Supernatural: Two White Carnations
Title: Two White Carnations
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean (teen!cest)
Genre: Flangst, but mostly Schmoop
Rating: PG for Really Light Language and Extremely Graphic Cuddling
Word Count: 1,921
Author’s Note: Happy Mother’s Day to any mothers out there! ♥ ETA 5/7/2013: Thanks to eos_rose, you can now read this in epub format here.
Summary: When Sam’s in the first grade, he learns about Mother’s Day. Dean spends the next ten years trying to make him forget.
Sam is six years old the first time he learns about Mother’s Day. If he’d had a normal childhood, he and Dean would have made Dad badly-glued presents on Father’s Day and Sam would have figured that there must be an equivalent for mothers sooner. But they never did, so it catches him by surprise.
Their assignment is simple enough. Make a Mother’s Day card for your mom, use her favorite color. Draw flowers and write a message with as few misspellings as you can manage. It’s not so simple for Sam.
He tries to ignore it. Goes ahead and makes the card he would make for his mother if he had one. But he stops halfway through, hand hovering over the crayon box, and breaks out in tears.
He doesn’t know what color to use, and the last thing he wants to do it mess it up. The teacher gives up on trying to console him after twenty minutes, takes him to the office and tells them to call home.
No one answers. Of course no one answers. It’s a security guard passing through the office who knows what to do; he’s seen Sam around before, though never alone.
Dean is summoned and shows up in less than three minutes, ugly red blotches on his face from running. They told him to come help his brother and Dean’s eyes scan the room frantically before settling on Sam.
“Sammy, hey. Look at me, what’s wrong?”
Sam keeps crying and reaches out for his brother’s arms.
“He won’t talk to any of us, either.”
“What happened to him?” Dean’s hands are clenched into tiny fists and Sam knows he’s already itching to punch the six-year-old bully he’s assuming is responsible.
“I have no idea,” Sam’s teacher responds. “We were making cards for Mother’s Day and he just started crying.”
Dean glares at her for a few seconds before turning his attention back to his brother. “C’mon, Sam. You’re scaring me. Pull it together.”
Sam sniffs and holds the card out to Dean. “I don’t know what color to make the letters, and if I chose the wrong one, she won’t like it, and she won’t come back.”
For half a second, Dean looks like he’s going to cry, too.
“Oh, God,” the teacher gasps, hand covering her mouth. “He doesn’t…you don’t…I forgot.”
Sam knows she doesn’t mean for that to make it worse, but it does. Dean pulls him in and soothes him. By the time Sam has calmed down completely, there’s only ten minutes to the bell and the office staff agree to let Dean walk him home early.
Dean waits on Sam all day, even though Sam is back to normal. He doesn’t fight for the television, he doesn’t complain when Sam is hungry, he doesn’t tease. Sam colors the letters dark blue, replaces the word Mom with Dean and leaves the card on his brother’s pillow before he goes to bed. He never sees it again, but he knows that it’s tucked away somewhere safe.
Dean’s got an envelope hidden in his bag with his really important papers-a birth certificate from Lawrence Memorial Hospital, a list of people Dean can trust to call while Dad’s not home, the notes and excuses he should forge if anyone asks questions while they’re alone. Sam never doubts that it’s folded up between those pages, hiding with all the other drawings that Dean never hangs on the refrigerator.
________________________________________________________________
Sam remembers Mother’s Day with the exaggerated horror of childhood trauma. He memorizes when the next one will be and mentally prepares himself for school the Friday before, just in case something happens again.
He wakes up and hears Dean talking to Dad as quietly as he can manage.
“You’re sure it’s that bad, Dean?”
“Yes, sir. He won’t make it through the day. He could hardly make it to the bathroom.”
“Well, if Sam’s that sick, then he can stay home today. You wanna stay, too, look after him?”
“C-can I?”
“It’s better than leaving a sick seven-year-old alone all day. I’ll make you boys some doctor’s notes when I get home tonight, just remind me.”
Sam waits a few seconds until he hears the door close and then goes out to find his brother.
