Command me fic #12 - Wordsmith
Long ago (May 31st of last year, to be exact) in a galaxy far, far away, I posted my Command Me Fic Challenge. A lot of people replied. About half have gotten their requested fics. I fail.
But! Almost a year later, I've coughed up another, this being for the lovely, talented gwendolyngrace. Belated happy birthday, hon! I hope this comes close to what you wished for.
Title: Wordsmith
Author: ErinRua
Rating: PG
Length: @ 4,000 words
Characters: Sam, Dean
Notes/Disclaimers/Summary: gwendolyngrace requested: "Teen!chesters (or Sam is a teen and Dean is 20-21), shopping for firearms? Or how about...Dean is secretly writing reviews for either "American Rifleman" or "Guns and Ammo" as an income source, and Sam finds out? Light on angst, please!"
It started with crumpled scraps of paper. He wouldn't really have noticed the first one, except it had missed the trashcan and when Sam picked it up, the word "dad" leapt off the wrinkled yellow note page in Dean's quick scrawl. Curious, because it didn't look like the usual, "Dad - gone to buy bullets, back soon" kind of thing, (and anyhow, Dad was out of town) Sam scooped the torn paper up and smoothed it for reading.
Your dad is the guy who first taught you, who first wrapped your hands around the grip of that old .22 and
That was all. A fragment of a thought.
Sam bent his mouth in an inverted U of vague puzzlement, then tossed the scrap in the trash, grabbed the pencil he'd been reaching for, and went back to his homework. He forgot about it until he found the next fragment under the Impala's seat, where he'd hoped to find his Walkman. Another torn page from a 5x7 yellow note pad, again scribbled with Dean's handwriting.
It's not about tradition, not some big grand thing that comes down from your great-great-great granddaddy who marched with George Washington and froze his pinky toes off. Most of the time it's a lot simpler than that. It's going
There it ended, another truncated thought.
"Weird," Sam muttered.
He shook his head, balled the paper in his fist, and resumed rummaging under the seat, his newly-broadening shoulders jammed in the space between the foot-well and the dash.
The third time, Sam chased a runaway quarter under the couch and found a sheet of his own school notebook paper filled half full of Dean's writing. Fierce scribbles blacked out discarded sentences, circles and looping arrows indicated phrases moved to new positions, but it still didn't make a lot of sense. Sam's eyes skimmed the page as they always did when he cherry-picked the written word for meaning, catching on only the most important bits.
The essence of shooting ... focus on the task ... let the computer drive the machine ... training trumps instinct ... No magic bullet ... gun is just a three hundred dollar rock if your mind is not in the game ...
"The hell?" Sam murmured.
The darned thing read almost like a regurgitation of the stuff Dad taught them, only in Dean's careless prose. But to what purpose and for whom? At 21 years old, Dean didn't have any essays to write, and he sure as hell didn't have any pen pals.
Baffled, Sam scrunched the paper up and lobbed it in a long overhand towards the nearest trashcan. It sank without touching the rim, and Sam pumped a fist in silent victory then headed out to catch his ride for basketball practice.
***
Sam turned seventeen on a former cow camp just outside Wickenburg, Arizona, where he and his dad and brother lived in a singlewide trailer. The view out the front door consisted of parched earth, a broken windmill, an adobe barn with a tin roof, and a falling down set of corrals. It was quiet out there, so quiet a man could hear the blood sing in his ears and the soft rush of the highway a quarter mile away. Sam didn't really mind the lack of neighbors.
He really didn't give a crap about the birthday, either. Sixteen, that was kind of a deal, with a lot of bad jokes from Dean and that six-pack of Miller Genuine Draft that Dad plunked on the table, saying, "If you're gonna drink, you drink at home where I know you're safe." But seventeen ... not so much. Kind of a useless age, actually, since nothing much happened until a guy turned eighteen.
So, this birthday was just another day at school, another day of calculus, advanced biology, world lit, and computer application. And some giggles from Kimberly Cline, who warbled, "Happy birthday, Sam," as he passed her and her friends in the hall. Okay, so his face like burst into flame, but it was sort of nice.
When he got off the bus from school, he jogged up the lane, bounded up the steps to the trailer, flung his book bag on the couch - and almost collided with Dean in the kitchen doorway.
