[FIC] Father's Gun (62/?)
Title: Father's Gun
Authors: diana_lucifera & tersichore
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Rating: Mature
Warnings: minor character death, mentions of torture, the slowest of burns, and excessive bed-sharing
Summary: After the events of "Brother's Blood," Sam and Dean are faced with teaming up with John to hunt the Yellow-Eyed Demon, all while keeping Sam's powers a secret and dodging their dad's questions about just why things between them are so... different.
Notes: LOVED the responses to last chapter, haha! Glad you guys enjoyed it. Now, let's just hope we can get the boys to do a repeat some time this century, haha!
Previous Chapter | Master Post
This is not brunch, Sam tells himself when he and Dean come downstairs and see Bobby setting a plate of eggs on the table next to what looks to be a whole pig’s worth of breakfast meat and enough waffles to feed an army.
Years ago, Bobby lost it all and rebuilt his life around finding out everything he could about the things that went bump in the night, to ending them and dealing back a little of the hurt that’d been dealt him. Ellen and Jo, who are setting the table like it’s just another night at the Roadhouse, are steeped in the life to their bones, the center of a world built on being harder and meaner than the things in the shadows, striking out at them before they can land the first blow.
And him and Dean?
Well, even when Sam didn’t know it, back before Dad and Dean ever came clean about nightmares being real and alive and out there and hungry, he was still a Winchester. Still a hunter. He’s never known anything but life being the interval between one monster and the next, living and breathing salt and iron, faking his way through the light so that when darkness falls he can be what he needs to be to survive, to cut away at just a little bit of the blackness that preys on the poor, oblivious bastards that wander too close.
They’re hunters, all of them. Hard and sharp and lethal to the bone, which is why, whatever this is - being served around lunchtime with waffles and an egg dish - it’s not brunch.
For God’s sake, hunters don’t have brunch.
Dean seems to have taken the world going crazy in stride, silently following Bobby’s grunted demand that he dig out napkins from the pantry instead of standing there starin’ at the waffle iron like he’s lost his damn mind.
Honestly? Sam’s with Dean on this one. Forget apocalyptic psychic powers and clamoring demon hordes. Bobby Singer not only having but knowing how to use a waffle iron?
The end really is nigh.
And speaking of… Well, there’s no way to be sure. After all, he and Dean had only spent the one afternoon with her and Jo, so it might not even be an unusual thing, but he could swear that Ellen’s… that she has on…
But even thinking about it is rude and invasive and a little weird, so Sam just kills that thought where it begins and passes a cup of coffee to Dean before making for the mismatched chairs surrounding the battered kitchen table.
“So, have I taken one too many to the head?” Dean murmurs as he slides into the seat between Sam and Jo, too low for Bobby or Ellen to hear at the counter. “Or is your mom wearing-”
“Lipstick?” Jo bites out under her breath, eyes snapping to Dean as she moodily fiddles with one of the knives on the table. “Yeah, can we not?”
“No, yeah. Totally,” Dean blusters as Sam tries not to snicker into his coffee. Of course Dean noticed, and more than that, of course he noticed and was dumb enough to bring it up to Jo of all people.
Jo who, on top of being fiercely loyal to her father’s memory, just had her house burned down and probably isn’t taking too kindly to her mom not even talking about it, much less doing what might just be the Ellen Harvelle equivalent of pearls and a Sunday dress, no matter who it’s for.
“Okay, I’m gonna go sit by Sam, now,” Jo says tightly, shooting a dirty look in Dean’s direction as she shoves away from the table and nearly bowls her mother over as she stomps around to take the seat on Sam’s other side.
Sam just rolls his eyes and adds more creamer to his coffee as Dean nails him with a “What the hell was that?” look. Dean takes a sullen gulp of his own coffee and shifts sharply in his chair so that his elbow jostles Sam’s ribs and their knees bang together beneath the table.
Any other day, Sam would elbow him right back or land a good stomp right on the peak of his instep, but that hit, that touch… It’s the first one since the shower, since Sam came so hard he nearly screamed, Dean’s name on his lips and his words in his head, hot and filthy and all around him for all that there was door, for all that it was just words. God, though, those words, those words in Dean’s voice, coaxing and coaching and never holding back, never flinching.
Just the memory is enough to have a shiver racing down Sam’s spine, quick and dirty, and doused only by Ellen’s voice, crackling across from Sam as she takes the seat by her daughter at the listing table.
“Somethin’ the matter with your seat, Josie?” Ellen asks, setting down a carton of orange juice as she sends a censorious glare Jo’s way.