“Dean, why’d you lie to dad about me being sick?”
“You are sick,” Dean replies as if Sam’s a moron for not knowing it.
“No, I’m not. I feel-“
“You have a fever and you’ve been throwing up all morning. You shouldn’t even be out of bed.”
Dean says this all so seriously that Sam thinks he must be right, so he goes back to bed obediently. Dean takes care of him all day, the way he does when Sam really is sick, only without forcing all the icky medication on him. Sam thinks it’s quite likely the best day ever and all worries about Mother’s Day go right out of his mind.
________________________________________________________________
It goes like this for years until Sam knows when to play sick and Mother’s Day morphs into “Annual Stay Home and Eat Shit with Your Brother” Day. Dad stops caring whether they go to school or not and Sam forgets how it all started. Eventually they drop the pretense and they just take a day off every May for no reason. At around 11, Sam decides it’s Dean’s cheesy way of giving him an extra birthday present without being called out for it. Dean never corrects him, just hands him a perfectly forged letter from John Winchester and ruffles Sam’s hair. Sam never says it out loud, but it’s his favorite day of the year.
________________________________________________________________
At fifteen, Sam is in high school and he can no longer afford to take days off for nothing. He has every intention of finishing school, going to college, and “because Dean said so” is no longer an indisputable argument as to why he should go along with it.
“Wake your lazy ass up, Dean. School starts in fifteen minutes. Are you driving me, or am I stealing the car?”
“What’reya talking about, Sammy? We’re not going to school today.” Dean turns over and puts his pillow over his head.
Sam shakes him impatiently. “Get up!”
“No, why?” Dean sits up. “What the hell, Sam?”
“I’m going to be late, Dean. If you’re going to skip, you have to warn me ahead of time so I can get up early enough to walk. You know that, man.”
Dean frowns. “But aren’t we…both?”
“Grow up. We can’t keep skipping school just because we feel like it. We miss enough days moving all the time.”
“Just because we feel like it?”
“Yeah, Dean. You know what I’m talking about. There’s no real reason for it. It’s just something we do and I can’t, okay? I have a quiz and my homework’s due and I don’t wanna screw up my grades just for a lazy day.”
Dean is making the face he makes after a hunt goes particularly bad, after someone innocent gets hurt on his watch, and Sam doesn’t get it but he feels sorry anyway.
“We can sit around making fun of TV and ordering Chinese tomorrow, can’t we?”
“Yeah, whatever Sam. Get your shit and let’s go.”
Dean doesn’t talk to him on the ride to school, doesn’t play bad music loudly, he just looks tired and disappointed and he turns around for home as soon as Sam’s out of the car. Sam still doesn’t get why it means so much to Dean until 5th period.
“No way are we going to finish this by the end of class, man,” Sam’s says, shaking his head. “Can you stay after school today?”
“Nah, I’ve got track practice. You free tomorrow?”
“No, sorry. My Dad’s taking me camping to, um. Learn how to camp. We’ll be back early on Sunday, though.”
“Dude, I can’t work on a project on Sunday,” the guy says it like he’s doing Sam a favor by reminding him of something. Sam shrugs. “It’s Mother’s Day, man.”
Sam’s mouth drops open a little and the kid immediately realizes his mistake.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry! I forgot you-“
“Yeah, I don’t,” Sam snaps, but it’s himself he’s annoyed with. He’d forgotten that, whatever it became, the stupid Friday tradition had started with Dean trying to protect him. It used to mean something to Sam that Dean always remembered to do that for him, and now that it means something to Dean, Sam had dropped the ball.
Sam tells his partner he’ll get out of the camping trip and they can work on it tomorrow just in time for the bell to ring. Sam goes out and feels a guilty stab in his chest when he sees the Impala waiting out front for him, despite what an asshole he’d been.
Dean is his usual self again when Sam gets in the car. He’s beaming and playing Led Zeppelin too loud, and he looks well-rested. But when he asks Sam how his day was, he almost sounds sad, which Sam knows to take as a sign that he is, in fact, extremely sad.
