead kids in Arkadelphia, and there’s going to be a lot more of them if somebody doesn’t do something to stop this thing."
He was mad. He was so fucking mad he couldn’t see straight.
"Eleven kids, Sammy," he repeated, shaking his son by the arm again. "Eleven of them. Eleven kids who won’t ever enter a science fair, or be in a play, or bitch about not having the right fucking pair of shoes to wear so they look like everyone else in their God damned class. Eleven sets of parents who are going to spend the rest of their lives wondering what in the fuck they did wrong to lose their kid that way, wondering what in the fuck they could have done differently to save that kid, or to just die along with that kid so they didn’t have to keep living with that loss every day for the rest of their fucking lives."
He was beyond mad. His skin couldn’t decide if it was hot or cold, kept flashing back and forth between the two. His head was pounding like jungle drums out of a Tarzan movie; his blood, screaming through his veins like high pressure water through a fire hose.
"So tell me again what it is you’ve got so bad. Tell me again why it is so God damned unfair for you to miss your fucking soccer practice so I can try to figure out what this fucker is before it tears the heart out of kid number twelve and sets the unlucky little bastard on fire. Tell me again why that God damned perfect attendance certificate of yours is more important than keeping one more family from living through the unGodly hell of having a cop show up at their front door to tell them their son is never coming home again. That their daughter died screaming. That some fucking monster ate their kid’s heart and then burned what was left to a crisp so they don’t even have anything left to bury but ashes."
Sammy didn’t say a word. He just looked at him. He just looked at him.
"Come on, Sammy," John snarled, shaking him by the arm again. "Man up and spit it the fuck out. You’ve got my undivided attention here, so make good use of it. Bitch a little more about what a fucking rip your life is. Remind me again what a piece of shit dad I am for not caring enough about your job as chess club secretary to tell the next set of parents whose kid goes missing that they’re on their own. I’d love to help you out, but I can’t make it this week because my kid has to take notes about whose bishop took whose rook, and it wouldn’t really be fair to ask him to fucking sacrifice something that important just because your kid’s life hangs in the balance. Who the fuck do you think you are to ask that of him? What fucking right do you have to put your kid’s life over my kid’s chess club obligations?"
When John stopped to glare at him this time, Sammy did answer. "That’s not what I said," he protested quietly.
"Oh, I’m sorry. Did I misunderstand you son? Were you not saying let’s just unpack all this shit and stay here? Were you not saying fuck ’em, we don’t even know these people, so they’re on their own because you’ve got a soccer game in two weeks and the coach is counting on you to be there?"
Sammy didn’t answer that, but Dean did. "Come on, Dad," he said, his voice quiet in the dead silence.
"Take your ‘come on, Dad,’ and shove it up your ass, Dean. You keep the fuck out of this. This isn’t between you and me, this is between Sammy and me. We’re having a conversation here. It’s not an argument, it’s a debate, so if you don’t feel like you can keep your two cents to yourself, then get the fuck out. Take a break and go have a beer on me. There’s a six in the fridge and another in the garage, so have at it and God bless."
John didn’t take his glare off Sammy for even a second. Sammy stared back at him, but he didn’t say anything for so long John prompted, "Well? I’m not hearing any rebuttal here, son. Tell me what it is you want me to do. Make your case and let’s see how it plays. Because honestly? I’m sick to death of your fucking bellyaching. I’m sick to death of hearing how bad you have it, how much better your life would be if we just stayed in one place for awhile. You want to stay in one place for awhile? Fine. You want to stay here and just leave all those kids in Arkadelphia to fend for themselves because fuck em, we don’t even know them? Then go ahead and tell me that, Sammy. Go ahead and say you want me to turn my back on them, and maybe I’ll do it this time, if not so you can get your perfect attendance citation, then just so I can get a fucking break from your God damn selfish bullshit."
