Untitled #1 (Gen, G)
Apr. 30th, 2007 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pixel_0Title: Untitled #1
Rating: G
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 2223
Characters: Dean, Sam, and John
Spoilers: None
Summary: Pre-series about a pack of crayons and Sam’s first day at school
Warnings: None
Author’s Notes: Originally written January 1, 2007
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
- - - - -
The day before Sam starts kindergarten, Dean buys him a pack of crayons, a twelve-pack because Sammy deserves better than a little six-pack of colorful wax but Dean doesn’t have enough money for the twenty-four box of crayons. Dean has finished his paper route that afternoon, and he takes the money he has been saving all summer just to make sure Sam has his crayons because Dean never had his own crayons when he was in kindergarten, and he remembers how he had to share with the kid who sat next to him. The kid who used up all the black and green before Dean could color with them so Dean had to draw his trees with blue leaves and his roads red, and the teacher asked him if he knew what color of shirt she was wearing, just to make sure he wasn’t stupid or something, Dean guesses as he thinks back at that day.
Dean brings the crayons home to Sam in a small white bag that crinkles and snaps all the way home, and when he opens the door and hands Sam the bag, Sam peeks inside under floppy ever-so-curly hair that needs to be cut but Dad told them not to play with scissors so Sam’s hair will have to wait until later. Sam sees the crayons inside their little bag, and he throws his arms around Dean, sticky fingers from his jelly sandwich snack clinging to Dean’s shirt. Sam presses his face into Dean’s abdomen, hard head against soft stomach, and he says, “Thank you, Dean, thank you, thank you, thank you” like Dean has just brought him a pirate’s treasure from the end of the world.
As Mrs. Morrison, the neighbor lady who watches Sam during the day while Dean is at school or on his paper route and Dad is at work or just away to places he won’t name, comes into the room, Dean blushes when she sees Sam wrapped around his waist. But Sam doesn’t let go, and he just squeezes Dean hard enough to cause Dean wince for the ever-slightest smallest moment because Sammy sure is growing up, and he’s getting stronger and bigger than Dean can remember from the day before. So, Dean ruffles Sam’s messy, floppy mop of hair and says, trying to be the cool big brother in front of Mrs. Morrison because he doesn’t want her to think he’s some kind of wimp, “Okay, Sammy, no problem.”
Sam scampers away with those words, swinging the bag with the crayons from his hand as he hurries off to his shared room with Dean and singing about how he’s going to have better pictures than every other kid in his class with his new, magical crayons from big brother Dean. Mrs. Morrison and Dean both watch Sam disappear away, and she looks down at Dean, a smile on her rosy cheeks that still have dusts of flour on them from when she and Sam baked pancakes today. “You make him so happy,” she says, gathering her purse and sweater from the table that has a splatter of orange paint on its surface and uneven fourth leg that shakes from time to time.
Dean nods awkwardly, uncomfortable with her praise, and he shuffles his worn tennis shoes that are splitting along the seams over the carpeting. “Thank you,” he mumbles, remembering that Dad always told them to mind their manners and say thank you and please and you’re welcome because that’s called “being polite.”
She chuckles, not unkindly of course, but her feminine laughter in a household of three men trying to find their way through unfamiliar darkness in a world that took their light away, is foreign and strange nonetheless. She pats Dean on the shoulder, wishes him good luck at school tomorrow, and heads out the door to begin her short walk back to her house just down the road that has pink petunias and fairy statues on its front lawn.
After Mrs. Morrison leaves and Sam and Dean have done their chores, Dean helps Sam pack his backpack that Dad bought at the thrift store downtown, and Sam chatters on endlessly. He has been looking forward to school ever since he had to stand at the end of the driveway and watch Dean walk alone to the school four years ago. Finally, Sam’s big day to go to school like Dean is almost here, too. He wants to know everything about it, if the teachers are mean, what the other kids are like, and his questions spill over each other, running madly around the next, until Dean has answered every worry, every thought in Sam’s head.
They eat dinner—reheated pancakes that Mrs. Morrison made for them today with only a bit of butter and syrup—in front of the television. They’re supposed to be eating at the table because Dad would be really mad if he found out that they’ve dropped their food on the carpeting in the living room, but Sam says he’ll be super careful and Dean trusts him to be just that. It’s simply too hard to sit at the wobbly table with only the two of them, lonely and little, trying to keep the conversations going just so Dean doesn’t have to hear the silence and feel the stark absence of Dad again.
Following dinner, Sam helps Dean wash the dishes in the sink. Dean’s tall enough to reach the sink, but Sam has to kneel on a chair so he can see the countertop too. “Careful, Sam,” Dean warns as he gives a wet plate to Sam who has the fraying towel with faded blue flowers in his small hands. “Don’t drop it.”
Sam shakes his head as he gingerly, almost so carefully it’s comical, takes the plate and starts to dry it in small, short little movements of the towel. Soon the dishes are put away in the cupboards alongside Sammy’s plastic cartoon character cups and glass vases they never use, and Dad’s still not home. Dean knows that Dad probably won’t be home before tomorrow morning, but he doesn’t tell Sam this, doesn’t want to have to answer more of Sam’s questions about where Dad is or why Dad’s gone so much or what he does when he’s away all the time.
When everything is cleaned, Dean helps Sam get his bath. Sam doesn’t want to take his bath, and Dean has to chase him around the house while Sam squeals and giggles, running about in just his underwear. “I’m a bad guy!” Sam screams. “You can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!” Finally, though, policeman Dean catches robber Sam, and carries him to the bathroom.
There, Sam runs one of Dean’s old toy cars along the side of the cream ceramic tub as Dean, white frothy soap bubbles up to his elbows, tries to wash Sam’s hair. Water splashes over the side of the tub when Sam kicks and tries to get away from Dean. He is not angry or upset; he merely does not want to sit still long enough to allow Dean to bathe him. So Sam slides around playfully, leaving Dean soaked afterward and wiping up the bathroom tiles with piles of towels before Dad gets home and finds the puddles.
Once Sam is clean, small chubby body smelling like the crisp soap he used and the old flannel pajamas he wears, Dean puts him to bed. He reads Sam one chapter from the big book, just one even though Sam wants more, but there’s school tomorrow and Sam needs to be to bed early because the big day’s almost here and Sam can’t be tired for that. So, Dean reads to Sam from one of Dad’s old books because Sammy’s outgrown the children’s books that Mom had bought for him all those years ago, and sometimes, Dean struggles on the big words in Dad’s books. But, Sam doesn’t notice, doesn’t care, and just listens on happily.
When Dean’s finished with the chapter, he pulls the blankets up tight around Sam and walks to the doorway to finish cleaning before Dad comes home. Sam, from his tight little cocoon of worn cotton and plump pillows, whispers, “Good-night, Dean.”
Dean smiles at the sleep-thick voice coming through the darkness too. “Good-night, Sammy,” he whispers, and Dean turns off the light and closes the door behind him.
Dad comes home somewhere around eleven that night, and Dean, who in Dad’s bathrobe has fallen asleep in the chair by the television, darts awake at the sound of the door being unlocked. When Dad comes in, he looks tired, but he smiles when he sees Dean coming toward him in the too big robe, and Dad sets his traveling bags on the table to reach down and hug his oldest boy. Dad asks about Sammy, if he’s excited for school, and Dean tells Dad all about the crayons. Dad smiles, but doesn’t laugh like he would have just a few years ago, but smiling is better than nothing at all, Dean figures, so he’ll take what he can get from his dad, even if it’s not what he wishes for. Once Dad disappears into his own bedroom, Dean finally rests and goes to bed to sleep for the night.
When Dean wakes the next morning, early before Sam, there’s a note on the refrigerator from Dad that says that he’s gone to town, and Dean will have to take Sam to kindergarten on his own. Dean wants to be surprised at seeing the note, reading it while Sam still sleeps so peacefully, but he’s not. He has been expecting this for a long time, but he’s not bitter. He’s too young to be bitter, and he understands that he has to protect Sam and look out for Sam because Dad’s too busy. Always has been, Dean figures, and always will be. It’s going to be Dean and Sammy. Dad’s just a maybe.
On their walk to school, Sam, dressed in wrinkled jeans and Dean’s old shirt with the purple t-rex, talks all the way. His excitement is contagious, and Dean feels himself smiling as they come closer to the school, and a bit of optimism that possibly this year won’t be quite so bad as the last creeps underneath Dean’s skin. When they have to cross the street to the school where buses, large and yellow, slide past and children shriek and laugh, Dean takes Sam’s hand in his own and holds it tight. As they come closer where the other kids are starting to look at them, Dean starts to let go of Sam’s hand, but Sam only squeezes tighter, and his large baby eyes are darting around the playground as they cross, down the halls as they walk inside, and over his classroom walls as they enter.
