A mari usque ad mare - Part 6 (7/14)
A mari usque ad mare - Part 6 (7/14)
1,288/28,777 of R rated Gen (with an edge of subtext) crack!fic in which Dean revisits his past in unexpected ways. (The Inaugural Wet Overall Contest)
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Epilogue
Part 6
Evaporation
Apparently not a lot of women cleaned their gutters in 1978. Especially not their roof gutters. Even when they were wearing their husband’s bib-front overalls. ‘I am woman!’ Dean sang down to the passers-by.
‘Dean, it’s good to know you’re a feminist, but is now the right time to be making a socio-political statement?’
‘In Kansas?’
‘In utero.’
Dean balanced on the top of ladder and considered an alternative use for all those leaves.
‘Don’t even think it.’
Crap. Psychic, and a geek.
‘Dean, I don’t need to be psychic to read your mind. I just have to be your brother.’
Bugger.
‘Do you mind explaining to me why we are up an extension ladder cleaning out gutters while we have the little matter of being our parents, and, oh that other negligible thing - time travel - to fix?’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘ … Are you done yet?’
The leaves were very useful. As was the hose.
♒
‘You know, Sammy. You’re really … wet.’
‘So are you,’ Sam muttered sourly as they squelched into the laundry.
‘But I got you first, and that’s what counts.’ Dean threw a towel at his brother and added another point to the Sammy board in the back of his brain. Yup, as of today, he was still in the lead at 46,368 to Sam’s measly 17,711. Ladies, and gentlemen! The one! The only! Dean Win…
‘Dean!’
‘Huh?’
‘It must be lonely in there.’
‘Ow! Damn it, Dean.’
‘That was for saying you wanted a little girl.’ Dean wasn’t pouting. At all. ‘Like Dad would have known what to do with a daughter.’
‘Mom would have,’ Sam said quietly.
Sometimes Sam wiped that board clean all at once.
‘Yeah, she would have,’ Dean eventually managed to say, not looking anywhere other than the stubborn fastenings of his soggy overalls. ‘If we’d had a sister I’d have taught her how to kick your ass!’ He smiled as got the snaps undone. ‘She would have been one cool chick.’
‘Dean?’ Sam’s voice sounded a little strained. ‘Could you just remember that you’re Mom, and try not to strip in front of me?’
Dean definitely wasn’t blushing as he grabbed a towel quickly. ‘But you undressed me last night!’
‘But, I was trying to be Dad, and Mom … I mean … you were sick and I was just taking care of you, you know? Like this morning when you patched up my feet.’
‘But you weren’t naked! I’m not the one who keeps talking about getting naked.’ Darn.
This time Sam went with Mr GrapeFace.
Better change the subject before he brings out Mr Pineapple. ‘Let’s just go get changed and work out how the hell we got here, okay?’
The laundry sink looked like a good place to wash fruit. But Dean was totally above that sort of behaviour. Or at least Mom was. For now anyway.
♒
‘What do you remember from before this happened?’ Dean asked cautiously.
‘Wanting to slap you for being such a Neanderthal,’ Sam answered much too quickly.
Okay, no problems with some of Sam’s memories of then. Damn. ‘So, Michigan, blue moon, mind-wiping mayor, the whole nine yards?’
‘The whole sixteen dead yards? Yes, of course I do. We’ve only been here a day, Dean, it’s not like I could forget it that quic… Oh.’
‘Yeah. See what I mean? How the hell did we end up back here? In the Goddamn past, not to mention possessing our parents as if we were demons?’
‘Are we?’
‘Are we demons?’ Dean asked confused.
‘Are we actually here?’
‘Of course we’re here! Look around you, Sammy. Do you think this is some kind of dream?’ Dean hitched his damp towel more firmly up under his arms as he walked around the living room pointedly picking up and putting down objects. ‘It’s not done with mirrors, Sam, we’re really back home.’
‘No, what I meant was, if we - our minds, or souls or whatever makes us, us - are here in Mom and Dad’s bodies, where are our bodies? And more importantly where are Mom and Dad while we’re here?’
Uh. Good point. No, very, very, bad point. Shit.
‘Dean, your eyes are crossed.’
‘I’m trying to see.’
‘What?’ Sam said, puzzled.
‘If Mom is in here with me,’ Dean replied.
‘Here, where?’
‘In my head, dude!’
‘Ah. Can you see anything?’
‘No, it’s dark. Of course I can’t! I didn’t mean it literally, I meant … Oh, what the hell. I don’t know, Sam. It just feels like me in my head, except for it being Mom’s head.’ Dean sighed. He had a headache, so maybe he wasn’t dealing as well with the situation as he was pretending to.
