Comfort (3/30, G, Sam, Dean, John)
Title: Comfort
Author: acerbus_instar
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Prompt: #03: Regret
Word Count: 755
Summary: For spn_30snapshots table, Liars and Thieves, part of a prequel series to my AU fic, Swift Hounds of Lússa. This installment: Lil' Sammy's an outgoing fellow.
1987
When Dean Winchester is eight years old, he leads his little brother by the hand through the produce section of South Hampton’s downtown grocery. He’s feeling self-conscious under the eyes of a dozen adults still in their Sunday best. Dad’s set him on the goal of obtaining vegetables: “whatever’s reasonable, and green.” So broccoli, because Sammy will eat that sometimes, and green beans, because he’ll eat that sometimes, and lettuce for sandwiches.
He lets Sammy go long enough to pick up a good-looking head of lettuce. No limp leaves, nice weight to it. He doesn’t say anything about 'stay here' or 'don’t move' because Sammy’s good about that; he knows that once Dean lets go he’s to stay stock still until they’re reconnected.
So once the lettuce is bagged and tied he doesn’t even look, just holds out a hand. And nothing’s there to grab it.
Dean doesn’t even know how to process that.
When he does, his brain’s almost immediately swooping into paranoia, thinking they’ve stolen him, the oppressive staring adults, hustled him off like a ripe cabbage to ring him through the register, and he’ll have to run up, no, he’s mine, that one’s my Sammy, but no. Sam’s right there, all trailing shoelaces and floppy dark hair. There’s a woman studying artichokes like they’re the secret to eternal youth, and Sammy’s straying towards her, and then Sammy’s wrapped around her legs and Dean’s just staring, flabbergasted.
The woman’s back goes straight as a rod. She has to hold out her arms at odd angles so she can look down, see the thing that’s clung on to her. Dean yells, “Sammy,” and a couple heads twist and look - except for his idiot of a little brother’s, of course.
The woman doesn’t seem to hear him, either. She doesn’t shove Sammy or yell at him, or look around angrily for whatever parent has let their drool-monster roam free. She puts the artichoke down, turns, and kneels before him. Sammy steps back, eyes wide. And then she hugs him.
Dean’s right there, apologizing fervently, “Dunno why, sorry, ma’am, c’mon Sammy,” anything to make her get her hands off of him, and the entire store’s staring at the back of his neck, but when she lets go and Sammy runs back to Dean the woman’s got tears in her eyes.
And Dean’s staring again.
She sniffles, straightens up. “Sorry.” Sorree. “I, oh. Very sorry.”
“Won’t happen again,” Dean says back. “Sorry.”
Seems to be the only word they’re able to exchange.
He leads Sammy away with a fierce whispered remonstration, and Sammy acts remonstrated enough, pulling out the wide ‘what’d I do’ eyes and the trembling lip. But when Dean asks what he did it for Sammy says he doesn’t know, she just looked sad. He asks what that’s supposed to mean, the woman was staring at artichokes, and Sammy insists he doesn’t know and won’t say anything else on the subject.
It’s not until he gets back to Dad that he realizes all he has is a head of lettuce, so Dad takes them back to get the rest. The woman’s still there; she pounces on Dad to explain the situation, and Dad sends them off to the cereal aisle.
Dad never tells him all of what she said. Just that she’d apologized for acting so strange, it being his kid and all. Dean tells Dad the full story, but a “Keep a closer eye” and a “He’s just perceptive, Dean, kids are sometimes,” are all that’s said about the woman and her artichokes.
--|--|--|--|--
The woman had lost a son. Mark. He was three years old. Playing right in front of her, on the sidewalk. She’d been talking to the neighbor; the driver had been messing with the tape deck. Three months had passed when a kid walked up and hugged her in the grocery store, and to all her family and all her friends the grieving was over, the case was closed, buried and dead and gone in so many ways, but that strange child in a too-big Power Rangers t-shirt was the closest thing to closure she’d felt yet.
John doesn’t tell Dean all that because he doesn’t particularly need to; the kid is already convinced. They both know there’s something there, have for awhile; who knows who knew first. For Sam it’s always been this way; for them, Sam’s always been this way.
It’s the convincing that’s the catch. It’s the convincing that John’s looking for.
