Sam Winchester birthday ficlet
Title: Counting On it
Author: dotfic
Rating: Gen (het references), PG, various ages
W/C: ~750
Disclaimer: Not mine, Eric Kripke's.
a/n: Written in honor of Sam Winchester's birthday, using the 15minuteficlets Word prompt #193. Lyrics by the Beatles. I cheated and ran over the time limit. Just a little, I swear; the idea got away from me. Unbeta'd but spellchecked.
Dad starts to cut the cake, but Sammy has other ideas. He plunges his hands through the gooey, chocolate icing and grabs himself a large chunk of cake.
Dean slides off his chair, clutching his sides laughing as Sam shoves the cake in his mouth.
"No, Sam," Dad says. "That's not how we do it."
But three years old wants to do things its own way, and when Dad tries to pull the rest of the chunk away from him, Sam screams at a decibel level that would make a banshee jealous.
* * *
The year Sam turns seven, Dad forgets. Well, maybe he doesn't forget it's Sam's birthday, but he forgets cake, and there aren't any presents. He'd been busy hunting and so Sam forgives him but makes up his mind that if there isn't any cake and presents when he turns eight, he'll make a stink.
After dinner, when Dad goes off to his room to rest up for another night of hunting, Dean sits down next to Sam and hands him a package of twinkies.
"I know it's not cake, but it's real close, right?"
"Rrhgmph," Sam says with his mouth full.
* * *
Dad and Dean are late. Sam fidgets in his chair, gets up to walk over to Pastor Jim's front window again. The sky is burning an angry red and the blue is fading into blackness.
"Hey, Sam, they'll be fine. Sit down and let's take another look at your birthday present."
Sam glances over at the table where Pastor Jim is examining a piece of the model plane kit, holding up a wing or the tail. Small plastic paint bottles and glue and brushes are all over the table but he hardly sees them or the brightly colored stripe along the body of the plane.
He doesn't care. He's not even sorry he didn't get the nintendo he'd been begging for.
When he hears the purr of the Impala's engine coming down the street, Sam's out of the front door with a bang, and when Dad and Dean get out of the car, neither of them bleeding, and Dean smiling and singing today it's your birthday, it's my birthday too, yeah he feels like he could maybe fly.
* * *
On his next birthday, his eleventh, he almost forgets, doesn't ask for anything, his mind too occupied with the ghost he's helping Dad and Dean banish. It's Sam's job to lay the salt lines and he wants to get this right.
After the job's done, they stop at a grocery store and Dad goes inside. He comes out with a chocolate cake. They divvy it up and eat it off of paper plates in the hotel room, and Sam thinks that when you can get chocolate cake, that's good, but he's not going to count on it.
* * *
Jess spoils him. She buys him an expensive watch, too expensive, but he can't refuse it without hurting her. His friends bring him smaller gag gifts. He feels himself flushing, doesn't know what to say while they crowd around him in the bar and Jess makes a toast.
It's the happiest birthday he can remember in a long time and he's almost afraid to enjoy it.
He decides Jess's kisses are better than chocolate cake.
* * *
"Here, dude." Dean shoves a package, something in a K-Mart bag, across the diner table at him. "It's not a birthday present," he adds hastily. "You just...down doesn't begin to cover it. I thought you could use cheering up."
Sam unwraps it. The paper crinkles, reminding him of the packaging on twinkies.
Inside there's a DVD, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
His chest aches and he reaches for his soda and takes several long gulps. He honestly hadn't wanted a birthday. Not this year, and probably not for a few years to come. Not with the memory of last year's birthday so fresh, the weight of the watch Jess gave him much lighter than the memory of her burning on the ceiling.
He's afraid to hope for chocolate cake, for twinkies, for friends in a bar, for long, hot slow kisses that taste like apple martinis and warmth and home.
But their laptop plays DVD's, and there's nothing to hunt at the moment.
Dean reciting lines along with the movie, imitating the accents and everything, is almost enough to make him laugh.
