SPN gen ficlet - Irreversible
Written for the 15minuteficlets prompt this week - I had a couple of ideas for this one - but I went with this.
TITLE: Irreversible
RATING: PG13 (Gen)
CHARACTERS: John, with mention of Dean and Sam
DISCLAIMER: They own my soul.
NOTES: 280 words. John POV. Spoilers for Season 1, particularly Dead Man's Blood and Devil's Trap. Cut text quote from DMB.
He’s not really sure when it happened.
He wonders, idly, if the boys know. Sam, he guesses, not so much. But Dean? Yeah, he thinks Dean probably has more of an idea.
He should ask him, maybe.
He thinks back, tries, and fails to pinpoint the moment, the day; hell, even the year that bedtime stories turned into a curt lights out. That getting them up for school became reveille, one alarm call and no more chances.
That tossing a ball in the backyard shifted from a child’s game of catch to a vital skill that had to be practiced, then mastered. That good-natured wrestling matches became formal sparring contests, with set moves to be learned and repeated, over and over, making sure they were internalized. That playing somehow became training, until gradually the boys didn’t ever seem to play any more.
He can barely remember a time when he was Daddy, and Dean addresses him as sir almost as often as he calls him Dad. He issues commands, not requests; expects absolute obedience and he generally gets it, at least as far as Dean’s concerned. Hell, most of the time even Sammy snaps to involuntary attention when he gives a direct order.
Most of the time.
He’s aware that it was a subtle shift; he didn’t just wake up one morning and discover he’d become their drill sergeant. It had been a slow process, changing the concept of fatherhood till it was no longer recognizable by that definition.
Unfortunately, though, the transition now seems to be irreversible.
John leans over his son’s bed and shakes his hand, a little too roughly.
“Dean! Move your ass. Time to wake up.”
The heart monitor quietly records his son’s disobedience.
Prompt #164 was transition
TITLE: Irreversible
RATING: PG13 (Gen)
CHARACTERS: John, with mention of Dean and Sam
DISCLAIMER: They own my soul.
NOTES: 280 words. John POV. Spoilers for Season 1, particularly Dead Man's Blood and Devil's Trap. Cut text quote from DMB.
He’s not really sure when it happened.
He wonders, idly, if the boys know. Sam, he guesses, not so much. But Dean? Yeah, he thinks Dean probably has more of an idea.
He should ask him, maybe.
He thinks back, tries, and fails to pinpoint the moment, the day; hell, even the year that bedtime stories turned into a curt lights out. That getting them up for school became reveille, one alarm call and no more chances.
That tossing a ball in the backyard shifted from a child’s game of catch to a vital skill that had to be practiced, then mastered. That good-natured wrestling matches became formal sparring contests, with set moves to be learned and repeated, over and over, making sure they were internalized. That playing somehow became training, until gradually the boys didn’t ever seem to play any more.
He can barely remember a time when he was Daddy, and Dean addresses him as sir almost as often as he calls him Dad. He issues commands, not requests; expects absolute obedience and he generally gets it, at least as far as Dean’s concerned. Hell, most of the time even Sammy snaps to involuntary attention when he gives a direct order.
Most of the time.
He’s aware that it was a subtle shift; he didn’t just wake up one morning and discover he’d become their drill sergeant. It had been a slow process, changing the concept of fatherhood till it was no longer recognizable by that definition.
Unfortunately, though, the transition now seems to be irreversible.
John leans over his son’s bed and shakes his hand, a little too roughly.
“Dean! Move your ass. Time to wake up.”
The heart monitor quietly records his son’s disobedience.
Prompt #164 was transition