SPN FIC - Brothers
Y'all have made me cave. Okay, I probably would have caved anyway, because an unread fic is just a sad, sad thing, and because willpower and I have never met. So...have a fic. The bookends are sometime in late 2007; the core of it is Christmas 2005. The figurine is here. (This be Storage Unit Fic, BTW.)
There'll be more (stories - this one's complete) to come, as I get them done.
Sam took the little figure out of Dean’s hand to take a closer look. “It’s wood,” he said. “Carved. And painted. Handmade, looks like.” Laying the flashlight aside, he pulled up the hem of his t-shirt and wiped the rest of the dirt away. “It’s us,” he told Dean. “You and me.”
Characters: Dean, Sam, John, various minor OCs
Pairings: none
Rating: PG, for language
Length: 3013 words
Spoilers: Bad Day at Black Rock
Disclaimer: All I want for Christmas is the Winchesters, but Kripke won't give them to me. So I'm laboring for love (and that's good enough).
Brothers
By Carol Davis
“I feel like a freakin’ archaeologist,” Dean said. “Who the hell knew Dad was such a packrat? Would you look at this crap?”
They’d been looking at it for three hours.
“Stuff ought to be locked up somewhere more secure than this,” Sam murmured.
Three hours of looking at fragments.
“No shit, man. I mean…I don’t even want to know the explanation for this.”
Sam turned, cast the beam of his flashlight in Dean’s direction. Dean was holding a pale pink sweater. A child’s, or maybe a small woman’s. It certainly hadn’t been Dad’s. “Haunted, maybe,” Sam said in the vocal version of a poker face.
Dean snorted loudly and turned as if he intended to fling the thing away, then thought better of it and laid it back down where he’d found it. “We know anybody who could come in here and catalogue all this stuff? We got no idea what’s what. If some of it’s good or not. You know, for protection.”
“Could be.”
“Bobby knew about the rabbit’s foot. You think he’d come up here and -“
“Yeah. I think he’d be thrilled to sit in here in the dark for a couple weeks and make a list of all this stuff. He’d hurt himself trying to get up here before you hung up the phone.”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Maybe Ellen knows somebody.”
They roamed in silence for a few minutes, each of them wary of Dad’s booby traps, each of them thinking that it would be so much simpler to haul everything out into the daylight - and that most of it should never see daylight again, if it ever had in the first place.
“You think he ever figured on telling us?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know, man. I - I don’t know.”
“You hunted with him for three years while I was at school. He never gave you any kind of a hint about this place?”
“Maybe he didn’t have it then.”
Dean’s voice was soft, rueful. Had I thought I knew you written all over it.
For every two or three items that seemed likely to have a supernatural purpose, there was one that could have been nothing but a keepsake. Dean’s first sawed-off shotgun, Sam’s soccer trophy. A handful of their school report cards. The tie Dean had given his father for his 50th birthday. A model airplane with one wing missing. A snow globe from Steamboat Springs, Colorado. A child’s baseball mitt. Dean picked that up gently and ran his fingers over the leather. “You remember this?” he asked.
“What? No.”
“He gave it to you for your first Christmas.”
Sam moved closer and took the mitt from Dean. “I wasn’t even eight months old. What was I supposed to do with this?”
“Play center field for the Cubs? I don’t know.”
“Where did he keep all this? I never saw it in the car.”
Dean opened his mouth to answer, then shook his head. “Beats me. Wasn’t in his duffel. I cleaned that out a bunch of times. Maybe he had it stuffed up in the trunk somewhere, wrapped up in something.”
“Maybe he had this place all along.”
“In Buffalo?”
“Or somewhere.”
Dean shrugged. He held onto a noncommittal look for a moment, then turned away and pretended to busy himself examining another of the hundred-odd carved wooden lock boxes Dad had lined up on various shelves.
“Look, man, if you want to go -“ Sam said.
“Nah.”
“We can come back tomorrow. Or whenever.”
“We should have an idea what’s in here. So we know. We oughta fill Bobby in. He can tell us if anything’s a big problem.”
“I think it’s all a big problem.”
Without answering, Dean wandered off, making himself invisible between two rows of metal shelves. Sam could track him, barely, by the beam of his flashlight as it played along the shelves, stopping here and there. Dean had been by himself for maybe five minutes when he said quietly, “Hey, Sam.”
Sam rounded the corner and moved up beside his brother. “Yeah?”
He expected to see yet another lockbox. Or a jar of animal bones, or animal limbs, or eyeballs, or God knew what.
He didn’t expect the thing Dean had in his hand.
“Dad was a girl,” Dean said, coming closer to humor than he had all afternoon. Snickering, he used his thumb to brush some of the dust off what he’d found. “The crazy bastard collected little figurines. Probably gonna find a pile of Soap Opera Digests around here someplace.”
Sam ran his light along the shelf, and the ones above and below it. “Are there more?”
“It’s a figurine, Sam. Like a Hummel or something.”