Some things, he realizes, he does count on.
the word is: inhibition
Author: dotfic
Rating: Gen (het references), PG, various ages
W/C: ~750
Disclaimer: Not mine, Eric Kripke's.
a/n: Written in honor of Sam Winchester's birthday, using the 15minuteficlets Word prompt #193. Lyrics by the Beatles. I cheated and ran over the time limit. Just a little, I swear; the idea got away from me. Unbeta'd but spellchecked.
Dad starts to cut the cake, but Sammy has other ideas. He plunges his hands through the gooey, chocolate icing and grabs himself a large chunk of cake.
Dean slides off his chair, clutching his sides laughing as Sam shoves the cake in his mouth.
"No, Sam," Dad says. "That's not how we do it."
But three years old wants to do things its own way, and when Dad tries to pull the rest of the chunk away from him, Sam screams at a decibel level that would make a banshee jealous.
* * *
The year Sam turns seven, Dad forgets. Well, maybe he doesn't forget it's Sam's birthday, but he forgets cake, and there aren't any presents. He'd been busy hunting and so Sam forgives him but makes up his mind that if there isn't any cake and presents when he turns eight, he'll make a stink.
After dinner, when Dad goes off to his room to rest up for another night of hunting, Dean sits down next to Sam and hands him a package of twinkies.
"I know it's not cake, but it's real close, right?"
"Rrhgmph," Sam says with his mouth full.
* * *
Dad and Dean are late. Sam fidgets in his chair, gets up to walk over to Pastor Jim's front window again. The sky is burning an angry red and the blue is fading into blackness.
"Hey, Sam, they'll be fine. Sit down and let's take another look at your birthday present."
Sam glances over at the table where Pastor Jim is examining a piece of the model plane kit, holding up a wing or the tail. Small plastic paint bottles and glue and brushes are all over the table but he hardly sees them or the brightly colored stripe along the body of the plane.
He doesn't care. He's not even sorry he didn't get the nintendo he'd been begging for.
When he hears the purr of the Impala's engine coming down the street, Sam's out of the front door with a bang, and when Dad and Dean get out of the car, neither of them bleeding, and Dean smiling and singing today it's your birthday, it's my birthday too, yeah he feels like he could maybe fly.
* * *
On his next birthday, his eleventh, he almost forgets, doesn't ask for anything, his mind too occupied with the ghost he's helping Dad and Dean banish. It's Sam's job to lay the salt lines and he wants to get this right.
After the job's done, they stop at a grocery store and Dad goes inside. He comes out with a chocolate cake. They divvy it up and eat it off of paper plates in the hotel room, and Sam thinks that when you can get chocolate cake, that's good, but he's not going to count on it.
* * *
Jess spoils him. She buys him an expensive watch, too expensive, but he can't refuse it without hurting her. His friends bring him smaller gag gifts. He feels himself flushing, doesn't know what to say while they crowd around him in the bar and Jess makes a toast.
It's the happiest birthday he can remember in a long time and he's almost afraid to enjoy it.
He decides Jess's kisses are better than chocolate cake.
* * *
"Here, dude." Dean shoves a package, something in a K-Mart bag, across the diner table at him. "It's not a birthday present," he adds hastily. "You just...down doesn't begin to cover it. I thought you could use cheering up."
Sam unwraps it. The paper crinkles, reminding him of the packaging on twinkies.
Inside there's a DVD, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
His chest aches and he reaches for his soda and takes several long gulps. He honestly hadn't wanted a birthday. Not this year, and probably not for a few years to come. Not with the memory of last year's birthday so fresh, the weight of the watch Jess gave him much lighter than the memory of her burning on the ceiling.
He's afraid to hope for chocolate cake, for twinkies, for friends in a bar, for long, hot slow kisses that taste like apple martinis and warmth and home.
But their laptop plays DVD's, and there's nothing to hunt at the moment.
Dean reciting lines along with the movie, imitating the accents and everything, is almost enough to make him laugh.
Some things, he realizes, he does count on.
the word is: inhibition