His blood pressure was through the roof. He was shaking he was so mad; could feel every beat of his heart in his temples, under his jaw, in his wrists. He still had hold of Sammy’s arm, but he didn’t shake him by it again because if he did, he might keep shaking the little bastard until his teeth fell out to make room for a fucking sense of empathy strong enough to let him see the world from somebody else’s perspective for a change.
And Sammy was still just looking at him. Just looking at him.
John returned his son’s patented expression of half "what did I do to you?" and half "fuck you!" with a glare of his own that had been known to curl grown soldiers up into fetal balls of "I give up." He was glaring at the kid so hard his eyeballs ached; but no matter how hard he glared, all he could see was the charred remains of those eleven kids in Arkadelphia, every one of them just about Sammy’s age, all of them wearing Sammy’s face, or Dean’s face, while they haunted him the way the kids he couldn’t save always haunted him by making him feel like they were his kids, by making him feel like losing them was the same thing as losing his kids.
He didn’t realize how hard his hand was clamped around Sammy’s arm until Sammy finally broke his silence and spoke. "You’re hurting me," was all he said.
"I’m hurting you?" John ground out between clenched teeth. He looked down, saw the bruises already starting to form on Sammy’s biceps. Bleeding out from under his fingers like silent accusations stained into pale skin, the sight of them broke up the thrall of his anger, derailed the detonation he’d tried to keep off the tracks altogether by holding his tongue for three long hours while Sammy bitchslapped him like a pro, trying to let the kid have his say, trying to let him get it out because John knew how unfair this was to him. He knew how upset Sammy was, how much more trouble Sammy was having uprooting himself than usual just because he’d sunk those roots in deep the moment they landed, secure in the knowledge that this was the second school in one year, so he could bet his whole wad that it was also going to be the last.
Because his dad had promised him that. His dad had promised he’d never have to be the new kid in class who had to prove himself all over again more than twice in any given school year.
John glared at his son for another three seconds before he let go of Sammy’s arm and shoved him off. Sammy stumbled away, took several steps to regain his balance before straightening back to a slow stand. Squaring his shoulders in belligerent defiance, he rubbed at the finger-shaped bruises already darkening the skin between his elbow and the sleeve of his tee-shirt, watching John from the far side of the room with a cold, blank expression that defied interpretation beyond simple outrage.
"Get out of here," John ordered, his voice brittle enough he thought it might break under the strain of speaking. "Dean and I’ll finish the packing ourselves. You go find somewhere to be that I don’t have to look at you."
Sammy watched John turn back to the box he was packing, waited until John had finished filling it and taped it shut before he said, "I’m not selfish. And I’m not a bastard." Then, without another word, Sammy turned and walked out of the room.
And John let him go. He grabbed another box, started stuffing crap into it with no regard to what went in or how. The room was empty before the box was even half full, but John taped it shut anyway, kicked it to the wall to sit with the others until they were ready to drag the lot of them out to the U-haul and stack them inside.
When he looked up, Dean was watching him with an expression twice as unreadable as his brother’s. "What?" John demanded.
Dean hesitated. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he acted like he wasn’t sure he should.
"If you have something to say, then spit it out," John ordered. "But be quick about it, because I am just about done listening to what a shit dad I am for trying to do the right thing here. I’ve had enough of that from your brother to last me a lifetime, but if you feel a need to pile on in the name of sibling solidarity, then get to it and get it over with before I change my mind and tell you to shove that up your ass, too."
Dean’s expression tightened with subtle lines of resentment, but when he spoke, his voice was quiet, calm; his tone, informative rather than punitive. "He isn’t just in the play, Dad. He has the lead in the play. And he didn’t try out just to be a drama dork. He has a crush on some girl in his chess club. She was too shy to try out by herself, and he’s too much of a pansy to just come out and say he likes her, so he pretended like he just happened to be trying out, too; so they could do it together if she wanted. And they both got in. He got the lead, and she plays the girl the lead ends up with at the end of the play. They even have some dorky little kiss at the end. On the cheek or something, but still a kiss."