"Whoa, kiddo, slow down."
"Sorry. Starving." Sam tilted his head in a quick grin as he bent his lanky self past his brother into the kitchen. "What are you doing home so early?"
"Ah, finished that carburetor rebuild and the boss gave me the afternoon off."
He felt Dean lingering behind him, but his attention focused on the interior of the 'fridge, where he directly noticed -.
"Dean! That leftover pizza was mine!" Sam popped upright and pivoted to shoot his brother a glare. "I told you I wanted it for after school! Now what the hell am I supposed to eat?"
Dean shrugged. "Wouldn't be a problem if some people would ever stop friggin' GROWING!"
"Jerk."
Sam snorted and returned to his rummaging in the old Servell's jumbled interior. A few moments' search produced some pastrami, mayonnaise, and half a quart of milk. That and some chips and salsa, and he had a sandwich in the works.
"Say, Sam." Sam almost cracked his head on the overhead cupboard when Dean spoke, startled that his brother was still there. "You don't have like, a hot date this afternoon or anything, do you?"
Sam turned to eye his older brother narrowly and did not answer.
"Chick with a hot car? Shotgunning beer with your buddies?"
As he leaned against the doorframe, Dean wore an alarming leer and actually rubbed his hands together. Sam sighed and leveled a steady look.
"No. Dean. There is no girl. And I don't have 'buddies.' I have classmates who haven't figured out that in another year, it won't matter what totally rad brand of shoes anybody wears, or that in ten years, the geeks will be paying the cool dudes' wages."
"Wow." Dean winced and grimaced. "You know, I really don't miss that teenaged angst."
"Oh, bite me." Frowning, Sam turned to the business of laying out bread slices and stacking them with succulent slices of pastrami. "They're just immature, that's all. They place way too much importance on crap that totally won't mean a thing when they're out there trying to make it in the real world."
"Thank you, Sam, for that bulletin on social awareness from the vast old age of seventeen." Dean shouldered himself off the doorframe and ambled closer. "Hey, look, if you got no plans, I was thinkin' we could go bust some caps." Thumb and forefinger shaping an imaginary pistol, he made kapow noises on the back of his tongue. "Be a fun way to finish off your birthday."
Mayonnaise spread thickly beneath the sweep of his knife and Sam shot Dean a sidelong glance. "Dude. We shoot because we have to, because it's training. Since when is shooting something we do for fun?"
"Since today?" Both eyebrows raised, Dean stared at Sam hopefully, willing his compliance. "C'mon, man, humor me. We don't have to be gone long. Besides ..." He turned away and sauntered on out of the room. "I'll out-shoot you in about five minutes."
"Like hell!" Sam clapped the lid back on the mayonnaise, twisted it sharply, and raised his voice to pursue Dean's retreating back. "You just can't admit your 'little' brother can kick your ass!"
Daylight briefly flooded the living room, as Dean opened the front door. "You can try, Sammy!" he called back, "and you can cry. Don't forget the targets!"
Then he stepped out into a halo of blinding desert sun, and slammed the door behind him. In his wake, the soft whir of an electric fan made the only sound.
"Crap," said Sam to the pastrami, and let his shoulders slump. Dean set the trap and Sam had walked right into it. No problem, though. He smirked a grin as he mashed his sandwich together. In a few minutes, Dean's ego and a pile of Dinty Moore Stew cans were going down.
Their homegrown shooting range lay just a quarter mile up the dirt road above their house, but why walk, when the Impala could haul everything for them? Thus, Dean already sat in the car with Aerosmith blasting when Sam clattered down the steps, a sack of stew cans heavy in his hand. Dad wasn't really a survivalist, but that whole Y2K thing over the winter (never mind Sam's insistence that the millennium didn't really end until 2001) had brought out a certain wary preparedness in John Winchester. This meant, among other things, they now had more canned goods than some grocery chains, and the boys were only too happy to help thin out the supply.
"Dude, turn it down!" Sam shouted over Steven Tyler's screech: 'Dude looked like a lay-deh!'
"WHAT?" Dean hollered back, and pointed a finger towards his ear. "CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
Sam narrowed his eyes, but Dean just grinned. "C'mon, get in, we gotta buy some more practice ammo."