They park the car outside and as soon as Dean shuts off the ignition, Sam clears his throat to speak.
“Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a really great big brother; I just think you should know that.”
“Uh…okay. This morning I was a lazy asshole. Where’s this coming from and what do you want?”
“I’m sorry about this morning.” Sam is whispering and, at first, he doesn’t know why. He realizes he’s leaning towards Dean as he speaks and suddenly he knows exactly what he wants. He presses forward and pushes a chaste kiss against his brother’s lips before pulling away.
“I just wanted to say thanks.” Sam grabs his bag and bolts from the car before Dean has a chance to react. He catches a glimpse of his brother, dazed blinking through huge, green eyes and his mouth hanging open stupidly.
Sam is terrified of what Dean will do once it’s registered and even more afraid of how much he suddenly needs Dean to want it, too. Dean doesn’t come in for a while, but once he’s taken everything in and ready to face Sam again, he comes into the room with a goofy smile and Sam almost thinks he blushes when their eyes meet.
________________________________________________________________
It’s a year later and, dammit, Sam is trying to sleep.
“Quit shaking me. I’m tired,” Sam draws out the last word dramatically. He hears Dean chuckle.
“C’mon, it’s time for all the responsible little nerds to get their enormous skulls crammed with exciting stuff like science and history.”
Sam turns around to look at Dean, disregarding Dean’s sarcastic comments.
“Did Dad leave yet?”
“Yeah, why?”
Sam smiles wickedly and grabs his brother’s arm, pulls him forward, trying to get him to fall into bed. Dean resists so Sam sits up and takes Dean’s face between his hands, kissing him deeply. Dean goes along with it for a while before beginning to crawl into bed.
“What about school, Sammy?” Dean asks, curling his body around Sam’s and arranging the covers accordingly.
“Not going to school, Dean. It’s a holiday.”
Dean laughs into Sam’s hair and draws him in tighter. “I’d better be getting some pie when we wake up, then. It’s not a real holiday until there’s pie.”
“See? I wouldn’t learn that in school.”
Dean doesn’t give Sam a free moment all day to regret it.
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean (teen!cest)
Genre: Flangst, but mostly Schmoop
Rating: PG for Really Light Language and Extremely Graphic Cuddling
Word Count: 1,921
Author’s Note: Happy Mother’s Day to any mothers out there! ♥ ETA 5/7/2013: Thanks to eos_rose, you can now read this in epub format here.
Summary: When Sam’s in the first grade, he learns about Mother’s Day. Dean spends the next ten years trying to make him forget.
Sam is six years old the first time he learns about Mother’s Day. If he’d had a normal childhood, he and Dean would have made Dad badly-glued presents on Father’s Day and Sam would have figured that there must be an equivalent for mothers sooner. But they never did, so it catches him by surprise.
Their assignment is simple enough. Make a Mother’s Day card for your mom, use her favorite color. Draw flowers and write a message with as few misspellings as you can manage. It’s not so simple for Sam.
He tries to ignore it. Goes ahead and makes the card he would make for his mother if he had one. But he stops halfway through, hand hovering over the crayon box, and breaks out in tears.
He doesn’t know what color to use, and the last thing he wants to do it mess it up. The teacher gives up on trying to console him after twenty minutes, takes him to the office and tells them to call home.
No one answers. Of course no one answers. It’s a security guard passing through the office who knows what to do; he’s seen Sam around before, though never alone.
Dean is summoned and shows up in less than three minutes, ugly red blotches on his face from running. They told him to come help his brother and Dean’s eyes scan the room frantically before settling on Sam.
“Sammy, hey. Look at me, what’s wrong?”
Sam keeps crying and reaches out for his brother’s arms.
“He won’t talk to any of us, either.”
“What happened to him?” Dean’s hands are clenched into tiny fists and Sam knows he’s already itching to punch the six-year-old bully he’s assuming is responsible.
“I have no idea,” Sam’s teacher responds. “We were making cards for Mother’s Day and he just started crying.”
Dean glares at her for a few seconds before turning his attention back to his brother. “C’mon, Sam. You’re scaring me. Pull it together.”