The muscles along John’s jaw jumped. He didn’t say a word for several moments, just stood there listening to the echoes of the life his kid was living while John, himself, lived an entirely different life altogether. "I don’t really care why he’s throwing a pity party for himself," John said finally. "Kids are dying in Arkadelphia. Compared to that, whatever reasons Sammy might have for wanting to stay here don’t matter."
"They matter to Sammy," Dean said quietly.
John threw the tape dispenser so hard it put a hole in the drywall. Dean didn’t even flinch. John walked away without speaking again. He grabbed a cold one from the refrigerator and sucked it dry in three long pulls. When he was finished, he crumpled the can in one hand and two-pointed it into the open trash bag across the kitchen, then went looking for Sammy.
John found him sitting on the back steps, crying. He stood in the doorway for a full five count, just watching, then drew a deep breath, rolled his neck along his shoulders and stepped outside. When he sat down beside Sammy on the step, he half expected the kid to tell him to fuck off and die, but Sammy didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at him; didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way.
John sighed. Staring out across the backyard at nothing, he listened to his kid sniffle for several minutes before he made any move at all to address it. When it came time to shit or get off the pot, he reached over and put an arm around Sammy’s shoulders, pulled him in close despite the high risk that Sammy would take to a show of affection from him right now about the same way a cat takes to water.
But Sammy surprised him. He not only didn’t shrug off the gesture or struggle against it in any way, he actually accepted it the way it was offered: not an apology so much as a peace offering. Leaning into John’s side with one shoulder, Sammy let his head tilt the same direction until it, too, was resting against John’s ribs.
They sat together that way for several minutes, staring across the backyard like a couple of mute monkeys. Speak No Evil and Hear No Evil … who was playing which role being more a matter of perspective and timing than one of temperament.
"I’m not selfish," Sammy said finally. He didn’t look at John when he spoke, just kept staring across the yard like the chainlink fence twenty yards out held the secrets to the universe, and then some.
John sighed. "I know it’s not fair, Sammy. And I know why you resent it. But I don’t have any choice, here. I have to do this. I can’t just turn my back and let this thing keep killing kids when there’s a chance I can figure out how to stop it. And I can’t do that from here. I would if I could, but I can’t."
"I know," Sammy said.
"I’m sorry though," John added. "If that helps at all, I really am sorry."
Sammy looked up, squinted at John like he wasn’t quite sure he’d heard that correctly. "It’s okay," he said after a long beat. "I’m used to you yelling at me when we fight."
John smiled a little, shook his head and clarified, "About your play, son. I’m sorry about your play. I know it’s important to you, and I’m sorry you have to miss it."
"Oh." Sammy looked down again. He looked at his hands, picked at his fingers.
"Dean says you have the lead," John offered when Sammy hadn’t spoken for some time.
Sammy nodded.
"Probably have all your lines memorized already, huh."
"Most of them."
"Bet you would have been good."
Sammy shrugged. "Maybe. I guess."
"I would have liked to see it," John said.
Sammy looked at him again, squinted again like he wasn’t quite sure he believed that either. "You’d go to a play if I was in it?" he asked like he was pretty sure there was a trick to it he just wasn’t seeing.
"Absolutely," John deadpanned. "I’m a big fan of the theatre. Me and Dean, both."
Sammy snorted. "Yeah. Right. Dean calls me a drama dork."
"I’m sure he calls you that with love."
Sammy fell silent. He went back to picking at his fingers.
"But yeah," John said after a couple moments. "To answer your question, I would have gone." Then he corrected himself. "Would go. Maybe next time, okay?"
Sammy nodded.
John wasn’t sure what else to say. Sammy took care of that for him. "How come it always has to be us?" he asked quietly.
"Because there isn’t anybody else, Sammy. I wish there was, but there isn’t."
Sammy nodded, still looking at his hands. "Okay," he said.