Shaking his head, Sam flung the stew cans in the back and himself into the passenger seat. He didn't even have the door shut before Dean hit the gas and the Impala surged with a roar, Arizona dirt arching in a rooster tail behind them.
Out on the highway, Sam relaxed as the big car powered up to speed, the solid lurch and sway of its chassis the closest thing he could remember to a cradle, the pound of classic rock his lullaby. A sun-blasted landscape of mesquite, cactus, and raw, dry ridges scrolled past his open window, and he skated his hand on the rush of the wind, tilting the plane of his fingers to let his arm lift or fall.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into Wickenburg, a dusty little town that never forgot its Wild West roots, and made sure nobody else forgot, either. They rumbled past the Jail Tree and turned off towards a low adobe building, where they parked next to a pickup with a saddle in the back and a dusty horse trailer hooked behind.
The door to The Gun Trader jangled as Dean pushed it open and Sam breathed in the familiar scents of leather, solvents and gun oil. While Dean exchanged pleasantries with Eli at the counter, Sam glanced about the crowded aisles. He had tagged along with his brother or dad numerous times over the winter, and he figured he already knew every tale the regulars had to tell, right down to the one about the sand trout that swam in the dry Hassayampa River.
Thus, he flinched from his perusal of black powder shooting supplies when Dean shouted his name.
"Yo, Sammy! Get your butt up here!"
With a sigh, Sam did as bidden. Eli just winked at him, and Dean slapped a hand on the glass top of the case.
"Step right up, little brother," he said with a beaming smile. "Pick anything you want, just so long as you don't go over five hundred bucks."
"Pick ..." Sam stared at his brother. "Pick what?"
Dean rolled his eyes and flung out his hands. "See, Eli? See what I have to put up with? It's your birthday, idiot. Get over here!"
He grabbed Sam, dragged him bodily to thump against the case, and clamped a bruising grip on his shoulder to hold him in place. "Guns, Sam. There are guns in here. See them? You are to pick one."
"But Dad -."
"Said it's about damn time you carried your own piece. Now c'mon, what do you want?"
Uneasy about the whole idea, Sam leaned over the case as bidden. He'd been shooting since he was nine, could fieldstrip every firearm they owned, and had shot every weapon in their arsenal until he knew them in his sleep. But somehow, the thought of personal ownership had never dawned on him, and he found the prospect vaguely unsettling. To own an implement of destruction, to claim as his property a device built solely to destroy...
"C'mon, Sam. Pick something good."
Shaking off the buzz of his thoughts, Sam braced both hands on the glass and tried to look with an objective eye. The Gun Trader kept a steadily rotating stock of about any weapon a man could wish, from shotguns to peashooters, and in calibers not every shop carried. Yet common sense told Sam he should pass over the exotic stuff, even if they could afford one. A Ruger Super Redhawk that fired .454 Casull might bring down small elephants, but the rounds would cost a small fortune and nothing else in their armory could take the same cartridge. He likewise discounted a Desert Eagle which looked large enough to tow around on wheels.
Nine millimeters, forty-fives, those were the Winchesters' stock in trade, and Sam leaned his head on folded arms to peer through the glass. One pistol in particular kept catching his eye, a gleam of stainless steel and mother-of-pearl winking in the fluorescent light. He frowned and straightened and asked to see a Beretta Mini-Cougar, and frowned some more when the grip didn't suit his long-fingered hands. He asked for a Ruger GP100 .357, for a blued steel Colt 1991-A1, for a Smith & Wesson .38 Chief Special, which Dean scoffed at as a ladies' gun.
But still the gleam of pearlescent shell drew his eye, and he knew he'd been busted when he heard Dean chuckle.
"Hey, Eli, let's see that Taurus."
"Dean -." But a smile tugged unbidden at his lips when Eli bent to take it out of the case.
"Good choice, son," Eli said, his hands flowing through the practiced moves of dropping the magazine, opening the slide, showing the gun empty, and letting the slide back down. "This here is the Taurus PT-92.* That's 9mm, comes with a 10-round magazine, and that open slide design is guaranteed to save you a lot of grief from mis-feeds or jamming. Plus, look, here's your magazine release right behind the trigger guard, and you have the ambidextrous thumb safety."