‘Me too,’ Sam said. ‘Which gives us a few alternatives. They’re still here but not conscious while we’re possessing them, or they are and we just can’t communicate with them.’
Dean flinched at the idea of their parents trapped inside their own minds screaming while someone else took control of the steering wheel. If they knew who it was, would it make it any easier for them? He crossed a few of his (all right, of his mother’s) mental fingers and hoped for the first scenario.
‘Or they’re in the future in our bodies, like a straightforward swap.’ Sam continued with a rush, obviously trying to talk away the same disturbing thought. ‘Or …’
‘Or they’re brain dead,’ Dean said bluntly, raising the worst case scenario so they could deal with it and move onto the next option. Winchesters were raised to fight the biggest fires first. ‘But they can’t be dead now, because that would mean we couldn’t be alive in the future to be here now.’
‘Actually it could. We came back, and that changed things, so both opposites can be true. It’s a paradox,’ Sam said, making absolutely no sense at all to Dean.
‘Well, whichever it is, we’re going to fix it,’ Dean said firmly. ‘Because there’s no way I’m leaving either of our bodies lying next to that spring ready for those nuns to take away and use as paperweights.’ Bodies. ‘Is this what happened to all those other people, Sam? Did they get sucked into history?’ None of them ever escaped; in fact, most of them died. I won’t let this happen to us.
Sam shook his head decisively. ‘No, Harvey wiped their minds, just like we thought. I think we’re the exception. You must have triggered the spell when you picked up that stone, but something went wrong and instead of losing our minds, we got sent back here instead. Maybe it is because we interrupted Harvey’s ceremony and I killed him before he could finish? If the spell wasn’t closed, that would have left a lot of raw power running wild through those springs. We short-circuited it, and this is the result.’
‘Maybe something went right,’ Dean said thoughtfully. ‘Us turning up here isn’t some random thing like being hit by lightning and thrown thirteen feet across a field and living to tell the tale. The two of us got sent here together, right back to the beginning. I don’t care whether you call it luck, or fate, or destiny. We’ve got a chance to stop Harvey, and save all those people, and after that we can switch drivers and find a way to get home.
Sam was nodding, but keeping his eyes trained on the floor.
‘I’ll get our future back, Sammy. I promise.’ And I can fix our past too.
There was definitely something wrong, Sam looked strangely pink around the ears. ‘What’s the matter? Why are you blushing?’
‘Um.’
‘What?’
‘Your towel fell off.’
♒
Part 7
1,288/28,777 of R rated Gen (with an edge of subtext) crack!fic in which Dean revisits his past in unexpected ways. (The Inaugural Wet Overall Contest)
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Epilogue
Part 6
Evaporation
Apparently not a lot of women cleaned their gutters in 1978. Especially not their roof gutters. Even when they were wearing their husband’s bib-front overalls. ‘I am woman!’ Dean sang down to the passers-by.
‘Dean, it’s good to know you’re a feminist, but is now the right time to be making a socio-political statement?’
‘In Kansas?’
‘In utero.’
Dean balanced on the top of ladder and considered an alternative use for all those leaves.
‘Don’t even think it.’
Crap. Psychic, and a geek.
‘Dean, I don’t need to be psychic to read your mind. I just have to be your brother.’
Bugger.
‘Do you mind explaining to me why we are up an extension ladder cleaning out gutters while we have the little matter of being our parents, and, oh that other negligible thing - time travel - to fix?’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘ … Are you done yet?’
The leaves were very useful. As was the hose.
♒
‘You know, Sammy. You’re really … wet.’
‘So are you,’ Sam muttered sourly as they squelched into the laundry.
‘But I got you first, and that’s what counts.’ Dean threw a towel at his brother and added another point to the Sammy board in the back of his brain. Yup, as of today, he was still in the lead at 46,368 to Sam’s measly 17,711. Ladies, and gentlemen! The one! The only! Dean Win…
‘Dean!’
‘Huh?’
‘It must be lonely in there.’
‘Ow! Damn it, Dean.’
‘That was for saying you wanted a little girl.’ Dean wasn’t pouting. At all. ‘Like Dad would have known what to do with a daughter.’
‘Mom would have,’ Sam said quietly.
Sometimes Sam wiped that board clean all at once.
‘Yeah, she would have,’ Dean eventually managed to say, not looking anywhere other than the stubborn fastenings of his soggy overalls. ‘If we’d had a sister I’d have taught her how to kick your ass!’ He smiled as got the snaps undone. ‘She would have been one cool chick.’
‘Dean?’ Sam’s voice sounded a little strained. ‘Could you just remember that you’re Mom, and try not to strip in front of me?’
Dean definitely wasn’t blushing as he grabbed a towel quickly. ‘But you undressed me last night!’
