SPN FIC - At First Sight
He started out angry. Started out the day, the week, the whole damn year. The few times in his life he's bothered to make a New Year's resolution, he learned pretty quickly that it was doomed to fail. Keep the house clean, cut down on the cussing, eat better - no use to any of it. The fools who say they're going to lose weight, or quit smoking? Jack Winchester could tell 'em a thing or two.
CHARACTERS: John, wee!Dean, Jack Winchester (OMC-ish; John's father)
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1400 words
AT FIRST SIGHT
By Carol Davis
He started out angry. Started out the day, the week, the whole damn year. The few times in his life he's bothered to make a New Year's resolution, he learned pretty quickly that it was doomed to fail. Keep the house clean, cut down on the cussing, eat better - no use to any of it. The fools who say they're going to lose weight, or quit smoking? Jack Winchester could tell 'em a thing or two.
This time?
This time around, it's her fault, hers and the doc's. Calm down, they said. You want to learn to let things roll off your back, they said. You don't want to aggravate your blood pressure.
He got up to discover there was no coffee in the house. Left the house to discover the world was slicked with ice. Fell on his way to the car. When he got to the garage he discovered he was there alone. Nobody there to help him out, to go pump gas, nobody around to yell at. So he yelled at the walls. Let 'em have it. By rights the paint should have scorched right off, because he shot out a string of words he hasn't used all at one time since…well, who the hell knows. Libby would have had his ass if she'd heard him. Not Mary, though; if he lets one rip, the worst she'll do is crinkle an eyebrow. Not even that, if it's a word she uses herself.
That's gonna change, he supposes. In a couple weeks, that'll change.
When he runs out of words (and out of steam, pretty much; he sinks down onto the chair behind the cash register wondering why the New Year doesn’t start in some kinder month, like April) he reaches for the phone to find out why the hell John's nowhere to be seen. Gets no answer. The phone rings and rings and nobody picks up. And don't that just fuckin' figure. He almost slams the receiver back into the cradle, then doesn't.
The hell, he thinks. The Sam flamin' HELL.
There are no customers, because the weather's so outright bad. He sits behind the register and watches out the window as cars shimmy and slide on the ice. One of them spins all the way around, ends up pointing back the way it came, then slides into a nice little Mustang parked at the curb. He can't see whether there's damage, can't hear any sound of metal giving way. Maybe it's just a bump.
Bump, he thinks, and that triggers something.
It takes him almost an hour to get to the hospital, and he hopes to sweet merciful Christ it didn't take them that long, that they didn't get stranded somewhere along the way. That big boat of an Impala John bought is good on slick roads, and John's been driving since he was old enough to reach the pedals. As much as he can, Jack looks for that car, looks for it slid off to the side, crunched up with something else, stuck in a parking lot or a driveway. Even when he finally careens into the hospital lot he doesn't see it, so maybe he's wrong, maybe they're not here at all. Maybe their phone line came down, and John's hunkered up at home with Mary. That could certainly be, that could definitely be, but this year has been ass-backwards and upside down right from the get-go. There's nothing good about the fuckin' year at all, and Jack believes that even more fervently when he falls again getting out of the car. It's a damn hospital, he thinks as he slips and slides, gets onto one knee and flops onto the pavement as the leg shoots off to the side. Too much trouble for somebody to be watching out the damn WINDOW?
He doesn't think, Somebody to give an old man a hand. He's not that old. Even if his name's gonna change.
He catches a glimpse of himself reflected in the glass as he stumbles up to the entrance, sees someone crimson with embarrassment and rage and yeah, there's fear mixed in, there's fear that his family's all been lost. "Sir?" he hears somebody say as he forges ahead, batters his way down a long hallway toward a sign he can barely see through his fogged-up glasses. "Sir? Sir!" they call after him. "Are you all right? Sir?"
Maybe he should try the ER.
But no. NO. He's not going there. He's going on upstairs.
His glasses unfog after a minute or two, but he's lightheaded. Scared. The storm, that goddamn storm. Ice all over everything. He has to fumble for the elevator button, can't manage to point at it so he knuckles it instead, jabs at it until it surrenders and lights up. The warmth, after the chill outside, makes his nose run, and he swipes at it with a sleeve, realizes then that he never bothered to put his coat back on when he left the garage.
"Sir!" somebody blurts out, and it startles him so much that he spins around. Collides with something big and solid and almost loses his footing.
"Dad," John's voice says. "Dad, what the hell."
It's John he smacked into, John who's holding him with both hands, John who's frowning and peering at him. His knee hurts, he realizes, although it's anybody's guess which fall did that job. When he looks down he sees the big, ragged hole in his pants. Some blood, too. He tries to swat John away so he can sit down somewhere and evaluate the damage but John just hangs on tighter. When a nurse asks, "Is he all right?" John says, "Yes, we're fine. I think we're fine," and Jack wonders what exactly is fine about this situation. He needs food, he thinks, food and some coffee and maybe a good long nap on the couch.
He's got no idea whether he locked the garage when he left.
John holds on for a while, and that's annoying as all damnation, having his boy hold on to him in the middle of the hallway like he's some addled old man who can't stand on his own two feet. When John leans in closer and actually hugs him Jack jerks back and sputters, "Don't start with that."
"Dad," John says.
The boy's crying, and there's no need for that, Jack didn't raise him that way. No need at all to cry over a couple of skinned knees.
Unless she's hurt. Is she hurt? he wonders frantically and spins around, tries to look. When he gets back to looking at John's face the boy's got tears cascading down his cheeks, but he doesn't seem…no, not upset. "What?" Jack demands. "WHAT?"
There's a nurse close by. Holding something that she transfers over to John.
"Dad," John says with tears dripping off his chin. "Dad, it's a boy."
It's…
It's a baby. Wrapped up tight in a blue-striped blanket, with a little knit cap on its head. Looks to be sound asleep. Its little face is scrunched up and crimson, like it's madder than hell at something. Lemme tell you, Jack thinks. Lemme tell you about…
"Dean," John says softly.
"Dean," Jack repeats.
He stretches out a hand, a muddy, scraped-up hand, and gently touches the blanket with the tips of his fingers. The baby goes on sleeping, mad as hell in its little baby dreams, but its face shifts. Like something's going on that it - he, HE - might want to investigate later on.
"After Mary's mother," John says.
Some wind goes out of Jack's lungs, and along with it, like he's drained a bad wound, everything that was bad about this year. The baby's face pales down a little at the same time, and the tiny starfish of a hand that's pushed up against his chin unfolds, drifts up until he's cupping his own cheek.
Like he's Jack Benny.
It's been months since Jack Winchester laughed at anything. He laughs now, long and loud. Laughs harder when the baby's face shifts into a crooked grin.
"You okay, Dad?" John asks after a minute. "What happened to you?"
Jack's gaze shifts from his grandson to his son. Then back down to that poor, defenseless baby his fool son named after a woman. "Nothing that matters," he says on a long, slow exhale. "Nothing I can't fix."
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