Jo just rolls her eyes with a sharp exhale, stabbing savagely into one of the waffles on the platter in front of her and dousing it in syrup like the fluffy, golden brown grid has personally wronged her.
Dean quirks a “Who does that remind you of?” look at Sam, nudging him in the ribs with a grin that’s all big brother, and Sam shoots him a peeved glare in return, trying to hide the pink in his cheeks with his bangs as he forks eggs and bacon onto his plate.
Sam’s not even sure at this point if he’s glad or supremely irritated that Dean is every bit the annoying big brother he’s always been, mind blowing talent at dirty talk or no. It’s strangely comforting that, even if everything else in Sam’s life seems to be spinning out of control at a terrifying pace, Dean will always be Sam’s annoying, embarrassing big brother first, last, and always.
“Would you idjits quit makin’ eyes at one another and eat your damn food already?” Bobby grumbles, standing up to grab the coffee pot and make the rounds with refills before leaning over to snag Sam’s fork, using it to dump a waffle on top of the younger hunter’s untouched bacon and eggs. “Got a hard few days ahead. No need to be watchin’ your girlish figures.”
Dean just snickers into his waffle (which is more syrup than anything else at this point. Jesus Christ, Dean...) as even Jo tries to hide her grin in a none-too-subtle swig of orange juice.
“So, Ellen-” Sam starts, turning to the older hunter across the table.
“Save it for after we eat, boy,” Bobby cuts him off. “Hard enough to get you chuckleheads fed as it is. Last thing I need is you lot runnin’ off after this book or those notes and lettin’ perfectly good food go to waste.”
Sam bites back a sigh, impatient, practically feeling the clock ticking on this one.
And then Dean nudges Sam’s elbow with his own, jerks his chin across the table for the salt and pepper, only for Ellen to pass them to Sam without a word. She does it without ever looking away from Bobby, too preoccupied giving him hell for keepin’ lamb’s blood and orange juice on the same shelf in the fridge. And Bobby-
He’s in a clean shirt. With buttons even.
Sam watches him give Dean a chiding thump on the back of the head when he and Jo get into a fork-fought skirmish over the last sausage link. Ellen smiles into her coffee and refills Sam’s orange juice before he even knows his glass is empty
And yeah, the table’s a little too small, the scarred surface more than adequate for Sumerian summoning rituals but not quite big enough to comfortably serve or seat five hunters and their appetites, but for all that the salt and pepper are in serious danger of tipping over into the waffles now, quite possibly calling up a Babylonian Elder God in the process, and the syrup’s gotten lost in the no-man’s-land between the coffee and OJ, for all that Sam can’t scoot away from where Dean’s elbow is jockeying with his on the table for the very real fear of sending Jo sprawling to the gritty, stained linoleum and out for his blood in the process, this-
This is what he’d thought family would feel like. What he was pretty sure the TV specials were promising him, beneath the toothpaste commercial smiles and camera-ready lighting.
And it’s nothing like Thanksgiving with the Rosenburgs, a starched, strained scene played out while he sweated beneath the collar of his shirt, his tie strangling him just a little. It’s not like Christmas at Jess’s, either, and the way Sam practically caving beneath the soft, gentle smiles her mom kept sending him. The way Jess kept bragging about his grades over dinner while she - a hundred thousand times braver then Stephanie Rosenburg - snagged his hand beneath the table, gave it a reassuring little squeeze, then tucked it between her legs, just barely above her knees, like for safekeeping.
But this isn’t a borrowed family or one where he hoped he could one day maybe belong in some dreamy, distant future. This is Dean, his since forever, his like breathing. This is Bobby, the next closest thing they’ve got to blood. This is Ellen and Jo, newcomers, sure, but wound and woven in the pattern of their lives so tight that for all that they’re new to Sam and Dean, the connection, the comfort, is old.
This is the family that, if he were ever in the position to choose, if he were ever clear of Yellow Eyes’ stain enough to even deserve, to even be worth risking it on-
But he can’t afford to be thinking about them like this. Can’t assume they’ll even want anything to do with him after they learn the truth, but if they did- if somehow they all survive this, somehow manage to come out the other side-
Well, if he were ever lucky enough to have a place at a table somewhere, he’d hope it’d be this one.
And if this is it, if this is all he’s ever going to get - if this is his last meal, his last borrowed family, the last little glimpse of peace he’s going to be able to steal before he drops the bomb, opens the floodgates on blood and demons and powers and loses this small, fragile glimpse of home and family he’s been given here - he’s going to enjoy it.
He’s got a home. A family. Maybe not for real, and maybe not forever, but at least until the waffles run out.
