SPN Fic: The Family Business
Yo, all. I will be out-of-touch for a bit, starting Monday, and stretching until probably the following Friday. Have some family gigs to attend, and my internet access will be iffy, at best. I'll try to check in now and again, but I can't promise anything, so I won't. Since I'm going to be missing all the chatter that is chatter for 2 whole freakin episodes (waaaaaah!), I thought I'd leave you with a little something to tide you over until I'm back up and rattling on again.
As some of you may know, I actually cut my teeth in fandom by writing for traditional paper zines way back in the stoneage before there WAS an internet for us to haunt like those much ballyhooed ghosts in the machine. When my friend and editor passed away, I more or less gafiated out of that aspect of fandom and haven't been back since. But. As is often the case, I left a little unfinished business behind me ... namely an SG-1 story I promised to an editor/publisher that I never delivered. So when I found out this editor/publisher is now publishing a Supernatural zine, and I was asked to submit a story for their next issue? I said hell, yeah. After all, fair is fair, and this lady does, and always has, put out a seriously kick-ass product.
Of course, I intended to send her a 20 page story. But you know how that goes. Which is how I ended up with a 101 page story in the upcoming The Brotherhood 8, published by Pyramids Press. This all gen, all Supernatural zine will premiere at this year's MediaWest convention (but they are taking orders at their website now), and none of the stories in it will appear online for at least a year. And yes, that includes mine. So if you want to read this one, you're going to have to pop for the zine, my friends. The good news is, The Brotherhood 8 more than 440 pages rich with great stories, and includes work by a number of other LJers including gekizetsu, gaelicspirit, and
kimonkey7 as well as some familiar fanfic.net authors like SodaKey and K Hanna Korossy.
In hopes of luring you to the darkside with cookies, a couple words about my story, and a small excerpt just to whet your appetite.
The Family Business is, rather predictably, pre-series. On the surface, it's about Dean preparing for his first hunt with John. But below that facade, the cold waters run deep. It's about John's ultimately doomed efforts to beat his fifteen-year-old back from a line he can't bear to see either of his sons cross. It's about Dean's ferocious need to protect his father even while being eaten alive by his own fears that he might fail his father. It's about Sammy's growing alienation within his own family, and the deep currents of resentment he suffers as he watches his brother being stolen away by a father he has to consider dead every time the man walks out a door just to survive the leaving. And it's about brothers. About brothers having each other's backs, and selling each other down the river. About brothers needing each other even as they push each other away in an effort to explore their own identities. About Sammy finding his place, about Dean finding his own way, and about John finding out how much one eleven-year-old is just like his father in pushing others away to protect himself from their inevitable loss. All in all, it's about family. The family business, in fact. Saving people. Hunting things. Together.
And Here's Your Excerpt ...
"Aren’t you supposed to be doing research or something?" Sammy asked.
"Yeah. I guess."
"So?" Sammy prompted.
Dean looked at him. "So, what?"
"So why are you bugging me then? Just go do your research already and leave me alone so I can read."
Dean frowned. Normally, Sammy did everything he could to keep Dean from leaving. In fact, he couldn’t remember a single time, in all the years they’d been brothers, that Sammy had actually told him to go away, or to leave him alone. Given what a bitchy little pain-in-the-ass Sammy was being, it probably shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did.
"You wanna help?" he asked after a long moment, not because he actually wanted Sammy to help, but more because he thought that must be why Sammy told him to go away. He probably wanted to help with the research but didn’t want to ask to help. Because if he asked to help, that would be almost like admitting he liked hunting, and Sammy would rather be roasted over hot coals with butter than admit he liked anything to do with hunting, period.
"No," Sammy said.
The answer was too firm and too quick. Any time Sammy answered that way, what he meant was exactly the opposite of what he said.
So Dean played along, not because he wanted to play along, but because…well…because Sammy was his brother, and clearly something was buggin’ him. "Why not?" he asked like he could give a shit when really he couldn’t.
"Because I wanna read." Sammy said it like that was the end of the discussion, and then he went back to reading his book, just to prove it.
"Research is reading," Dean pointed out.
"I wanna read this," Sammy revised. "That’s why I brought it-so I could read while you’re running around doing Dad’s busywork."
"It’s not busywork. It’s research."