There are parents everywhere, kissing their crying children good-bye and talking with the teacher. Dean feels funny, a little bit sick like he did when he had the flu last winter, and he finds himself squeezing Sam’s hand back in return.
Then the teacher finds them, two frozen little statues in the doorway, and she crouches down to their eyelevel. Her long black hair is pulled back with a bright yellow ribbon and sunflowers dangle from her ears as she asks Sam what his name is and how old he is. “Your mom or dad couldn’t make it?” she asks, glancing from Sam to Dean, not sure which one to talk to with Sam suddenly so scared he’s not saying anything even though he hasn’t been quiet all summer long.
“They’re at work,” Dean lies because he knows well enough that telling people that their mom is dead and their dad leaves more often than is home only leads to those disappointed faces that grown-ups do when they’re upset about something. He doesn’t like causing people to make that face, so he tries to lie if he has to, just to stop those looks.
Then Sam blurts out, “Dean got me crayons,” and he pulls the yellow pack out of his backpack and shoves them clumsily in the teacher’s face. She smiles and tells him that he’s a lucky boy to have such a pretty set of crayons and such a nice big brother to buy them for Sam.
“Yeah,” Sam says, sighs and looks up at Dean, squeezing his hand again. He’s missing one of his teeth when he smiles and only one of his dimples show, but his childish happiness is pure and beautiful anyway. “A nice brother,” he repeats.
Then Dean, not caring who sees and who says he’s a wimp, pulls Sam close and squeezes him tight. He knows right then as he releases Sam’s hand and lets his little brother go into a new strange world without Dean by his side that he will not always be able to stay with Sammy. That a single box of crayons will not always be able to bring Sam as much happiness as they do today. But, Dean decides, standing in the doorway as the teacher introduces his younger brother to a group of children who are cutting out construction paper shapes, he’ll never stop trying to find that perfect pack of crayons for Sam for as long as he can.
End
Rating: G
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 2223
Characters: Dean, Sam, and John
Spoilers: None
Summary: Pre-series about a pack of crayons and Sam’s first day at school
Warnings: None
Author’s Notes: Originally written January 1, 2007
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
The day before Sam starts kindergarten, Dean buys him a pack of crayons, a twelve-pack because Sammy deserves better than a little six-pack of colorful wax but Dean doesn’t have enough money for the twenty-four box of crayons. Dean has finished his paper route that afternoon, and he takes the money he has been saving all summer just to make sure Sam has his crayons because Dean never had his own crayons when he was in kindergarten, and he remembers how he had to share with the kid who sat next to him. The kid who used up all the black and green before Dean could color with them so Dean had to draw his trees with blue leaves and his roads red, and the teacher asked him if he knew what color of shirt she was wearing, just to make sure he wasn’t stupid or something, Dean guesses as he thinks back at that day.
Dean brings the crayons home to Sam in a small white bag that crinkles and snaps all the way home, and when he opens the door and hands Sam the bag, Sam peeks inside under floppy ever-so-curly hair that needs to be cut but Dad told them not to play with scissors so Sam’s hair will have to wait until later. Sam sees the crayons inside their little bag, and he throws his arms around Dean, sticky fingers from his jelly sandwich snack clinging to Dean’s shirt. Sam presses his face into Dean’s abdomen, hard head against soft stomach, and he says, “Thank you, Dean, thank you, thank you, thank you” like Dean has just brought him a pirate’s treasure from the end of the world.
As Mrs. Morrison, the neighbor lady who watches Sam during the day while Dean is at school or on his paper route and Dad is at work or just away to places he won’t name, comes into the room, Dean blushes when she sees Sam wrapped around his waist. But Sam doesn’t let go, and he just squeezes Dean hard enough to cause Dean wince for the ever-slightest smallest moment because Sammy sure is growing up, and he’s getting stronger and bigger than Dean can remember from the day before. So, Dean ruffles Sam’s messy, floppy mop of hair and says, trying to be the cool big brother in front of Mrs. Morrison because he doesn’t want her to think he’s some kind of wimp, “Okay, Sammy, no problem.”