Sam sniffs and holds the card out to Dean. “I don’t know what color to make the letters, and if I chose the wrong one, she won’t like it, and she won’t come back.”
For half a second, Dean looks like he’s going to cry, too.
“Oh, God,” the teacher gasps, hand covering her mouth. “He doesn’t…you don’t…I forgot.”
Sam knows she doesn’t mean for that to make it worse, but it does. Dean pulls him in and soothes him. By the time Sam has calmed down completely, there’s only ten minutes to the bell and the office staff agree to let Dean walk him home early.
Dean waits on Sam all day, even though Sam is back to normal. He doesn’t fight for the television, he doesn’t complain when Sam is hungry, he doesn’t tease. Sam colors the letters dark blue, replaces the word Mom with Dean and leaves the card on his brother’s pillow before he goes to bed. He never sees it again, but he knows that it’s tucked away somewhere safe.
Dean’s got an envelope hidden in his bag with his really important papers-a birth certificate from Lawrence Memorial Hospital, a list of people Dean can trust to call while Dad’s not home, the notes and excuses he should forge if anyone asks questions while they’re alone. Sam never doubts that it’s folded up between those pages, hiding with all the other drawings that Dean never hangs on the refrigerator.
________________________________________________________________
Sam remembers Mother’s Day with the exaggerated horror of childhood trauma. He memorizes when the next one will be and mentally prepares himself for school the Friday before, just in case something happens again.
He wakes up and hears Dean talking to Dad as quietly as he can manage.
“You’re sure it’s that bad, Dean?”
“Yes, sir. He won’t make it through the day. He could hardly make it to the bathroom.”
“Well, if Sam’s that sick, then he can stay home today. You wanna stay, too, look after him?”
“C-can I?”
“It’s better than leaving a sick seven-year-old alone all day. I’ll make you boys some doctor’s notes when I get home tonight, just remind me.”
Sam waits a few seconds until he hears the door close and then goes out to find his brother.
“Dean, why’d you lie to dad about me being sick?”
“You are sick,” Dean replies as if Sam’s a moron for not knowing it.
“No, I’m not. I feel-“
“You have a fever and you’ve been throwing up all morning. You shouldn’t even be out of bed.”
Dean says this all so seriously that Sam thinks he must be right, so he goes back to bed obediently. Dean takes care of him all day, the way he does when Sam really is sick, only without forcing all the icky medication on him. Sam thinks it’s quite likely the best day ever and all worries about Mother’s Day go right out of his mind.
________________________________________________________________
It goes like this for years until Sam knows when to play sick and Mother’s Day morphs into “Annual Stay Home and Eat Shit with Your Brother” Day. Dad stops caring whether they go to school or not and Sam forgets how it all started. Eventually they drop the pretense and they just take a day off every May for no reason. At around 11, Sam decides it’s Dean’s cheesy way of giving him an extra birthday present without being called out for it. Dean never corrects him, just hands him a perfectly forged letter from John Winchester and ruffles Sam’s hair. Sam never says it out loud, but it’s his favorite day of the year.
________________________________________________________________
At fifteen, Sam is in high school and he can no longer afford to take days off for nothing. He has every intention of finishing school, going to college, and “because Dean said so” is no longer an indisputable argument as to why he should go along with it.
“Wake your lazy ass up, Dean. School starts in fifteen minutes. Are you driving me, or am I stealing the car?”
“What’reya talking about, Sammy? We’re not going to school today.” Dean turns over and puts his pillow over his head.
Sam shakes him impatiently. “Get up!”
“No, why?” Dean sits up. “What the hell, Sam?”
“I’m going to be late, Dean. If you’re going to skip, you have to warn me ahead of time so I can get up early enough to walk. You know that, man.”
Dean frowns. “But aren’t we…both?”
“Grow up. We can’t keep skipping school just because we feel like it. We miss enough days moving all the time.”
“Just because we feel like it?”
“Yeah, Dean. You know what I’m talking about. There’s no real reason for it. It’s just something we do and I can’t, okay? I have a quiz and my homework’s due and I don’t wanna screw up my grades just for a lazy day.”