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Author: acerbus_instar
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Prompt: #03: Regret
Word Count: 755
Summary: For spn_30snapshots table, Liars and Thieves, part of a prequel series to my AU fic, Swift Hounds of Lússa. This installment: Lil' Sammy's an outgoing fellow.
1987
When Dean Winchester is eight years old, he leads his little brother by the hand through the produce section of South Hampton’s downtown grocery. He’s feeling self-conscious under the eyes of a dozen adults still in their Sunday best. Dad’s set him on the goal of obtaining vegetables: “whatever’s reasonable, and green.” So broccoli, because Sammy will eat that sometimes, and green beans, because he’ll eat that sometimes, and lettuce for sandwiches.
He lets Sammy go long enough to pick up a good-looking head of lettuce. No limp leaves, nice weight to it. He doesn’t say anything about 'stay here' or 'don’t move' because Sammy’s good about that; he knows that once Dean lets go he’s to stay stock still until they’re reconnected.
So once the lettuce is bagged and tied he doesn’t even look, just holds out a hand. And nothing’s there to grab it.
Dean doesn’t even know how to process that.
When he does, his brain’s almost immediately swooping into paranoia, thinking they’ve stolen him, the oppressive staring adults, hustled him off like a ripe cabbage to ring him through the register, and he’ll have to run up, no, he’s mine, that one’s my Sammy, but no. Sam’s right there, all trailing shoelaces and floppy dark hair. There’s a woman studying artichokes like they’re the secret to eternal youth, and Sammy’s straying towards her, and then Sammy’s wrapped around her legs and Dean’s just staring, flabbergasted.
The woman’s back goes straight as a rod. She has to hold out her arms at odd angles so she can look down, see the thing that’s clung on to her. Dean yells, “Sammy,” and a couple heads twist and look - except for his idiot of a little brother’s, of course.
The woman doesn’t seem to hear him, either. She doesn’t shove Sammy or yell at him, or look around angrily for whatever parent has let their drool-monster roam free. She puts the artichoke down, turns, and kneels before him. Sammy steps back, eyes wide. And then she hugs him.
Dean’s right there, apologizing fervently, “Dunno why, sorry, ma’am, c’mon Sammy,” anything to make her get her hands off of him, and the entire store’s staring at the back of his neck, but when she lets go and Sammy runs back to Dean the woman’s got tears in her eyes.
And Dean’s staring again.
She sniffles, straightens up. “Sorry.” Sorree. “I, oh. Very sorry.”
“Won’t happen again,” Dean says back. “Sorry.”
Seems to be the only word they’re able to exchange.
He leads Sammy away with a fierce whispered remonstration, and Sammy acts remonstrated enough, pulling out the wide ‘what’d I do’ eyes and the trembling lip. But when Dean asks what he did it for Sammy says he doesn’t know, she just looked sad. He asks what that’s supposed to mean, the woman was staring at artichokes, and Sammy insists he doesn’t know and won’t say anything else on the subject.
It’s not until he gets back to Dad that he realizes all he has is a head of lettuce, so Dad takes them back to get the rest. The woman’s still there; she pounces on Dad to explain the situation, and Dad sends them off to the cereal aisle.
Dad never tells him all of what she said. Just that she’d apologized for acting so strange, it being his kid and all. Dean tells Dad the full story, but a “Keep a closer eye” and a “He’s just perceptive, Dean, kids are sometimes,” are all that’s said about the woman and her artichokes.
--|--|--|--|--
The woman had lost a son. Mark. He was three years old. Playing right in front of her, on the sidewalk. She’d been talking to the neighbor; the driver had been messing with the tape deck. Three months had passed when a kid walked up and hugged her in the grocery store, and to all her family and all her friends the grieving was over, the case was closed, buried and dead and gone in so many ways, but that strange child in a too-big Power Rangers t-shirt was the closest thing to closure she’d felt yet.
John doesn’t tell Dean all that because he doesn’t particularly need to; the kid is already convinced. They both know there’s something there, have for awhile; who knows who knew first. For Sam it’s always been this way; for them, Sam’s always been this way.
It’s the convincing that’s the catch. It’s the convincing that John’s looking for.
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