Sam scampers away with those words, swinging the bag with the crayons from his hand as he hurries off to his shared room with Dean and singing about how he’s going to have better pictures than every other kid in his class with his new, magical crayons from big brother Dean. Mrs. Morrison and Dean both watch Sam disappear away, and she looks down at Dean, a smile on her rosy cheeks that still have dusts of flour on them from when she and Sam baked pancakes today. “You make him so happy,” she says, gathering her purse and sweater from the table that has a splatter of orange paint on its surface and uneven fourth leg that shakes from time to time.
Dean nods awkwardly, uncomfortable with her praise, and he shuffles his worn tennis shoes that are splitting along the seams over the carpeting. “Thank you,” he mumbles, remembering that Dad always told them to mind their manners and say thank you and please and you’re welcome because that’s called “being polite.”
She chuckles, not unkindly of course, but her feminine laughter in a household of three men trying to find their way through unfamiliar darkness in a world that took their light away, is foreign and strange nonetheless. She pats Dean on the shoulder, wishes him good luck at school tomorrow, and heads out the door to begin her short walk back to her house just down the road that has pink petunias and fairy statues on its front lawn.
After Mrs. Morrison leaves and Sam and Dean have done their chores, Dean helps Sam pack his backpack that Dad bought at the thrift store downtown, and Sam chatters on endlessly. He has been looking forward to school ever since he had to stand at the end of the driveway and watch Dean walk alone to the school four years ago. Finally, Sam’s big day to go to school like Dean is almost here, too. He wants to know everything about it, if the teachers are mean, what the other kids are like, and his questions spill over each other, running madly around the next, until Dean has answered every worry, every thought in Sam’s head.
They eat dinner—reheated pancakes that Mrs. Morrison made for them today with only a bit of butter and syrup—in front of the television. They’re supposed to be eating at the table because Dad would be really mad if he found out that they’ve dropped their food on the carpeting in the living room, but Sam says he’ll be super careful and Dean trusts him to be just that. It’s simply too hard to sit at the wobbly table with only the two of them, lonely and little, trying to keep the conversations going just so Dean doesn’t have to hear the silence and feel the stark absence of Dad again.
Following dinner, Sam helps Dean wash the dishes in the sink. Dean’s tall enough to reach the sink, but Sam has to kneel on a chair so he can see the countertop too. “Careful, Sam,” Dean warns as he gives a wet plate to Sam who has the fraying towel with faded blue flowers in his small hands. “Don’t drop it.”
Sam shakes his head as he gingerly, almost so carefully it’s comical, takes the plate and starts to dry it in small, short little movements of the towel. Soon the dishes are put away in the cupboards alongside Sammy’s plastic cartoon character cups and glass vases they never use, and Dad’s still not home. Dean knows that Dad probably won’t be home before tomorrow morning, but he doesn’t tell Sam this, doesn’t want to have to answer more of Sam’s questions about where Dad is or why Dad’s gone so much or what he does when he’s away all the time.
When everything is cleaned, Dean helps Sam get his bath. Sam doesn’t want to take his bath, and Dean has to chase him around the house while Sam squeals and giggles, running about in just his underwear. “I’m a bad guy!” Sam screams. “You can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!” Finally, though, policeman Dean catches robber Sam, and carries him to the bathroom.
There, Sam runs one of Dean’s old toy cars along the side of the cream ceramic tub as Dean, white frothy soap bubbles up to his elbows, tries to wash Sam’s hair. Water splashes over the side of the tub when Sam kicks and tries to get away from Dean. He is not angry or upset; he merely does not want to sit still long enough to allow Dean to bathe him. So Sam slides around playfully, leaving Dean soaked afterward and wiping up the bathroom tiles with piles of towels before Dad gets home and finds the puddles.
Once Sam is clean, small chubby body smelling like the crisp soap he used and the old flannel pajamas he wears, Dean puts him to bed. He reads Sam one chapter from the big book, just one even though Sam wants more, but there’s school tomorrow and Sam needs to be to bed early because the big day’s almost here and Sam can’t be tired for that. So, Dean reads to Sam from one of Dad’s old books because Sammy’s outgrown the children’s books that Mom had bought for him all those years ago, and sometimes, Dean struggles on the big words in Dad’s books. But, Sam doesn’t notice, doesn’t care, and just listens on happily.
