October 26, 2016 - Nothing to Fear
Title: Nothing to Fear
Prompt Choice: Fear/Scary
Pairing/Characters: Mary and wee!Dean
Rating: G
Medium: Fic
Word Count: 693
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any related characters.
Summary: Whenever Mary hears her son scream, she can’t help but fear the worst.
Warnings: Fluff accompanied by mild angst. Also, this is set pre-series, if you dislike flashback stories.
Notes: I don’t have any kids of my own, but I can imagine. So, if this doesn’t work for any of you who actually have children, I’m sorry. This is a tense I don’t often use, so I might slip up on occasion. Also, Dean may sound older than he’s meant to be? I’ve got really articulate nephews.
Dean gets a big boy bed when he turns three. They decided to start trying for another baby, so he also moves out of the nursery and into what used to be the guest room. Dean is no longer sleeping quite as close as he used to be, and Mary sometimes wonders which of them has more trouble with it, her or Dean.
“He’s growing up, Mary.” John dismisses her concerns as normal separation anxiety “I know that’s hard, but he has to learn to take care of himself.”
Mary wishes she was only worried that Dean might cry more than usual because he thinks he needs her closer. She has seen firsthand the horrors that prey upon children. When Dean screams for her because he’s had a nightmare, her heart pounds and her blood runs cold because she is always afraid something has come for her boy, and those extra few feet of hallway will mean she arrives too late.
Bursting into his room in a panic certainly doesn’t help Dean calm down again, and Mary just isn’t sure what to do about the problem.
Some of the parenting books say she’s supposed to let him work through it on his own, but she just can’t do it. John convinced her to try it once, but when Dean’s voice went silent she went tearing down the hall anyway to be certain he’d gone back to sleep and not just gone.
Finally, she remembers when she had decided it was time to take away Dean’s baby blanket a few months before. She had worried for days that it would go badly, that Dean would hate her. She thought about taking it while he slept and lying that it had disappeared. Reason had won out, however, and she sat her son down for a talk. She had been surprised to find Dean receptive to the idea.
“It is kinda smelly,” Dean had admitted, wrinkling his nose. “You can take it if you want, Mom.”
“Dean,” she asks over breakfast one morning, “what’s so scary about your new room?” Maybe this is something that will be an easy fix.
“It’s too dark,” Dean begins. This isn’t true, as far as Mary knows. They moved Dean’s favorite nightlight with him from the nursery. “An’ there’s the Shadow.”
“The shadow?” she asks, alarm bells ringing in her mind.
“Uh huh,” Dean says, unworried in the bright light of day. “It goes on the floor and the wall.”
Mary takes a moment to remind herself that there are many potential sources for shadows, and this is more likely to be something harmless than a monster.
One thing she was always good at on a hunt was research and investigation.
“Does it always come at the same time? Is it every night?” she questions her toddler.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, “evr’y night. I can’t read the clock, yet.” That’s right, Dean’s still hasn’t learned to tell time.
John is going to be out of town for the night at a car show he was invited to after his garage helped out a classic car owner, so Mary decides her and Dean are going to have a stakeout.
Dean is always happy to try and be brave when she asks it of him, and they snuggle together on the bed as they wait for “the shadow.”
“There it is!” Dean suddenly exclaims and points a chubby finger. Mary sighs in relief because she knows exactly where to find the source.
“Come on, Dean,” she grabs his hand and leads him to the window. They pull the curtains back and peek outside. Mary had forgotten that Dean’s new window faces the street. They have to wait a while, but a car finally drives by, the headlights casting a moving shadow from the tree in their yard.
“See, honey?” she explains, giving him a hug. “It’s just like a giant shadow puppet, that’s all.”
That’s really all. They both sleep through the rest of the night with no trouble, and if she spends the night curled up around Dean instead of going back to her own room, well, there’s always tomorrow for independence.
Prompt Choice: Fear/Scary
Pairing/Characters: Mary and wee!Dean
Rating: G
Medium: Fic
Word Count: 693
Fandom: Supernatural
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any related characters.
Summary: Whenever Mary hears her son scream, she can’t help but fear the worst.
Warnings: Fluff accompanied by mild angst. Also, this is set pre-series, if you dislike flashback stories.
Notes: I don’t have any kids of my own, but I can imagine. So, if this doesn’t work for any of you who actually have children, I’m sorry. This is a tense I don’t often use, so I might slip up on occasion. Also, Dean may sound older than he’s meant to be? I’ve got really articulate nephews.
Dean gets a big boy bed when he turns three. They decided to start trying for another baby, so he also moves out of the nursery and into what used to be the guest room. Dean is no longer sleeping quite as close as he used to be, and Mary sometimes wonders which of them has more trouble with it, her or Dean.
“He’s growing up, Mary.” John dismisses her concerns as normal separation anxiety “I know that’s hard, but he has to learn to take care of himself.”
Mary wishes she was only worried that Dean might cry more than usual because he thinks he needs her closer. She has seen firsthand the horrors that prey upon children. When Dean screams for her because he’s had a nightmare, her heart pounds and her blood runs cold because she is always afraid something has come for her boy, and those extra few feet of hallway will mean she arrives too late.
Bursting into his room in a panic certainly doesn’t help Dean calm down again, and Mary just isn’t sure what to do about the problem.
Some of the parenting books say she’s supposed to let him work through it on his own, but she just can’t do it. John convinced her to try it once, but when Dean’s voice went silent she went tearing down the hall anyway to be certain he’d gone back to sleep and not just gone.
Finally, she remembers when she had decided it was time to take away Dean’s baby blanket a few months before. She had worried for days that it would go badly, that Dean would hate her. She thought about taking it while he slept and lying that it had disappeared. Reason had won out, however, and she sat her son down for a talk. She had been surprised to find Dean receptive to the idea.
“It is kinda smelly,” Dean had admitted, wrinkling his nose. “You can take it if you want, Mom.”
“Dean,” she asks over breakfast one morning, “what’s so scary about your new room?” Maybe this is something that will be an easy fix.
“It’s too dark,” Dean begins. This isn’t true, as far as Mary knows. They moved Dean’s favorite nightlight with him from the nursery. “An’ there’s the Shadow.”
“The shadow?” she asks, alarm bells ringing in her mind.
“Uh huh,” Dean says, unworried in the bright light of day. “It goes on the floor and the wall.”
Mary takes a moment to remind herself that there are many potential sources for shadows, and this is more likely to be something harmless than a monster.
One thing she was always good at on a hunt was research and investigation.
“Does it always come at the same time? Is it every night?” she questions her toddler.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, “evr’y night. I can’t read the clock, yet.” That’s right, Dean’s still hasn’t learned to tell time.
John is going to be out of town for the night at a car show he was invited to after his garage helped out a classic car owner, so Mary decides her and Dean are going to have a stakeout.
Dean is always happy to try and be brave when she asks it of him, and they snuggle together on the bed as they wait for “the shadow.”
“There it is!” Dean suddenly exclaims and points a chubby finger. Mary sighs in relief because she knows exactly where to find the source.
“Come on, Dean,” she grabs his hand and leads him to the window. They pull the curtains back and peek outside. Mary had forgotten that Dean’s new window faces the street. They have to wait a while, but a car finally drives by, the headlights casting a moving shadow from the tree in their yard.
“See, honey?” she explains, giving him a hug. “It’s just like a giant shadow puppet, that’s all.”
That’s really all. They both sleep through the rest of the night with no trouble, and if she spends the night curled up around Dean instead of going back to her own room, well, there’s always tomorrow for independence.