John’s arm was still around Sammy’s shoulders; Sammy was still leaning into him, his head resting against the side of John’s chest like he was too tired of fighting with his old man to hold it up for himself any more. On impulse, John leaned over, kissed the top of his son’s head and left his lips there, resting against Sammy’s skull as he said, "I’m sorry, son. I really am so fucking sorry."
Sammy sniffled. "I know," he agreed.
They sat that way for another five minutes-Sammy leaning into his dad’s side, picking at his fingers; John with one arm slung around Sammy’s shoulders, his own head bowed, his lips pressed to the top of Sammy’s skull-before Sammy spoke again.
"There’s a girl in my chess club," he offered out of the blue. "We were supposed to be in the play together."
"Sounds like that would have been fun," John said.
"At the end of the play, her character kisses my character right before the curtain comes down. It’s only on the cheek and all, but she’s really shy-the girl, not the character-and if I’m not in the play, then she’ll have to kiss a total stranger in front of the whole audience. In front of the whole audience, Dad, which would be really embarrassing, even if it is only on the cheek. That’s the reason I didn’t want to leave, not because I’m selfish."
"I know, son."
"I just didn’t want her to have to kiss a total stranger in front of all those people."
"I can see where that would be difficult."
"And I wanted to have a girlfriend," Sammy added. "Even if it was just in a play. Even if it was just our characters who ended up boyfriend and girlfriend at the end instead of really me and her, although that might have happened, too, especially if she liked kissing me in the play."
"I’m sure she would have."
"Liked kissing me?" Sammy asked.
"If she was smart," John agreed.
"She is," Sammy assured him. "Really smart. And nice, too. But mostly, really, really smart; which is what I like best about her."
John swallowed hard, closed his eyes. "Pretty?" he asked.
"Yeah. Really pretty."
"What’s her name?"
"Jessica."
"Jessica?"
"Yeah."
"Nice name," John said. "Sounds like she would have made a great girlfriend."
"She likes me," Sammy said. "And she thinks I’m smart, too."
"You are smart."
"Yeah, but she likes that about me. And she thinks I’m cute, too. She told her best friend Claire that, and Claire told me, even though I don’t think she was supposed to. But she did. She said Jessica thinks I’m really cute, in addition to being really smart."
John smiled a little. "I think you’re cute, too."
Sammy elbowed him in the ribs. "Not cute like that. She doesn’t think I’m a pansy, Dad."
John held onto Sammy a little tighter. "I don’t think you’re a pansy either, Sam."
Sammy didn’t respond to that for several seconds. Finally, his voice so quiet John could hardly hear it, he asked, "Do you really think I’m selfish?"
"No," John said firmly. "I don’t."
"I don’t mean to be selfish," Sammy said, his voice still so soft it was barely audible.
"You’re not selfish, Sammy. I shouldn’t have said it that way."
"I just wanted to have a girlfriend," Sammy whispered.
John closed his eyes again, but opened them before he spoke. "I know you do. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things for yourself. Good things. Normal things."
"I just wanted to stay in one place for awhile," Sammy said. "It’s really hard to make friends - especially girlfriends - when you move every time you get to know anybody well enough for them to start liking you that way." He looked up at John, blinked tears out of his eyes. "I’m not complaining or calling you a crap dad. I just really wanted to stay in one place for awhile. Can’t I just tell you that without it being me being selfish or not caring if kids die?"
"Yes, Sammy. You can tell me that."
"Every time I do, you think I’m calling you a crap dad," Sammy pointed out. "But I’m not. I’m just trying to tell you what I want because sometimes I don’t think you and Dean even know what a normal life is. I don’t think you and Dean even realize that nobody else moves around all the time, that nobody else can pack up everything they own and shove most of it in the car without it getting too crowded to drive. I know that’s the way we do it, but that’s not the way everybody else does it, Dad. Most people stay in one place their whole lives. Or if not for their whole lives, then at least for more than a couple of months. That’s the way that’s normal, Dad. Most people don’t move around that much at all, probably because its so hard to make any friends if you’re always moving to someplace new, even if you do have a good reason for doing it."