Not like a Hummel at all, actually; Jess’s mother had a collection of those. Precious Moments, too. She’d spent half an hour giving Sam a guided tour of her curio cabinet the Thanksgiving Jess had taken him home, the only one he and Jess had spent together. Grimacing, Sam took the little figure out of Dean’s hand to take a closer look. “It’s wood,” he said. “Carved. And painted. Handmade, looks like.” Laying the flashlight aside, he pulled up the hem of his t-shirt and wiped the rest of the dirt away.
“It’s us,” he told Dean. “You and me.”
* * * * *
The old man loved his Christmas music. The juke was well stocked with it, and he’d kept the machine fed with quarters all afternoon. If anyone had an objection to that, they didn’t voice it. In fact, for a crowd of people traveling solo, stopping only for a quick bite or a drink or a piss before they ventured back out for another couple of hours’ travel through mostly empty desert, they seemed mighty damned chipper. A couple of ‘em even sang little snatches of lyrics along with Brenda Lee and Faith Hill and Elvis.
John nodded a yes to the waitress who offered to refill his coffee, gave her another nod and a small smile when the cup was brimming.
“Good coffee,” he said, and she returned the smile.
That must’ve served as enough of a tip, because she came back with a piece of cake decorated with red and green sprinkles.
Two months gone, he thought as she walked away.
Two months since Sam’s girl had died. Almost three since he’d ditched Dean, left the boy to his own devices. Devices that’d led him straight back to Sam.
And that’d been John’s intention all along, hadn’t it.
He sipped his coffee and ate his cake, watching the old man in the booth closest to the door. The old guy pretty much owned that booth, John was willing to bet: looked like the seat cushion had dents in it that exactly matched his butt, his back, his legs. Every time the bell over the door signaled the arrival of someone new, or bid goodbye to someone ready to find the road again, the old man let his eyes drift over the traveler. Looked like he was making up a story about who they were, where they’d come from, where they thought they were going.
He’d finished a sandwich a while ago, and the white plate still sat in front of him, pushed close to the center of the table. There wasn’t a crumb on it. He had a glass of water sitting at five o’clock on the plate’s dial, from which he took a drink every couple of minutes.
In his hands he had a knife and a chunk of wood. Carefully, gently, with the kind of deliberate movement that would have done a surgeon proud, he used the tip of the blade to etch away bits of wood that fell to the tabletop in small brownish flakes. It was a beautiful thing to watch: seeing thin old fingers caress the wood, tease from it something with shape, with meaning.
“How you doin’?” the waitress asked John when he’d finished his cake.
“Good,” he said.
Might even have meant it, he thought.
The coffee was rich, strong. He could take some of it with him, in the thermos. It’d keep him awake for a while, until he found a place to stretch out for a few hours.
The song on the juke finished up. “Got this one for you,” the waitress said to the old man as she fished coins out of her apron pocket. “What’d’you think, some Charlie Pride?”
“Charlie’s fine,” the old man nodded.
Dean would have had a remark about the non-stop country music. The boy liked his classic rock, although how much of that was his own taste and how much of it was a desire to like what his father liked was something John had never figured out. It was one of the things that held them together, made them Me-and-Dad.
Things Sam had never quite picked up on.
Where they were now, right now, John didn’t know. Together: that seemed like the only thing that mattered.
Mattered to Dean, certainly.
Minutes slipped by, and when a woman’s voice started crooning, “I’ll be home for Christmas,” John squeezed his eyes shut and let himself focus on the warmth of the coffee cup held like an offering between his palms. He didn’t need the warmth; it had to be close to ninety outside, and the AC inside the truck stop wasn’t exactly cranking at full bore. Still, the familiarity of it, the warmth, the aroma, the smooth feel of the cup against his skin, was…
What? A comfort?
They could handle themselves, wherever they were. As well as he could, he imagined, and they were a lot less beaten down by years and miles and…
And the lack of her.
All he could wish for Sam was that his girl, his Jessica, hadn’t woven her way into his heart deeply enough that he’d pay for the loss of her with every breath he took.
And that he’d never stumble across the truth.
About himself, about his mother, about the thing John had chased down a million miles of road, given up half his life and most of his soul to. The thing that had stolen home from the three of them, cast them out into a night that after 22 years still hadn’t drawn to a close.
This night would fall in a couple of hours - the one Mary had liked to spend caroling from door to door, sitting warm in a church pew with the tip of her nose still red from the chill outside, sipping cocoa or eggnog while she tied ribbons around package after package.
The first time this night had fallen after she was gone, he had fumbled, bought footballs and baseball gloves for the boys that they would never use.
Couldn’t use, because there was no yard, no ballfield.
Just the road.
The boys were back on the road now. Somewhere.
John looked out the window, gazed across an empty gray-brown landscape feathered with gray-brown plants. The road ran along it like a black stripe paled with dust.
The woman’s voice faded away and the juke fell quiet. Made an odd scratching sound until the old man got up from his booth and fed quarters into the slot.
The song that started up raised a guffaw from someone John couldn’t see. “What the hell,” a voice said, rich with indignation. “Barry fuckin’ Manilow?”
“Nice Jewish boy,” the old man said. “Wrote the songs the whole world sings.”