When Dean’s finished with the chapter, he pulls the blankets up tight around Sam and walks to the doorway to finish cleaning before Dad comes home. Sam, from his tight little cocoon of worn cotton and plump pillows, whispers, “Good-night, Dean.”
Dean smiles at the sleep-thick voice coming through the darkness too. “Good-night, Sammy,” he whispers, and Dean turns off the light and closes the door behind him.
Dad comes home somewhere around eleven that night, and Dean, who in Dad’s bathrobe has fallen asleep in the chair by the television, darts awake at the sound of the door being unlocked. When Dad comes in, he looks tired, but he smiles when he sees Dean coming toward him in the too big robe, and Dad sets his traveling bags on the table to reach down and hug his oldest boy. Dad asks about Sammy, if he’s excited for school, and Dean tells Dad all about the crayons. Dad smiles, but doesn’t laugh like he would have just a few years ago, but smiling is better than nothing at all, Dean figures, so he’ll take what he can get from his dad, even if it’s not what he wishes for. Once Dad disappears into his own bedroom, Dean finally rests and goes to bed to sleep for the night.
When Dean wakes the next morning, early before Sam, there’s a note on the refrigerator from Dad that says that he’s gone to town, and Dean will have to take Sam to kindergarten on his own. Dean wants to be surprised at seeing the note, reading it while Sam still sleeps so peacefully, but he’s not. He has been expecting this for a long time, but he’s not bitter. He’s too young to be bitter, and he understands that he has to protect Sam and look out for Sam because Dad’s too busy. Always has been, Dean figures, and always will be. It’s going to be Dean and Sammy. Dad’s just a maybe.
On their walk to school, Sam, dressed in wrinkled jeans and Dean’s old shirt with the purple t-rex, talks all the way. His excitement is contagious, and Dean feels himself smiling as they come closer to the school, and a bit of optimism that possibly this year won’t be quite so bad as the last creeps underneath Dean’s skin. When they have to cross the street to the school where buses, large and yellow, slide past and children shriek and laugh, Dean takes Sam’s hand in his own and holds it tight. As they come closer where the other kids are starting to look at them, Dean starts to let go of Sam’s hand, but Sam only squeezes tighter, and his large baby eyes are darting around the playground as they cross, down the halls as they walk inside, and over his classroom walls as they enter.
There are parents everywhere, kissing their crying children good-bye and talking with the teacher. Dean feels funny, a little bit sick like he did when he had the flu last winter, and he finds himself squeezing Sam’s hand back in return.
Then the teacher finds them, two frozen little statues in the doorway, and she crouches down to their eyelevel. Her long black hair is pulled back with a bright yellow ribbon and sunflowers dangle from her ears as she asks Sam what his name is and how old he is. “Your mom or dad couldn’t make it?” she asks, glancing from Sam to Dean, not sure which one to talk to with Sam suddenly so scared he’s not saying anything even though he hasn’t been quiet all summer long.
“They’re at work,” Dean lies because he knows well enough that telling people that their mom is dead and their dad leaves more often than is home only leads to those disappointed faces that grown-ups do when they’re upset about something. He doesn’t like causing people to make that face, so he tries to lie if he has to, just to stop those looks.
Then Sam blurts out, “Dean got me crayons,” and he pulls the yellow pack out of his backpack and shoves them clumsily in the teacher’s face. She smiles and tells him that he’s a lucky boy to have such a pretty set of crayons and such a nice big brother to buy them for Sam.
“Yeah,” Sam says, sighs and looks up at Dean, squeezing his hand again. He’s missing one of his teeth when he smiles and only one of his dimples show, but his childish happiness is pure and beautiful anyway. “A nice brother,” he repeats.
Then Dean, not caring who sees and who says he’s a wimp, pulls Sam close and squeezes him tight. He knows right then as he releases Sam’s hand and lets his little brother go into a new strange world without Dean by his side that he will not always be able to stay with Sammy. That a single box of crayons will not always be able to bring Sam as much happiness as they do today. But, Dean decides, standing in the doorway as the teacher introduces his younger brother to a group of children who are cutting out construction paper shapes, he’ll never stop trying to find that perfect pack of crayons for Sam for as long as he can.
End
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-05-01 12:16 am (UTC)P.S. You owe me for my dentist bill ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-01 03:22 pm (UTC)P.S. Your fluff induced cavities will be just fine. ;)