SPN Fic: Please Do Not Feed the Animals
Title: Please Do Not Feed the Animals
Characters: Sam, Dean
Genre: Gen
Rating: G
Word-count: 1384
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Sam's plan to use a trip to the zoo to give Dean a much-needed day off isn't going as planned. This leads to an unscheduled naptime on the zoo lawn.
Notes: Partly inspired by the happy sunny h/c goodness ofmad_server's lovely summery prompts party, but the original idea was hatched a good three years ago when I went to the zoo in Denver, and spent most of the time walking around thinking how many possibilities for h/c the strolling peacocks presented. Because this is the way my brain works. :) So this one is long in the making, and I'm immensely relieved to have finally written it.
Sam's never seen a peacock before, and to be honest, he's not sure what to think. They've got the metallic blue bodies, all right, and the huge fans of dusty green-brown plumage spraying out behind them, trailing back and forth across the concrete sidewalk in front of him and Dean as they work their way through the crushing rivers of people pouring through the zoo. He's seen pictures, though, so he knew more or less what to expect. But he never heard a peacock before, and that's what's bothering him.
Nobody ever told him they sound like children crying.
To be precise, it isn't really bothering him - it sounds callous, maybe, but he's heard enough crying children before to filter out the noise and focus on the giraffes ambling languidly across their dusty enclosure, the shrieks of cockatoos and macaws and condors from the building behind them (he wanted to go in, but “Christ, Sammy, no way we're going in somewhere that smells like that. Seriously, it stinks worse than you”).
But every time one of the shiny blue birds starts wailing, he can see Dean's shoulders tense and his head jerk around to see who's crying, who he has to save this time. They've been walking around the zoo for an hour now, and Dean hasn't smiled once since they stepped through the gates, not even at the tiger pit. For the last half hour or so he's pretty much clammed up, hands shoved deep into his pockets and a frown twitching on his face, flinching at every terrified cry from the brainless, lazy birds strutting freely through the zoo.
On another day, that would be funny. But today's not another day - it's the first day since Sam checked Dean out of St. Luke's Medical Center; it's the day he's supposed to be making Dean take it easy. Well, he's done a hell of a job at that. A whole city full of quiet libraries and sunny parks, and what does he do?
Takes Dean and throws him into a sea of invisible crying children, that's what. Sam's staggered by his own genius, sometimes.
Dean's standing still at the edge of the path, head bowed to the blazing sun, staring unhappily at a placard full of anything a person could ever want to know about water buffalo, if he or she had the inclination. Sam doesn't think Dean's all that interested in the gestation period of the water buffalo, because his eyes are glazed over in a absent scowl. He's fiddling distractedly with the patch of gauze taped across the pinprick in the crook of his left elbow, and Sam bats his hand away firmly.
“Stop messing with it, Dean.”
Dean scowls deeper, but he shoves his right hand back into his pocket. A dribble of sweat leaks from his hairline down his forehead, and Sam resists the urge to reach out and wipe it off.
“Getting too hot?” is all he says.
Dean shakes his head.
They stand at the railing together, observing the water buffaloes in silence as they stroll around the rocks at the bottom of the enclosure. Sam can hear the crowds babbling behind him, each uplifted voice blending into the next until they reach a shrill, chatty crescendo, and it's no wonder Dean's eyebrows are pinched together so hard. The guy's gotta have a hell of a headache, and Sam makes a mental note to get out the Tylenol when they get back to the car. He can't remember whether he rolled the windows down, and prays they're not going to come back to a leather-scented furnace.
They're standing like that, a little removed from the utter chaos of the Friday afternoon rush, when a stray peacock sneaks straight up behind Dean, and lets out an anguished scream into the backs of his shaky knees.
Dean's entire body seizes up. His eyes screw shut, and Sam can hear his heart stop and start again with a violent, garbled thump. Recovering a little, he blinks and backs up against the rail, staring back into the tiny black beads of the peacock's eyes. The bird leers back, looking immensely satisfied as it gazes nastily up at Dean's white, stunned face.
Sam wonders how much trouble they'd get in if he killed one of the zoo's birds.
“Get outta here,” he tells the peacock rather than wringing its sapphire neck, and after one last mocking glare at Dean's shock-huge eyes, it turns around slowly and sidles off, dragging its gaudy tail through the trampled gum and discarded soda cups behind it.
When Sam turns back to Dean, he's got his arms folded across his chest, squinting crankily up at the blistering blue sky.
“This zoo sucks,” he comments, sounding like a whiney kid dragging his heels on a school field trip.
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. He watches in silence as Dean's fingers scrabble furiously at the needle mark on his arm; he's gonna start it bleeding again. Sam doesn't want to keep snapping at him to leave the itch alone, though, because he knows it makes Dean feel better to have something to scratch.
“Ice cream,” he says suddenly, as though it's the answer to all their problems.
His brother gives him a patented Dean Winchester what-the-hell look, but Sam's made up his mind. “Look, I want ice cream. You can stay here and bake if you want, but I'm gonna go get myself an ice cream cone and find someplace in the shade to take a nap. I think I've burned my nose right off,” he adds, rubbing at the bridge, and yep, he's gonna be bright pink and crunchy there tonight.
Dean blinks for a minute, then snaps his mouth shut. “Dude, what's with the cravings? If you got pregnant at school, I'm gonna have words.”
“Hey,” Sam shrugs, “you don't have to come.”
Dean scowls. “Never said I didn't want to.”
“Good,” says Sam, and leads the way to the refreshment stand.
- - - - - - - - - -
The trail of melted chocolate has traced its way down Dean's wrist from the cone he's got clutched in a perilously unsteady hand. He twitches out of his daze when Sam wipes it away with a paper napkin from the stack he's got balanced on his thigh, and gives the sloppy swirls of ice cream a preoccupied swipe with his tongue, yawning through the sticky mouthful.
Sam bites into sun-soft vanilla, keeping a wary eye on his brother's drooping cone hand. They're sitting in a random grassy space across from the hoofed animals (he looked for an impala, but they don't have anything except reindeer and waterbuck). It's relatively quiet, because most of the crowds are gathered at the other end of the zoo watching the 3:00 dolphin show. In the distance, the peacocks are still bawling, but Dean doesn't seem to hear - just stares blankly into space, the shadows of the giant cottonwood's leaves shifting across his fatigue-lined face.
“You gonna finish that?” Sam asks cautiously, watching the tower of chocolate tilt precariously to one side.
Dean squares his shoulders, glares at the dripping cone. “'Course I am,” he retorts, wolfing down half the slumping ice cream in one bite.
Five minutes later, Dean's curled up against the roots of the tree, smears of chocolate ringing his lips and drying sticky and dark in his left eyebrow, making his face look curiously unbalanced. Sam shaves off the ice cream beard with a spit-damp napkin, crunching appreciatively on the last few bites of the chocolate cone.
“Leave m'face alone,” Dean mutters stickily into the unmown grass.
“Behave, and maybe you'll get a souvenir T-shirt. I think I saw one with a little penguin on it.”
“Not a penguin, dumbass,” Dean frowns, eyes still squeezed shut. “Get me a man-eating tiger.”
Sam looks down at his hospital-pale, freckle-nosed brother, and allows himself a smile that Dean can't see.
“They might have some with kitties,” he tells Dean.
Dodging the loose punch to his ribs, he settles back against the rough cottonwood bark to stand guard against the crying fan-tailed hordes as the sun climbs carefully down the tight blue sky behind them.