SPN FIC - Clean
If you're a bone-weary dad on the road with two little boys, with heaven-knows-what out hiding out there in the dark... is it too much to ask that the damn bathtub be clean? Is it???
(And if you just read that and thought, "OMG...it's about John hitting his kids" -- you'd be dead wrong.)
CHARACTERS: John, wee!Dean, baby!Sam
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 845 words
CLEAN
By Carol Davis
The boys need a bath.
Warm bath.
Nice warm bath'll calm them down, make them drowsy. Wash off the souring aroma of spilled milk and tunafish, of course. That's a plus. Get rid of the stickiness on their hands and faces. She wouldn't put them to bed sticky, wouldn't have even considered it. If she wasn't up to the task of being Bather-in-Chief, was tired to the bone or balled up with cramps, she'd summon him, turn the task over to her second in command. Eyes half closed now, he can almost hear her murmuring over his shoulder.
Bath.
Nodding, he shuffles into the bathroom, stepping over the spread-out blanket on the floor that's currently serving as Sam's playpen to get there. Dean looks at him curiously as he passes; he's not entirely sure the boy can tell time, but it's full dark outside, which means it's past bedtime, and surely Dean can figure that much out.
Nice warm…
"Shit," he mutters under his breath. "For all the goddamn -"
He picked this motel because it looked reasonably well kept up. The office was tidy and warm; the room didn't smell of anything egregious (garbage, mildew, cigarettes), and the sheets, when he yanked off the bedspread to look at them, were reasonably new, mostly unfrayed, minus any visible stains. The wallpaper's lifting at the seams in a few places, but that's nobody's idea of a danger signal. The room's fine, he told the clerk. Fine for a weary father traveling with two little boys.
He never bothered to look at the tub, tucked in behind a translucent shower curtain.
Sam was born, he figured, around the last time this tub was cleaned. And God knows what's been soaking in it since then.
If the desk clerk were a man, John would likely yank him halfway across the counter and read him a riot act that would leave him ghost-pale and shaking. He'd very much like for it to be a man, so he could pull the plug on the fury that's building inside him and let somebody else handle a measure of it, like bleeding the steam off an overheated boiler. But it's a woman, chubby and gray-haired, rosy-cheeked, pleasant.
She beams sweetly at him and he can't yell.
Would like to throw himself off a ten-story building, but he can't yell.
"Housekeeping goes home at six," she tells him mournfully, after he's explained (in a very few, mostly bitten-off words) what the problem is.
"Key," he says.
"I'm sorry? What?"
"Give me the key. To the housekeeping closet."
Clearly, that's a demand she's never heard before. Her forehead wrinkles deeply, turning her into a pink-sweatered shar-pei, and her mouth works silently. Behind her, in a room that's some sort of lounge for the staff, Boss Hogg is yelping at the Duke boys.
He like to be watching that show, he thinks. He'd like to be sitting in his recliner with the footrest up, a cold beer in his hand and a bowl of popcorn within reach, watching that frigging show.
"I don't -" she says.
"Lady. I just need the key. Is there something in there worth stealing? Do I look like I travel around, stealing busted-to-shit vacuum cleaners? I want to clean the damn tub. How about you give me a break."
Maybe the answer's as simple as, she wants to get back to the TV.
He doesn't much care what the answer is.
The boys both blink at him when he returns to the room, loaded down with cleansers and brushes, an oversized sponge, and a new shower curtain, still in the package. Of course they think it's a game, and there's a little bit of sulking and whining when they're not invited to participate - but they've got the good sense to stay where they are, sitting on a spread-out plaid blanket that makes a good racecourse for Dean's half-dozen Matchbox cars.
The housekeeping staff is probably a gaggle of teenage girls. Maybe a couple of middle-aged Hispanic women. They could be diligent workers; maybe they're not. At this point, who they are and how hard they're willing to work makes no difference. They don't have the shoulders that come from thousands of push-ups done silently in the middle of the night, the one thing John can do without waking his boys to burn off a little of the unending rage inside him, to bring that overheating boiler back down from the red zone.
Cleaning, he discovers quickly, does the job even better.
When he's finished, the tub gleams like it's brand-new. Throws off a shine they can probably see from space.
Drenched with sweat, but satisfied, he runs clean hot water and sponges away any remaining traces of the cleansers, then puts the bottles and cans on the top shelf of the closet, where the boys can't reach.
Finally, he lifts the little chrome lever that plugs the drain and turns on the tap. Tips a little shampoo into the water to create some bubbles.