Dean is making the face he makes after a hunt goes particularly bad, after someone innocent gets hurt on his watch, and Sam doesn’t get it but he feels sorry anyway.
“We can sit around making fun of TV and ordering Chinese tomorrow, can’t we?”
“Yeah, whatever Sam. Get your shit and let’s go.”
Dean doesn’t talk to him on the ride to school, doesn’t play bad music loudly, he just looks tired and disappointed and he turns around for home as soon as Sam’s out of the car. Sam still doesn’t get why it means so much to Dean until 5th period.
“No way are we going to finish this by the end of class, man,” Sam’s says, shaking his head. “Can you stay after school today?”
“Nah, I’ve got track practice. You free tomorrow?”
“No, sorry. My Dad’s taking me camping to, um. Learn how to camp. We’ll be back early on Sunday, though.”
“Dude, I can’t work on a project on Sunday,” the guy says it like he’s doing Sam a favor by reminding him of something. Sam shrugs. “It’s Mother’s Day, man.”
Sam’s mouth drops open a little and the kid immediately realizes his mistake.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry! I forgot you-“
“Yeah, I don’t,” Sam snaps, but it’s himself he’s annoyed with. He’d forgotten that, whatever it became, the stupid Friday tradition had started with Dean trying to protect him. It used to mean something to Sam that Dean always remembered to do that for him, and now that it means something to Dean, Sam had dropped the ball.
Sam tells his partner he’ll get out of the camping trip and they can work on it tomorrow just in time for the bell to ring. Sam goes out and feels a guilty stab in his chest when he sees the Impala waiting out front for him, despite what an asshole he’d been.
Dean is his usual self again when Sam gets in the car. He’s beaming and playing Led Zeppelin too loud, and he looks well-rested. But when he asks Sam how his day was, he almost sounds sad, which Sam knows to take as a sign that he is, in fact, extremely sad.
They park the car outside and as soon as Dean shuts off the ignition, Sam clears his throat to speak.
“Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a really great big brother; I just think you should know that.”
“Uh…okay. This morning I was a lazy asshole. Where’s this coming from and what do you want?”
“I’m sorry about this morning.” Sam is whispering and, at first, he doesn’t know why. He realizes he’s leaning towards Dean as he speaks and suddenly he knows exactly what he wants. He presses forward and pushes a chaste kiss against his brother’s lips before pulling away.
“I just wanted to say thanks.” Sam grabs his bag and bolts from the car before Dean has a chance to react. He catches a glimpse of his brother, dazed blinking through huge, green eyes and his mouth hanging open stupidly.
Sam is terrified of what Dean will do once it’s registered and even more afraid of how much he suddenly needs Dean to want it, too. Dean doesn’t come in for a while, but once he’s taken everything in and ready to face Sam again, he comes into the room with a goofy smile and Sam almost thinks he blushes when their eyes meet.
________________________________________________________________
It’s a year later and, dammit, Sam is trying to sleep.
“Quit shaking me. I’m tired,” Sam draws out the last word dramatically. He hears Dean chuckle.
“C’mon, it’s time for all the responsible little nerds to get their enormous skulls crammed with exciting stuff like science and history.”
Sam turns around to look at Dean, disregarding Dean’s sarcastic comments.
“Did Dad leave yet?”
“Yeah, why?”
Sam smiles wickedly and grabs his brother’s arm, pulls him forward, trying to get him to fall into bed. Dean resists so Sam sits up and takes Dean’s face between his hands, kissing him deeply. Dean goes along with it for a while before beginning to crawl into bed.
“What about school, Sammy?” Dean asks, curling his body around Sam’s and arranging the covers accordingly.
“Not going to school, Dean. It’s a holiday.”
Dean laughs into Sam’s hair and draws him in tighter. “I’d better be getting some pie when we wake up, then. It’s not a real holiday until there’s pie.”
“See? I wouldn’t learn that in school.”
Dean doesn’t give Sam a free moment all day to regret it.