"Push Back the Shadows (Time to Rest)" (Sam/Dean, G)
A teensy bit of a ficlet, written for mickeym.
Pre-story timestamp for By Any Other Name (What Matters Is What Something Is). Babyfic (not mpreg). Schmooptastic schmoop.
Push Back the Shadows (Time to Rest)
650 words, Sam/Dean but rated G. Sam drives 1500 miles to meet the daughter he never knew he had.
Sam meets her on a Wednesday, 1500 miles away from Dean. She's small, though they say otherwise. Her head fits in the palm of his hand. Her hand doesn't wrap all the way around one finger. She doesn't have a name yet, and he worries for a minute that they've got her mixed up with another Baby Jane Doe.
Dean would smack him on the head and tell him he's being an idiot.
He wants to call Dean and tell him about her. How he doesn't know what to do when she cries, and how he still thinks maybe this is a joke. He knows it's not, dates and places adding up to Meg's joyride; here's the result, eight pounds of what feels like light-as-fluff baby girl with tufts of red hair.
He doesn't call Dean. Can't think of what to say that they haven't said already.
***
"I have to do this." Don't want to go.
"I get that." Dean stretched out, popping his joints, still undressed beneath a carelessly-gathered sheet, and scratched the left angle of his chin. "I could still come with."
"No. Stay here. Work the case." Sam ran his hands through his hair, sticky from road grime. Can't do this. Bad idea. The worst.
But... "It's my fault," he said, and again, "I have to."
"Not your fault, it wasn't you."
They'd had this argument before.
Dean blew out a noisy breath. "Yeah, I know. Go bring her home. Sam?"
Sam looked sideways at Dean, waiting for the lecture.
It didn't come. "Don't give yourself a heart attack, okay?" Dean mumbled, busying himself with fraying the ragged sheet's edge into strings. "If you want -- need to, call. " Quieter still. "I got your back."
Sam kisses him, quick and hard, before he leaves. It's snowing.
***
They drive 1500 miles together. When she cries, he tries to comfort her, though he's afraid he'll break her instead.
He wants to love her, but he doesn't know how.
When he apologizes, she doesn't understand. He tries resting this way and that, and finally figures out she'll quiet down if she can hear his heart beating. So he lets her sleep on his chest. He gets why she's upset. He could use some comfort too, stoicism be damned, so why he doesn't pick up the phone and call Dean he just doesn't know.
***
Back where he started, Sam opens the motel door. Inside, the lights are turned down low, the room quiet. There's stuff Sam doesn't remember cluttering the room when he left, blankets and a stack of formula cans and something he thinks might actually be a cobbled-together mobile made from keychains and stars cut out of silver Hershey bar wrappers.
"Don't say a word," Dean warns. He sits on the king-sized bed, waiting for them, and grins at Sam as if it's no big deal, just another day, and Sam thinks, later, that's what breaks him.
He lets Dean have her, and sits heavily on the bed beside the pair of them, face in his hands.
But he watches, red-eyed-tired, through his fingers as she wraps Dean around her pinky the second she's in his arms, capable in the way they hold her close, not scared at all that he'll drop her or break her. "Hey, princess," he murmurs. "Lucky you, not takin' after your old man in the looks department. Hungry?"
She's hushed in Dean's arms, gazing at him through the cloudy haze of someone who doesn't understand the world yet, but Sam wonders if maybe, despite that, she already knows Dean means home and safe. Maybe she does.
Dean knocks elbows with Sam, and tells him where the bottles are and how to heat one. "I've got your back," he says, again, pointed look at him over her, "Why didn't you call if you were this freaked out? Never mind. Pay attention, and I'll show you how it's done."
And Sam breathes easy again for the first time in 3000 miles.
Pre-story timestamp for By Any Other Name (What Matters Is What Something Is). Babyfic (not mpreg). Schmooptastic schmoop.
Push Back the Shadows (Time to Rest)
650 words, Sam/Dean but rated G. Sam drives 1500 miles to meet the daughter he never knew he had.
Sam meets her on a Wednesday, 1500 miles away from Dean. She's small, though they say otherwise. Her head fits in the palm of his hand. Her hand doesn't wrap all the way around one finger. She doesn't have a name yet, and he worries for a minute that they've got her mixed up with another Baby Jane Doe.
Dean would smack him on the head and tell him he's being an idiot.
He wants to call Dean and tell him about her. How he doesn't know what to do when she cries, and how he still thinks maybe this is a joke. He knows it's not, dates and places adding up to Meg's joyride; here's the result, eight pounds of what feels like light-as-fluff baby girl with tufts of red hair.
He doesn't call Dean. Can't think of what to say that they haven't said already.
***
"I have to do this." Don't want to go.
"I get that." Dean stretched out, popping his joints, still undressed beneath a carelessly-gathered sheet, and scratched the left angle of his chin. "I could still come with."
"No. Stay here. Work the case." Sam ran his hands through his hair, sticky from road grime. Can't do this. Bad idea. The worst.
But... "It's my fault," he said, and again, "I have to."
"Not your fault, it wasn't you."
They'd had this argument before.
Dean blew out a noisy breath. "Yeah, I know. Go bring her home. Sam?"
Sam looked sideways at Dean, waiting for the lecture.
It didn't come. "Don't give yourself a heart attack, okay?" Dean mumbled, busying himself with fraying the ragged sheet's edge into strings. "If you want -- need to, call. " Quieter still. "I got your back."
Sam kisses him, quick and hard, before he leaves. It's snowing.
***
They drive 1500 miles together. When she cries, he tries to comfort her, though he's afraid he'll break her instead.
He wants to love her, but he doesn't know how.
When he apologizes, she doesn't understand. He tries resting this way and that, and finally figures out she'll quiet down if she can hear his heart beating. So he lets her sleep on his chest. He gets why she's upset. He could use some comfort too, stoicism be damned, so why he doesn't pick up the phone and call Dean he just doesn't know.
***
Back where he started, Sam opens the motel door. Inside, the lights are turned down low, the room quiet. There's stuff Sam doesn't remember cluttering the room when he left, blankets and a stack of formula cans and something he thinks might actually be a cobbled-together mobile made from keychains and stars cut out of silver Hershey bar wrappers.
"Don't say a word," Dean warns. He sits on the king-sized bed, waiting for them, and grins at Sam as if it's no big deal, just another day, and Sam thinks, later, that's what breaks him.
He lets Dean have her, and sits heavily on the bed beside the pair of them, face in his hands.
But he watches, red-eyed-tired, through his fingers as she wraps Dean around her pinky the second she's in his arms, capable in the way they hold her close, not scared at all that he'll drop her or break her. "Hey, princess," he murmurs. "Lucky you, not takin' after your old man in the looks department. Hungry?"
She's hushed in Dean's arms, gazing at him through the cloudy haze of someone who doesn't understand the world yet, but Sam wonders if maybe, despite that, she already knows Dean means home and safe. Maybe she does.
Dean knocks elbows with Sam, and tells him where the bottles are and how to heat one. "I've got your back," he says, again, pointed look at him over her, "Why didn't you call if you were this freaked out? Never mind. Pay attention, and I'll show you how it's done."
And Sam breathes easy again for the first time in 3000 miles.