Chapter 63
Authors: diana_lucifera & tersichore
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Rating: Mature
Warnings: minor character death, mentions of torture, the slowest of burns, and excessive bed-sharing
Summary: After the events of "Brother's Blood," Sam and Dean are faced with teaming up with John to hunt the Yellow-Eyed Demon, all while keeping Sam's powers a secret and dodging their dad's questions about just why things between them are so... different.
Notes: LOVED the responses to last chapter, haha! Glad you guys enjoyed it. Now, let's just hope we can get the boys to do a repeat some time this century, haha!
Previous Chapter | Master Post
This is not brunch, Sam tells himself when he and Dean come downstairs and see Bobby setting a plate of eggs on the table next to what looks to be a whole pig’s worth of breakfast meat and enough waffles to feed an army.
Years ago, Bobby lost it all and rebuilt his life around finding out everything he could about the things that went bump in the night, to ending them and dealing back a little of the hurt that’d been dealt him. Ellen and Jo, who are setting the table like it’s just another night at the Roadhouse, are steeped in the life to their bones, the center of a world built on being harder and meaner than the things in the shadows, striking out at them before they can land the first blow.
And him and Dean?
Well, even when Sam didn’t know it, back before Dad and Dean ever came clean about nightmares being real and alive and out there and hungry, he was still a Winchester. Still a hunter. He’s never known anything but life being the interval between one monster and the next, living and breathing salt and iron, faking his way through the light so that when darkness falls he can be what he needs to be to survive, to cut away at just a little bit of the blackness that preys on the poor, oblivious bastards that wander too close.
They’re hunters, all of them. Hard and sharp and lethal to the bone, which is why, whatever this is - being served around lunchtime with waffles and an egg dish - it’s not brunch.
For God’s sake, hunters don’t have brunch.
Dean seems to have taken the world going crazy in stride, silently following Bobby’s grunted demand that he dig out napkins from the pantry instead of standing there starin’ at the waffle iron like he’s lost his damn mind.
Honestly? Sam’s with Dean on this one. Forget apocalyptic psychic powers and clamoring demon hordes. Bobby Singer not only having but knowing how to use a waffle iron?
The end really is nigh.
And speaking of… Well, there’s no way to be sure. After all, he and Dean had only spent the one afternoon with her and Jo, so it might not even be an unusual thing, but he could swear that Ellen’s… that she has on…
But even thinking about it is rude and invasive and a little weird, so Sam just kills that thought where it begins and passes a cup of coffee to Dean before making for the mismatched chairs surrounding the battered kitchen table.
“So, have I taken one too many to the head?” Dean murmurs as he slides into the seat between Sam and Jo, too low for Bobby or Ellen to hear at the counter. “Or is your mom wearing-”
“Lipstick?” Jo bites out under her breath, eyes snapping to Dean as she moodily fiddles with one of the knives on the table. “Yeah, can we not?”
“No, yeah. Totally,” Dean blusters as Sam tries not to snicker into his coffee. Of course Dean noticed, and more than that, of course he noticed and was dumb enough to bring it up to Jo of all people.
Jo who, on top of being fiercely loyal to her father’s memory, just had her house burned down and probably isn’t taking too kindly to her mom not even talking about it, much less doing what might just be the Ellen Harvelle equivalent of pearls and a Sunday dress, no matter who it’s for.
“Okay, I’m gonna go sit by Sam, now,” Jo says tightly, shooting a dirty look in Dean’s direction as she shoves away from the table and nearly bowls her mother over as she stomps around to take the seat on Sam’s other side.
Sam just rolls his eyes and adds more creamer to his coffee as Dean nails him with a “What the hell was that?” look. Dean takes a sullen gulp of his own coffee and shifts sharply in his chair so that his elbow jostles Sam’s ribs and their knees bang together beneath the table.
Any other day, Sam would elbow him right back or land a good stomp right on the peak of his instep, but that hit, that touch… It’s the first one since the shower, since Sam came so hard he nearly screamed, Dean’s name on his lips and his words in his head, hot and filthy and all around him for all that there was door, for all that it was just words. God, though, those words, those words in Dean’s voice, coaxing and coaching and never holding back, never flinching.
Just the memory is enough to have a shiver racing down Sam’s spine, quick and dirty, and doused only by Ellen’s voice, crackling across from Sam as she takes the seat by her daughter at the listing table.
“Somethin’ the matter with your seat, Josie?” Ellen asks, setting down a carton of orange juice as she sends a censorious glare Jo’s way.