He handed the pistol, butt-first, to Sam and grinned as Sam's smile widened. "You can carry her cocked and locked with complete confidence. Go ahead, son. See how she feels."
Sam knew how stupid his grin must look, but he couldn't seem to stop as he took the pistol and assumed a shooting stance, aiming at a mule deer mount on the back wall. The grips, broad enough to accommodate the double-stacked magazine, felt good in his grasp, plus his forefinger settled right into the comfortable curve of the trigger.
"My son had one of these," Eli said, freckled hands resting on the counter. "He fired thousands of rounds through that thing, and it never once jammed or failed to feed. Probably the best gun Taurus ever made."
"Whattaya think, Sammy?"
He thought ... Sam shifted the sights from the glassy-eyed deer to a rack of long guns against the wall. He thought that, like a good pair of shoes or an honest handshake, the Taurus simply fit. He also felt unaccountably bashful when he met his brother's twinkling eyes.
"Seriously?"
Dean grinned and tilted his head. "All yours, brother. If you want it."
"Dad's cool with this?"
"His idea."
"Huh."
It was a beautiful thing, stainless steel gleaming softly, the grips warming to the palm of his hand. He could feel his heart thumping heavily, which frankly weirded him out, but ... his? His own gun? Coolness seemed to pool in his gut as he sighted one more time, firming his stance, willing himself to own the responsibility in his hands, even as his heart thudded like a trip-hammer and his palms grew greasy-damp.
"I think he likes it, Eli," Dean drawled behind him.
"Looks to be that way," the man chuckled and clicked the case shut.
Sam heaved a great breath as he turned back to them, and laid the semi-automatic down on a silicone cloth. "I ... guess I do."
"Awesome!" Dean clapped Sam on the back hard enough to stagger him, and then fumbled for his wallet. "All right, let's do this. Oh, and hey, two boxes of that Winchester White Box, there."
***
Another side of Dean emerged when they parked beneath the giant old sycamore tree that marked their makeshift shooting range. His demeanor turned businesslike, all teasing aside, and albeit with some effort, Sam withheld complaint, when Dean took the Taurus to examine it before loading.
"Just remember to take your time," Dean instructed, frowning thoughtfully as he compressed the spring in the magazine with one forefinger. "Learn your sights and watch your bullet placement."
"Yes, Dad," Sam sighed, and Dean looked up without raising his head, eyebrow cocked.
"Hey, you blow your own head off, I'm gonna leave you to do the explaining when Dad gets home."
Sam snorted and inhaled ruefully as he shook his head. "Sure, Dean. Now can I please have my gun?"
Smirking, Dean shoved it into his chest, where Sam caught it and turned to the boxes of ammunition sitting on the Impala's hood.
The aged sycamore which marked their shooting range stood on the site of the original homestead, though little remained but melting adobe walls, a pile of weathered boards, and a small spring that seeped on the hillside. No one else came up here, and only a raven wheeling in a flash of black against the blue noted the sudden stuttering pop of gunfire.
Learning a new gun was a bit like dancing with a new girl, or so said Dean. Just get used to the way she moves, the way she feels in your hands - at which point Sam lowed the gun, blew a sharp breath through his bangs, and glared at Dean as hard as he could. For which he got a shrug and a grin, and Sam resumed his shooting stance. Still, Dean kind of had a point. Kind of. The sight picture was different from the Berretta or Dean's Colt 1991 A1, and his first rounds went kind of this way, then that.
But a little bit of practice ... and yeah. He and the Taurus were getting the dance steps nailed. When he stepped up with his magazine filled for the third time, he quirked his mouth in a crooked grin, and - pow-pow-pow-pow-pow. Just as quick and certain as he could aim and squeeze the trigger, the stew can jerked and leapt.
"Jeez, Sam!" Dean yelped, somewhere beyond the muffled popping in his earplugs. When he had done ... well, the stew can had a few holes, anyhow, whilst the earth around it looked considerably chewed.
He popped out his earplugs and the first thing he heard was Dean shouting, "The hell, Sam! You ever try aiming?"
Sam looked at him, tilted up the warm muzzle of the gun, and blew away imaginary smoke. He grinned as Dean grimaced in brotherly disgust.