The old man sat down again and picked up his knife and his carving, and the dozen-odd strangers in the truck stop listened to a Jew sing about Jesus. A couple of them hummed along, or sang along, little bursts of lyrics that seemed to say, all right, Barry fuckin’ Manilow did write the songs the whole world sang…or tried to.
When his coffee was gone, John fished out his wallet and laid a couple of bills beside the empty cup. Before the cake and coffee, he’d done away with meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy. Comfort food, people called it, though it was a balm to nothing but a formerly empty stomach.
Maybe not even that.
He pushed his way up out of the booth and reached back into it to pick up the coat he’d laid beside him on the bench seat. When he turned to leave, the old man was there, moving a clouded gaze over his face, smiling at him a little. His hands moved to John’s and pressed something into them: the carving he’d been working on since before John came into the truck stop.
“One look,” he said softly. “Be sure it’s what you want to see.”
John looked down at the object in his palm. When the old man had had time to produce this, he wasn’t sure; the carving hadn’t looked like this ten minutes ago. Maybe it wasn’t the same one? He looked toward the old man’s booth and saw the knife lying solo on the table alongside the empty white plate. So this had to be the same one.
But it hadn’t been this ten minutes ago.
Hadn’t been a boy with his hands on the shoulders of a smaller boy, leaning in as if to offer advice.
The smaller one was pressed close, looking up.
“One chance,” the old man said.
“One chance to what?” John asked.
The old man shook his head and closed John’s hand around the carving. He was smiling crookedly as if at some private joke as he padded silently back to his booth and slid into the seat that fit him as if he had spent his whole life sitting there.
Left with nothing more to say, John walked the length of the parking lot to his truck, unlocked the driver’s door and pulled it open. Stood there with dust swirling around his boots, warm dry wind brushing at his face. He curled his hand around the carving, tracing the curves and shapes and angles of it with the flat of his thumb.
A piece of wood, shaped by an old man’s thin fingers.
Daddy?
The gritty dust scraped his face. He closed his eyes to protect them.
Daddy, see? Daddy…
Had to be the wind. It teased at his jacket, his arms. Tugged at him like small hands. Flirted with the roof of the truck stop and made a sound like high, sweet laughter.
Like…
Daddy see Daddy come Daddy can I Daddy why don’t we Daddy will you Daddy I
Like the voices of his children, high and sweet.
They were there, close by, whirling around him, near enough to touch. Chasing each other around the truck - no, the car - laughter turning to shrieks and giggles.
Daddy!
The wind shifted. Changed the timbre of the voices, made them deeper, the voices of boys become young men, one of them questioning, resisting, unhappy, unsatisfied.
Not good enough Dad why don’t you Dad I’m not going to Dad
So near. Near enough.
Eyes still closed, he saw young hands moving over the sleek black surface of the car that had taken them away from home, away from her. Saw the smile that broke through a thick wall of frustration, saw the trace of disbelief in green eyes.
Really? You mean it? She’s mine?
Saw hands seize the straps of a worn gray duffel, hoist it up off the floor. Whatever. You know? There’s no debate here, Dad. If that’s the way you feel, then…fuck you.
Saw the face of a young man, empty of the child he had been and yet full of him still, now broken into grief and despair. Saw the young man give himself over to the brother whose arms had given him refuge since the night their world had fallen apart.
Heard the voice that had cursed him wail out hopelessness and fear and pain.
Saw the son he had not embraced since they had both been on the far side of a chasm of anger and disappointment huddle deep into a jacket John did not recognize, ear and cheeks and nose crimson with cold, and reach for the doorhandle of the car that had been their home for a million miles and a thousand years.
Saw something white collide with his temple and fragment into his hair, down the collar of his jacket.
Saw him spin around, sputtering.
The…? I’m gonna kick your ass!
They chased each other around the car - yes, the car, that car, the one whose wheel John could feel in the palms of his hands.
You bitch! You’re so gonna pay for this!
He heard laughter, high and sweet.
* * * * *
“So somebody whittled this or something?” Dean asked. “Dad sure as hell didn’t whittle. Especially not something like this.”
“You never saw this before.”
“Nope. I’d remember it. Would’ve given him shit for it.”
“You never gave Dad shit for anything a day in your life.”
Dean looked at his brother, his face veiled and almost expressionless. When Sam handed the little carving back to him, he cupped it in his palm and stared down at it as if he were trying to read tea leaves. “Yeah, I did,” he said finally. “Might not’ve seemed like it to you, but I said some things that… I don’t know.”
“Maybe you should’ve said more.”
Gently, Dean put the carving down on the shelf where he’d found it. “Maybe,” he allowed. “I feel like -“
He looked Sam straight in the eye for a moment.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said finally. “We’ll get somebody to catalogue all this shit. I don’t want to do it.”
And he strode away, leaving Sam to take a long, silent look at the little wooden figure. At the image of himself, gaze cast up in admiration of the older brother who held onto him, kept him close, guarded, loved.
“You coming?” Dean called from somewhere Sam couldn’t see.
“Yeah,” Sam called back. “I’m right behind you.”