"I wish it could be different, Sammy," John said. "I wish we could settle down in one place and have the normal life you want, but that isn’t the way it’s ever going to be."
Sammy sighed. "Because there isn’t anybody else to save those kids but you?" he asked, his tone resigned now rather than resentful.
"Because there isn’t anybody else to save them but us," John corrected. "Us, Sammy. You and me and Dean. The three of us are a package deal. We’re a team, so we stay together so we can accomplish something worthwhile and stay safe while we’re doing it."
"Because that’s what we have to do," Sammy added quietly. "We have to save people who don’t have anybody else to save them. That’s our family business."
"I wish it could be different," John said again.
"I know," Sammy said. "But it isn’t, because they don’t have anybody else to count on but us." He shifted against John’s side, twisted his neck so he could look up, meet his dad’s eyes. "Like me and Dean with you," he added.
John frowned at that. "What?" he asked.
"Like me and Dean with you," Sammy repeated. "Like us only having you to count on, even though sometimes you wish it was different."
John felt like he’d been gut shot. He felt like someone was trying to rip him in half. "Kind of like that," he agreed with an effort. "Except I don’t wish you and Dean counting on me was different."
"Sometimes you do," Sammy said. "But it isn’t. You’re the only person we have, so you have to be there for us even when you don’t want to be."
"I always want to be there for you, Sammy. I’m your father."
"But sometimes you want to be selfish, too, and you can’t be. Because we don’t have anybody else but you, so you always have to do what’s right, even when you don’t want to. Like letting me stay here because you know I want to instead of going to help someone else we don’t even know. That’s why you said you’re sorry. That’s why you wish it was different. Because you want to do that, but you can’t." Sammy studied John’s face, trying to see something there, trying to understand it. "Right?" he asked finally.
John didn’t answer him. He looked away, looked across the yard again to stare at the chain link fence that not only didn’t hold the secrets to the universe, it didn’t even have a simple answer for his ten-going-on-twenty-seven-year-old kid.
Or if it did, it wasn’t giving it up.
"Why don’t you come back inside and help us finish packing," John said finally.
"Okay." Sammy reached up to wipe his eyes with the back of one hand as he stood. There were several finger-shaped bruises already turning to an ugly purple-black on his upper arm. They didn’t seem to bother him much, but they bothered John to the bone.
He’d marked his son in anger. The failure of that tasted like ash on his tongue. You selfish bastard. The words festered in his memory, condemning him in ways Sammy never could, in ways Dean never would. You’re hurting me. John closed his eyes, rubbed at his face to hide tears he couldn’t afford to let fall. It doesn’t matter. It matters to Sammy. He felt a hollow spot inside him twist, felt it echo with the absence of a woman who would have never let him hurt his own sons to teach them, who would have never let him damage his children to save them.
"Dad?" Sammy ventured after more than a minute of silence.
John scrubbed at the five o’clock shadow seeded along his jaw, then dropped the hand away from his face and stood. He glanced down, met the serious upturned gaze of a child who’d drawn Mary’s forgiving soul as a counterbalance to the inheritance of his father’s damnedable nature. "Sorry about the arm, bud."
Sammy shrugged. "It’s okay," he said, his forgiveness easy and unconditional. "It doesn’t hurt, and I kind of deserved it."
The words cut deep, but John smiled through them. "You didn’t deserve it," he said. "You might have deserved a kick in the pants, but you didn’t deserve that, and I’m sorry."
"Okay," Sammy said again. Then, "Let’s go finish packing. Then, after we’re done, can we go eat pizza?"
Pizza. That was Sammy’s idea of salve for the soul. There wasn’t much in the world that couldn’t be solved, or at least made significantly better, by pizza.
"Sure," John agreed. "Pizza sounds like a winner." He dropped one hand to Sammy’s head as they walked back into the house, doing the best he could to vanquish the image of eleven children charred to a scorch in his mind, every one of them nothing more than a theoretical abstract but for the fact that they could have been one of his sons.
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