Jo just rolls her eyes with a sharp exhale, stabbing savagely into one of the waffles on the platter in front of her and dousing it in syrup like the fluffy, golden brown grid has personally wronged her.
Dean quirks a “Who does that remind you of?” look at Sam, nudging him in the ribs with a grin that’s all big brother, and Sam shoots him a peeved glare in return, trying to hide the pink in his cheeks with his bangs as he forks eggs and bacon onto his plate.
Sam’s not even sure at this point if he’s glad or supremely irritated that Dean is every bit the annoying big brother he’s always been, mind blowing talent at dirty talk or no. It’s strangely comforting that, even if everything else in Sam’s life seems to be spinning out of control at a terrifying pace, Dean will always be Sam’s annoying, embarrassing big brother first, last, and always.
“Would you idjits quit makin’ eyes at one another and eat your damn food already?” Bobby grumbles, standing up to grab the coffee pot and make the rounds with refills before leaning over to snag Sam’s fork, using it to dump a waffle on top of the younger hunter’s untouched bacon and eggs. “Got a hard few days ahead. No need to be watchin’ your girlish figures.”
Dean just snickers into his waffle (which is more syrup than anything else at this point. Jesus Christ, Dean...) as even Jo tries to hide her grin in a none-too-subtle swig of orange juice.
“So, Ellen-” Sam starts, turning to the older hunter across the table.
“Save it for after we eat, boy,” Bobby cuts him off. “Hard enough to get you chuckleheads fed as it is. Last thing I need is you lot runnin’ off after this book or those notes and lettin’ perfectly good food go to waste.”
Sam bites back a sigh, impatient, practically feeling the clock ticking on this one.
And then Dean nudges Sam’s elbow with his own, jerks his chin across the table for the salt and pepper, only for Ellen to pass them to Sam without a word. She does it without ever looking away from Bobby, too preoccupied giving him hell for keepin’ lamb’s blood and orange juice on the same shelf in the fridge. And Bobby-
He’s in a clean shirt. With buttons even.
Sam watches him give Dean a chiding thump on the back of the head when he and Jo get into a fork-fought skirmish over the last sausage link. Ellen smiles into her coffee and refills Sam’s orange juice before he even knows his glass is empty
And yeah, the table’s a little too small, the scarred surface more than adequate for Sumerian summoning rituals but not quite big enough to comfortably serve or seat five hunters and their appetites, but for all that the salt and pepper are in serious danger of tipping over into the waffles now, quite possibly calling up a Babylonian Elder God in the process, and the syrup’s gotten lost in the no-man’s-land between the coffee and OJ, for all that Sam can’t scoot away from where Dean’s elbow is jockeying with his on the table for the very real fear of sending Jo sprawling to the gritty, stained linoleum and out for his blood in the process, this-
This is what he’d thought family would feel like. What he was pretty sure the TV specials were promising him, beneath the toothpaste commercial smiles and camera-ready lighting.
And it’s nothing like Thanksgiving with the Rosenburgs, a starched, strained scene played out while he sweated beneath the collar of his shirt, his tie strangling him just a little. It’s not like Christmas at Jess’s, either, and the way Sam practically caving beneath the soft, gentle smiles her mom kept sending him. The way Jess kept bragging about his grades over dinner while she - a hundred thousand times braver then Stephanie Rosenburg - snagged his hand beneath the table, gave it a reassuring little squeeze, then tucked it between her legs, just barely above her knees, like for safekeeping.
But this isn’t a borrowed family or one where he hoped he could one day maybe belong in some dreamy, distant future. This is Dean, his since forever, his like breathing. This is Bobby, the next closest thing they’ve got to blood. This is Ellen and Jo, newcomers, sure, but wound and woven in the pattern of their lives so tight that for all that they’re new to Sam and Dean, the connection, the comfort, is old.
This is the family that, if he were ever in the position to choose, if he were ever clear of Yellow Eyes’ stain enough to even deserve, to even be worth risking it on-
But he can’t afford to be thinking about them like this. Can’t assume they’ll even want anything to do with him after they learn the truth, but if they did- if somehow they all survive this, somehow manage to come out the other side-
Well, if he were ever lucky enough to have a place at a table somewhere, he’d hope it’d be this one.
And if this is it, if this is all he’s ever going to get - if this is his last meal, his last borrowed family, the last little glimpse of peace he’s going to be able to steal before he drops the bomb, opens the floodgates on blood and demons and powers and loses this small, fragile glimpse of home and family he’s been given here - he’s going to enjoy it.
He’s got a home. A family. Maybe not for real, and maybe not forever, but at least until the waffles run out.
Chapter 63