"Bath time," he tells his sons.
* * * * *
(And if you just read that and thought, "OMG...it's about John hitting his kids" -- you'd be dead wrong.)
CHARACTERS: John, wee!Dean, baby!Sam
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 845 words
CLEAN
By Carol Davis
The boys need a bath.
Warm bath.
Nice warm bath'll calm them down, make them drowsy. Wash off the souring aroma of spilled milk and tunafish, of course. That's a plus. Get rid of the stickiness on their hands and faces. She wouldn't put them to bed sticky, wouldn't have even considered it. If she wasn't up to the task of being Bather-in-Chief, was tired to the bone or balled up with cramps, she'd summon him, turn the task over to her second in command. Eyes half closed now, he can almost hear her murmuring over his shoulder.
Bath.
Nodding, he shuffles into the bathroom, stepping over the spread-out blanket on the floor that's currently serving as Sam's playpen to get there. Dean looks at him curiously as he passes; he's not entirely sure the boy can tell time, but it's full dark outside, which means it's past bedtime, and surely Dean can figure that much out.
Nice warm…
"Shit," he mutters under his breath. "For all the goddamn -"
He picked this motel because it looked reasonably well kept up. The office was tidy and warm; the room didn't smell of anything egregious (garbage, mildew, cigarettes), and the sheets, when he yanked off the bedspread to look at them, were reasonably new, mostly unfrayed, minus any visible stains. The wallpaper's lifting at the seams in a few places, but that's nobody's idea of a danger signal. The room's fine, he told the clerk. Fine for a weary father traveling with two little boys.
He never bothered to look at the tub, tucked in behind a translucent shower curtain.
Sam was born, he figured, around the last time this tub was cleaned. And God knows what's been soaking in it since then.
If the desk clerk were a man, John would likely yank him halfway across the counter and read him a riot act that would leave him ghost-pale and shaking. He'd very much like for it to be a man, so he could pull the plug on the fury that's building inside him and let somebody else handle a measure of it, like bleeding the steam off an overheated boiler. But it's a woman, chubby and gray-haired, rosy-cheeked, pleasant.
She beams sweetly at him and he can't yell.
Would like to throw himself off a ten-story building, but he can't yell.
"Housekeeping goes home at six," she tells him mournfully, after he's explained (in a very few, mostly bitten-off words) what the problem is.
"Key," he says.
"I'm sorry? What?"
"Give me the key. To the housekeeping closet."
Clearly, that's a demand she's never heard before. Her forehead wrinkles deeply, turning her into a pink-sweatered shar-pei, and her mouth works silently. Behind her, in a room that's some sort of lounge for the staff, Boss Hogg is yelping at the Duke boys.
He like to be watching that show, he thinks. He'd like to be sitting in his recliner with the footrest up, a cold beer in his hand and a bowl of popcorn within reach, watching that frigging show.
"I don't -" she says.
"Lady. I just need the key. Is there something in there worth stealing? Do I look like I travel around, stealing busted-to-shit vacuum cleaners? I want to clean the damn tub. How about you give me a break."
Maybe the answer's as simple as, she wants to get back to the TV.
He doesn't much care what the answer is.
The boys both blink at him when he returns to the room, loaded down with cleansers and brushes, an oversized sponge, and a new shower curtain, still in the package. Of course they think it's a game, and there's a little bit of sulking and whining when they're not invited to participate - but they've got the good sense to stay where they are, sitting on a spread-out plaid blanket that makes a good racecourse for Dean's half-dozen Matchbox cars.
The housekeeping staff is probably a gaggle of teenage girls. Maybe a couple of middle-aged Hispanic women. They could be diligent workers; maybe they're not. At this point, who they are and how hard they're willing to work makes no difference. They don't have the shoulders that come from thousands of push-ups done silently in the middle of the night, the one thing John can do without waking his boys to burn off a little of the unending rage inside him, to bring that overheating boiler back down from the red zone.
Cleaning, he discovers quickly, does the job even better.
When he's finished, the tub gleams like it's brand-new. Throws off a shine they can probably see from space.
Drenched with sweat, but satisfied, he runs clean hot water and sponges away any remaining traces of the cleansers, then puts the bottles and cans on the top shelf of the closet, where the boys can't reach.
Finally, he lifts the little chrome lever that plugs the drain and turns on the tap. Tips a little shampoo into the water to create some bubbles.
"Bath time," he tells his sons.
* * * * *