"Whatever, dude, but you get to buy the next box of ammo."
They shot for maybe half an hour, taking turns, walking down to replace targets, exchanging friendly insults. The passage of time bore no meaning at all. When they finally called it quits, the heel of Sam's right hand tingled ever so slightly from recoil, and he tasted the oily tang of gun smoke on the back of his tongue.
"Not bad, little brother," Dean said with a grin, as he picked up the last dripping, mangled stew can and displayed it before dropping it into the trash bag Sam held. Sam tried not to let slip the stupid grin he felt tugging at his mouth, but it got away anyhow.
Minutes later, they lay in the shade with their backs against the old sycamore, each with a cold beer in his hand. The Taurus rested heavily on Sam's stomach, still warm from sun and use. Beside him, Dean took a swig and exhaled noisily, and on that breath seemed to go flat and utterly relaxed. Sam smiled and took a pull from his own beer; let the cool, yeasty flavor slide down his throat.
Sam liked this place, its whispering peace, its quiet echoes of lives well lived. Sometimes he imagined that long ago family and the adobe house square and sturdy. He pictured a lean brown man and his tall brown sons riding in from a day on the range. Their shadows slanted above flashing hooves and dust burst from every beat. When the clatter of their arrival filled the yard, the woman of the house would emerge, bringing with her smiles of welcome and the aromas of dinner cooking.
"You know," said Dean, "I could totally see Butch Cassidy galloping in right now."
Sam slanted a look of amusement. "Dean. I don't think Butch would have much reason to come here."
Dean frowned. "How do you know? If he was being chased by the law, there's no telling where he went. Not everything is written down in books, you know."
They argued for a while about the plausibility of Cassidy's presence, but Sam's heart wasn't really in it. He found himself turning the Taurus in his lap for contemplation. Dean knocked his boot against Sam's.
"So? You like it?"
A small smile tugged the corner of Sam's mouth as he caught his brother's grinning, sidelong glance. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do."
"Good. Happy birthday, bro."
Dean belched, slid down against the sycamore's bole, and settled with his beer between two hands, balanced precariously on his belly. His eyes slipped closed, but Sam swigged his beer and looked at sunlight and mesquite and sand. The Taurus rested heavily on his thigh, and he thought about Dad wanting him to have his own gun. He thought about changes and coming of age and what it all might mean.
Or he tried to, but the first beer went down in a few long, thirsty slugs, and the second one spread slowly from his stomach to make his arms and legs feel loose. So maybe he'd save thinking for later. Maybe for now he'd just imagine dusty men trotting off to a far, hazy horizon, and lay here beside his brother amidst the warmth of Arizona in May.
***
Dad had moved them a thousand miles away by the time Sam found a gun magazine jammed in the Impala's trunk. He'd have thought nothing of it, but for the yellow Post-it note poking from between the pages. So, he picked it up, flipped it open, and stared a moment before computing what he saw. The article's byline read: "by D. Winchester." A piece of paper slid out and he caught it, and seeing the magazine's letterhead on top, he read unashamedly.
"Dear Mr. Winchester,
Thank you for your submission. Please find enclosed your check and contributor copy. I hope you will continue to submit to us, as it is a pleasure to hear from the younger members of our shooting community.
Sincerely,
J. D. Anderson, Guns 'n Shooters Magazine"
And like a floodlight going on in Sam's head, all those cryptic notes Dean had left made sense.
"Why, you sneaky ...." Sam murmured.
Then he folded the magazine open, sank down with one hip on the lip of the open trunk, and read. He found it hard to believe that these were his brother's words, preserved in glossy print. Dean's thoughts captured with a casual fluency that astonished Sam, and then shamed him that he should be surprised.
The premise of the article was no surprise: family, heritage, the value of practice and training. But its execution held unexpected appeal, and Sam smiled as he imagined his brother's voice. It was the final paragraph, however, that brought an odd thickness to his throat:
But I'm just talking, when it's really pretty simple. It's the things you can't touch or practice that are important. It's when you take your kid brother shooting and he just can't miss, and he gets that dopey smile. You know the one, where you feel kind of dopey yourself. Then you understand - this is what it's all about. This time you've more than hit the mark.