Sammy snorted. "Yeah. Right. Like Dad’s going to wait until today to find out everything he needs to know about something he’s hunting tomorrow."
Dean frowned. "He’s running behind. That’s why I’m doing the research for him. To help him out."
"Like he needs help."
"Of course he needs help, you little spaz. If he didn’t need help, why would he ask me to do his research instead of just doing it himself?"
Sammy kept reading … or trying to look like he was reading, at least. "Maybe he asked you to do it to keep you out of his hair while he’s doing whatever it is he’s really doing to get ready for tomorrow."
Dean’s jaw tightened. His eyes narrowed. He hadn’t thought of that. He didn’t like that Sammy had. "Did Dad tell you that?" he asked after several beats of silence.
"He didn’t have to."
"So he didn’t tell you that, then."
"He didn’t have to," Sammy repeated. Then, in that bullshit condescending tone he had that made everybody who’d ever met him want to smack him, he added, "It’s pretty obvious, Dean. Anybody with half a brain could figure it out, especially if they know Dad the way I know Dad."
This time, it was Dean who snorted. "Yeah, right. You and Dad are just like this." He crossed his fingers and waved them back and forth under Sammy’s nose.
Sammy kept right on reading…or pretending to read. "I didn’t say we were close. I said I know him. And I do. And I’m smarter than you, too, especially when it comes to Dad."
That probably should have made Dean laugh, but it didn’t. It pissed him off instead. "You’re not half as smart as I am when it comes to Dad. And you don’t know him half as well, either."
"Whatever," Sammy said dismissively.
That pissed Dean off even more. "You don’t," he insisted.
"Whatever," Sammy said again.
"What? You think you do? You think you know him as well as I do?"
When Sammy finally looked up from his book, he looked Dean straight in the eye and said, "I know him well enough to know when he’s trying to get rid of me. And that’s what he’s doing to you. You were bugging him, and he’s already told you a hundred times he doesn’t want to take you, so he gave you a bunch of busywork to get you out of his hair. I know him well enough to see that, and you obviously don’t."
The words more than stung; they cut.
"He wants to take me hunting," Dean argued. "He just wants to be sure I’m ready first. He wants to make sure I’m prepared, so I don’t get myself hurt."
"Get him hurt is more like it," Sammy said.
Dean blinked, stunned silent. He couldn’t believe Sammy went there, couldn’t believe Sammy would actually say that to him under any circumstances, let alone in a more-or-less normal conversation. He stared at Sammy for a full twenty seconds in silence. In that time, Sammy never so much as blinked.
"And you think Dad’s a jackass," Dean said finally. Quietly.
Sammy shrugged, went back to his book. "He’s the one who said it, not me."
"Right. Whatever." Pushing up from the battered, old couch, Dean headed for the card catalog without another word.
Sammy sighed. He closed his book and set it aside, saying, "Fine. I’ll help you do your stupid research."
He was already halfway to his feet when Dean said, "No. I’ll do it myself."
"You can’t do it yourself," Sammy informed him. "You don’t even know the Dewey Decimal System."
"I’ll figure it out," Dean said.
Sammy rolled his eyes again. "It’s not something you can figure out in one day, Dean. And you’ve never even been in this library before, so you don’t know where anything is. They’re not all laid out the same, you know."
"I’ll figure it out," Dean said again.
"You don’t have to worry about that though, because I’ve been here a bunch of times," Sammy went on. "So I pretty much already know where everything is. And because I know the Dewey Decimal System, too, so anything we want to find from the card catalog, I can figure out where it is in the stacks just by that. It’s not like it’s rocket science or anything, but it’s not as easy as it looks, either. Not in a library this big, at least. In this kind of library, you could look forever for something and not find it unless you already know exactly where to look, or unless you can figure it out by using the system. And they have microfiche, too. And I’m pretty sure they must have some kind of special collections room because-"
"I don’t want your help, Sam," Dean interrupted in a cold, flat, quiet voice.
Sammy blinked, surprised. "You don’t?" he asked after a long, pregnant silence.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I just don’t." Dean didn’t elaborate further, he just turned and walked away, leaving Sammy standing by the couch, staring after him in hurt surprise.
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Read The Family Business in The Brotherhood 8, published by Pyramids Press:
