SPN FIC - Worthy
My dad wore a uniform back in the day (1947-1949), although he never saw combat. My uncle (who always called me "Flash") was wounded in Germany during WWII. I know at least one of you has served us, represented us, honored us -- and I'm sure a lot of you are related to Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, National Guard. Be proud: you deserve it.
At the same time, I want to take a minute to give a nod to folks who don't get their own holiday -- police, fire, emergency services. And to those who don't wear a uniform but are heroes just the same.
CHARACTERS: Dean and RJ
GENRE: Gen
TIMELINE: November, 2031
RATING: G
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1327 words
"Mom says you're a hero too. So why can't I make a picture of you?"
WORTHY
By Carol Davis
"I don't get what I'm s'posed to DO," RJ sputters, and his tone of voice is so utterly familiar it gives Dean a little bit of a head rush. Forty years drop away like half-melted snow sliding off the flashing at the edge of the roof, and it's the Nineties again. He's sitting on a lumpy, food-and-cat-piss-stained couch in a ratty apartment in God-knows-where, Nebraska or Utah or West Virginia, maybe, trying to watch some TV while Sam yaps on about how life itself is one massive assault on his sensibilities.
"Dude," Dean says softly. "What."
It's not a question, it's an invitation. As Dean lays down the remote with which he's just muted the TV, his son comes shuffling in, his sock-covered feet making no sound against the smooth boards of the hardwood floor. He oughta have slippers on, Dean thinks, even though until a couple of years ago he kept a pretty firm grip on the belief that slippers were invented for girls, or the terminally ill.
"What," Dean says again as RJ comes close to the couch - which is leather, and not stained with anything at all.
"Dunno what I'm s'posed to do," RJ mutters crossly.
"About what?"
"The project."
Project? Dean rolls that back through his mind. He keeps tabs on these things - on math tests and hundred-word essays and leaf collections, the same stuff he helped Sam with four decades ago, although this time around it's fun, honestly is fun, because… Well, it's nothing he can put his finger on, really. Other than that finding out what he knows and doesn't know, when he's not being graded on any of it (except maybe, a little bit, now and then, by the guy who's always been his least forgiving critic), is kind of cool. He can talk about leaves with some authority. And he's not too bad at multiplication tables.
They did the leaves last year. The trees are pretty much naked now, which makes it unlikely the kids are doing a revisit to that particular thing.
"About -?" he prompts.
"The veterans."
Oh. Right. It's November. "Veterans Day?"
"Yeah." Before Dean can respond, RJ flops down onto the couch and scowls ferociously at the fireplace, arms folded tight across his small, flannel-shirted chest. "I'm s'posed to make a picture and tell a story about a veteran. I don’t KNOW any of those. How'm I s'posed to do it if I don't KNOW anybody?"
"Yeah, you do."
"Who?" RJ challenges.
"My dad was a vet. And Lizzie's birth dad."
"They're dead."
"Uncle Bobby."
RJ goes on staring into the fire, his chin and lower lip jutted out toward the flames. After a minute his left foot in its droopy brown sock begins to metronome back and forth, and as it moves, something that wouldn't have been clear to him forty years ago, because he was only a kid himself, begins to take shape in Dean's mind: there's a problem here that's got nothing to do with people being dead or living in South Dakota. South Dakota's reachable by phone, The Other Side of the Veil not so much, but even if Heaven had cell towers, there's an issue here that's got nothing to do with the ability to shoot the shit one-on-one with an actual, honest-to-God veteran of the armed services.
"You feel like tellin' me?" Dean asks.
"It's not fair."
"What's not?"
"That I can't say."
It's living with women that's done it. Back when it was just him and Sam, and Sam pulled this kind of crazy, a good smack upside the head, or a wedgie, or threatening to flush whatever Sam's most valued possession happened to be, never failed to produce a geyser of information. These days? Patience is a virtue.
You wait, they talk.
So he waits.
And RJ sits there making faces at the fireplace. Above the mantel the flat-panel TV goes on playing the Bruce Lee movie that's more cheese now than anything else, relevant to practically nothing. Back in the day, Dean thinks, Bruce was walking, talking cool. These days it's somebody else - somebody who was born long after Bruce ended up six feet under. Somebody who'd probably respond to the name Bruce Lee with a puzzled, "Huh?"
That's sad. That's just sad.
After a while RJ glances over, takes a long, long look at his old man, then goes back to studying the fire. "Not fair," he mutters.
Dean reaches over and ruffles his son's soft, shaggy hair, then presses a kiss to the top of his head. "You wanna tell me?" he asks.
A gust of wind rattles the windows, presses against the wall hard enough to make it creak.
"How come it's different," RJ says with a vehemence in his voice that doesn't show up very often - a tone that's related to Sammy's particular brand of righteous indignation but seems a couple of steps removed. It's those women, Dean thinks: the ones who've taught this little boy that sometimes, when a thing is just plain wrong, you need to say so. And then you need to go fix it. "How come?"
"What?"
"They had a uniform and you didn't. So it's different. I could write a story about Uncle Bobby or Grandpa John or Lizzie's other dad, but not about you? Just 'cause you didn't have a uniform? You fought the bad things."
"I -"
"Mom says you're a hero too. So why can't I make a picture of you?"
"Because it's a secret," Dean says quietly. "Remember?"
"But why?"
The wind throws another full-body tackle against the house - but it won't win. This place has been here for too long. It was built to last.
With an eye on the window Dean retrieves the remote and shuts off the TV, then slides an arm around his son and hugs him in close. "People've got enough to be scared of, buddy," he says in a murmur. "We don't want to give 'em another thing to worry about. Right?"
"But -"
"I'm good with it. Okay? Don't need any medals."
"But -"
"Sshh," Dean says, and snuggles his son against his side, flannel shirt to flannel shirt. He uses one foot to haul the ottoman up close to the couch and stretches his legs out across its smooth leather surface, nudging RJ until he matches the move, his blue-jeaned legs lined up parallel with Dean's as far as the knee.
Those women, he thinks: they taught this kid not to give up. But maybe he had a part in that as well. Yeah, he fought. He kicked some serious butt. Got his own butt kicked more than once.
Learned a long time ago what it is that's worth fighting for. Didn't need a uniform for that.
But he was raised by somebody who used to wear one - somebody who, when push came to shove, laid down his life for him. He was left a family by somebody else who wore one. And he's been hauled out of a lot of tight spots by a third.
Kind of tough sometimes, he thinks, figuring out who owes what to whom.
So maybe it's time to find out some more of what he doesn't know.
"What do you say we call Uncle Bobby?" he suggests, and it's weird, how he feels guilty and embarrassed and sad and exhilarated and a little bit exhausted all at the same time. "Bet he's got some stories he can tell you."
"But I want to write about you."
"Maybe someday. Okay? Maybe someday."
RJ sits up straighter, looks long and hard at his father. Ready to kick butt. Willing to kick butt. What he's thinking doesn't show much on his face. Finally, he nods - but it doesn't seem like a surrender, doesn't seem anything like he's quitting. More like he's biding his time.
"Okay," he says, then adds, "Can I still be proud of you?"
"Yeah," Dean replies softly. "You can."
* * * * *