‘But, I was trying to be Dad, and Mom … I mean … you were sick and I was just taking care of you, you know? Like this morning when you patched up my feet.’
‘But you weren’t naked! I’m not the one who keeps talking about getting naked.’ Darn.
This time Sam went with Mr GrapeFace.
Better change the subject before he brings out Mr Pineapple. ‘Let’s just go get changed and work out how the hell we got here, okay?’
The laundry sink looked like a good place to wash fruit. But Dean was totally above that sort of behaviour. Or at least Mom was. For now anyway.
♒
‘What do you remember from before this happened?’ Dean asked cautiously.
‘Wanting to slap you for being such a Neanderthal,’ Sam answered much too quickly.
Okay, no problems with some of Sam’s memories of then. Damn. ‘So, Michigan, blue moon, mind-wiping mayor, the whole nine yards?’
‘The whole sixteen dead yards? Yes, of course I do. We’ve only been here a day, Dean, it’s not like I could forget it that quic… Oh.’
‘Yeah. See what I mean? How the hell did we end up back here? In the Goddamn past, not to mention possessing our parents as if we were demons?’
‘Are we?’
‘Are we demons?’ Dean asked confused.
‘Are we actually here?’
‘Of course we’re here! Look around you, Sammy. Do you think this is some kind of dream?’ Dean hitched his damp towel more firmly up under his arms as he walked around the living room pointedly picking up and putting down objects. ‘It’s not done with mirrors, Sam, we’re really back home.’
‘No, what I meant was, if we - our minds, or souls or whatever makes us, us - are here in Mom and Dad’s bodies, where are our bodies? And more importantly where are Mom and Dad while we’re here?’
Uh. Good point. No, very, very, bad point. Shit.
‘Dean, your eyes are crossed.’
‘I’m trying to see.’
‘What?’ Sam said, puzzled.
‘If Mom is in here with me,’ Dean replied.
‘Here, where?’
‘In my head, dude!’
‘Ah. Can you see anything?’
‘No, it’s dark. Of course I can’t! I didn’t mean it literally, I meant … Oh, what the hell. I don’t know, Sam. It just feels like me in my head, except for it being Mom’s head.’ Dean sighed. He had a headache, so maybe he wasn’t dealing as well with the situation as he was pretending to.
‘Me too,’ Sam said. ‘Which gives us a few alternatives. They’re still here but not conscious while we’re possessing them, or they are and we just can’t communicate with them.’
Dean flinched at the idea of their parents trapped inside their own minds screaming while someone else took control of the steering wheel. If they knew who it was, would it make it any easier for them? He crossed a few of his (all right, of his mother’s) mental fingers and hoped for the first scenario.
‘Or they’re in the future in our bodies, like a straightforward swap.’ Sam continued with a rush, obviously trying to talk away the same disturbing thought. ‘Or …’
‘Or they’re brain dead,’ Dean said bluntly, raising the worst case scenario so they could deal with it and move onto the next option. Winchesters were raised to fight the biggest fires first. ‘But they can’t be dead now, because that would mean we couldn’t be alive in the future to be here now.’
‘Actually it could. We came back, and that changed things, so both opposites can be true. It’s a paradox,’ Sam said, making absolutely no sense at all to Dean.
‘Well, whichever it is, we’re going to fix it,’ Dean said firmly. ‘Because there’s no way I’m leaving either of our bodies lying next to that spring ready for those nuns to take away and use as paperweights.’ Bodies. ‘Is this what happened to all those other people, Sam? Did they get sucked into history?’ None of them ever escaped; in fact, most of them died. I won’t let this happen to us.
Sam shook his head decisively. ‘No, Harvey wiped their minds, just like we thought. I think we’re the exception. You must have triggered the spell when you picked up that stone, but something went wrong and instead of losing our minds, we got sent back here instead. Maybe it is because we interrupted Harvey’s ceremony and I killed him before he could finish? If the spell wasn’t closed, that would have left a lot of raw power running wild through those springs. We short-circuited it, and this is the result.’
‘Maybe something went right,’ Dean said thoughtfully. ‘Us turning up here isn’t some random thing like being hit by lightning and thrown thirteen feet across a field and living to tell the tale. The two of us got sent here together, right back to the beginning. I don’t care whether you call it luck, or fate, or destiny. We’ve got a chance to stop Harvey, and save all those people, and after that we can switch drivers and find a way to get home.
Sam was nodding, but keeping his eyes trained on the floor.
‘I’ll get our future back, Sammy. I promise.’ And I can fix our past too.
There was definitely something wrong, Sam looked strangely pink around the ears. ‘What’s the matter? Why are you blushing?’
‘Um.’
‘What?’
‘Your towel fell off.’
♒
Part 7