Sam took a deep breath and closed the magazine to stare at pretty much nothing. Instead, his mind's eye looked back to a sycamore tree and a heap of obliterated Dinty Moore Stew, and the twist of a grin on his brother's dorky face. Sam smiled, huffed a soundless chuckle, and folded the magazine to cram it back where he found it.
As birthdays went, seventeen had been pretty awesome.
~ * ~
* (In the Season 2 DVD extras, props master Christopher Cooper said that Sam carries a Taurus Model 99. The 99 is based on the 92 but has an adjustable rear sight and holds a 17-round magazine. However - screen caps do not show the adjusting screw, so ... whatever! *G*)
Also, the Gun Trader in Wickenburg really exists. I found it on Google.
Challenge Me fic requests still outstanding:
1) sadelyrate: ..... I sure wouldn't mind seeing the boys meeting an old vampire... *ponders*
2) sadelyrate: So how about telling us about the one time Dean lost his shadow?
3) larienelengasse: Okay.... here's what I want. I want a Glorfindel/Gildor slash fic, how explicit it is is up to you within the constraints. But I would like masculine elves in a somewhat compromising position. *squeak!*
4) kimmer1227: SPN. How about the origin of the duress code "Funky Town"
5) just_ruth: Hee! Here's one - Sam and Dean head back to Florida because there's rumors of a Pirate from the 1700's who claims to know where the fountain of youth is because he's been drinking it with his rum.
(Crossover with Jack Sparrow - I double dare you!)
6) hanncoll: Ooh, how about some wee!chesters? Maybe Sammy being a pain-in-the-ass little brother and Dean torturing ('cause what are big brothers for, if not to torture their little brothers?) :D
7) starrylizard: Fandom: Supernatural. Prompt: John (and anyone else you like), Mexican standoff.
8) Sevilodorf: I want a fic set in 1458 SR... 37 years after Sev and Anardil met... Sev is 78, Anardil 87.
Setting is Houses of Healing Minas Tirith... Sev's death imminent... Anardil wandering stone corridors... A round summerhouse thingy with triptych bas-relief on walls of Aragorn healing Éowyn, Merry, Faramir... On fourth wall a bronze statue of Aragorn in Ranger garb... Standing in "flower box" of athelas and on the wall the words, The hands of the king bring healing... Anardil's thoughts/reactions...
9) kayden_eidyak: I want you to write an Aedan story. Aedan doing...anything. Aedan sitting around and mending a bridle or Aedan getting all pissed at Tam and trying to bash his head off or...Aedan wet and shirtless...yum. Or you could give the poor guy a girl. He doesn't get a girl and it's not fair. *pouts* Aedan after the war, though. Or before. During happy times. When he's not all stressed and brooding. Hot Aedan.
Pwease? I'll make you cupcakes.
(A couple of those are for Original Characters, so never mind if you don't know what those folks are talking about. *G*)
But! Almost a year later, I've coughed up another, this being for the lovely, talented gwendolyngrace. Belated happy birthday, hon! I hope this comes close to what you wished for.
Title: Wordsmith
Author: ErinRua
Rating: PG
Length: @ 4,000 words
Characters: Sam, Dean
Notes/Disclaimers/Summary: gwendolyngrace requested: "Teen!chesters (or Sam is a teen and Dean is 20-21), shopping for firearms? Or how about...Dean is secretly writing reviews for either "American Rifleman" or "Guns and Ammo" as an income source, and Sam finds out? Light on angst, please!"
It started with crumpled scraps of paper. He wouldn't really have noticed the first one, except it had missed the trashcan and when Sam picked it up, the word "dad" leapt off the wrinkled yellow note page in Dean's quick scrawl. Curious, because it didn't look like the usual, "Dad - gone to buy bullets, back soon" kind of thing, (and anyhow, Dad was out of town) Sam scooped the torn paper up and smoothed it for reading.
Your dad is the guy who first taught you, who first wrapped your hands around the grip of that old .22 and
That was all. A fragment of a thought.
Sam bent his mouth in an inverted U of vague puzzlement, then tossed the scrap in the trash, grabbed the pencil he'd been reaching for, and went back to his homework. He forgot about it until he found the next fragment under the Impala's seat, where he'd hoped to find his Walkman. Another torn page from a 5x7 yellow note pad, again scribbled with Dean's handwriting.
It's not about tradition, not some big grand thing that comes down from your great-great-great granddaddy who marched with George Washington and froze his pinky toes off. Most of the time it's a lot simpler than that. It's going
There it ended, another truncated thought.
"Weird," Sam muttered.
He shook his head, balled the paper in his fist, and resumed rummaging under the seat, his newly-broadening shoulders jammed in the space between the foot-well and the dash.
The third time, Sam chased a runaway quarter under the couch and found a sheet of his own school notebook paper filled half full of Dean's writing. Fierce scribbles blacked out discarded sentences, circles and looping arrows indicated phrases moved to new positions, but it still didn't make a lot of sense. Sam's eyes skimmed the page as they always did when he cherry-picked the written word for meaning, catching on only the most important bits.
The essence of shooting ... focus on the task ... let the computer drive the machine ... training trumps instinct ... No magic bullet ... gun is just a three hundred dollar rock if your mind is not in the game ...
"The hell?" Sam murmured.
The darned thing read almost like a regurgitation of the stuff Dad taught them, only in Dean's careless prose. But to what purpose and for whom? At 21 years old, Dean didn't have any essays to write, and he sure as hell didn't have any pen pals.
Baffled, Sam scrunched the paper up and lobbed it in a long overhand towards the nearest trashcan. It sank without touching the rim, and Sam pumped a fist in silent victory then headed out to catch his ride for basketball practice.
***
Sam turned seventeen on a former cow camp just outside Wickenburg, Arizona, where he and his dad and brother lived in a singlewide trailer. The view out the front door consisted of parched earth, a broken windmill, an adobe barn with a tin roof, and a falling down set of corrals. It was quiet out there, so quiet a man could hear the blood sing in his ears and the soft rush of the highway a quarter mile away. Sam didn't really mind the lack of neighbors.
He really didn't give a crap about the birthday, either. Sixteen, that was kind of a deal, with a lot of bad jokes from Dean and that six-pack of Miller Genuine Draft that Dad plunked on the table, saying, "If you're gonna drink, you drink at home where I know you're safe." But seventeen ... not so much. Kind of a useless age, actually, since nothing much happened until a guy turned eighteen.
So, this birthday was just another day at school, another day of calculus, advanced biology, world lit, and computer application. And some giggles from Kimberly Cline, who warbled, "Happy birthday, Sam," as he passed her and her friends in the hall. Okay, so his face like burst into flame, but it was sort of nice.
When he got off the bus from school, he jogged up the lane, bounded up the steps to the trailer, flung his book bag on the couch - and almost collided with Dean in the kitchen doorway.
"Whoa, kiddo, slow down."
"Sorry. Starving." Sam tilted his head in a quick grin as he bent his lanky self past his brother into the kitchen. "What are you doing home so early?"
"Ah, finished that carburetor rebuild and the boss gave me the afternoon off."
He felt Dean lingering behind him, but his attention focused on the interior of the 'fridge, where he directly noticed -.
"Dean! That leftover pizza was mine!" Sam popped upright and pivoted to shoot his brother a glare. "I told you I wanted it for after school! Now what the hell am I supposed to eat?"
Dean shrugged. "Wouldn't be a problem if some people would ever stop friggin' GROWING!"
"Jerk."
Sam snorted and returned to his rummaging in the old Servell's jumbled interior. A few moments' search produced some pastrami, mayonnaise, and half a quart of milk. That and some chips and salsa, and he had a sandwich in the works.
"Say, Sam." Sam almost cracked his head on the overhead cupboard when Dean spoke, startled that his brother was still there. "You don't have like, a hot date this afternoon or anything, do you?"
Sam turned to eye his older brother narrowly and did not answer.
"Chick with a hot car? Shotgunning beer with your buddies?"
As he leaned against the doorframe, Dean wore an alarming leer and actually rubbed his hands together. Sam sighed and leveled a steady look.
"No. Dean. There is no girl. And I don't have 'buddies.' I have classmates who haven't figured out that in another year, it won't matter what totally rad brand of shoes anybody wears, or that in ten years, the geeks will be paying the cool dudes' wages."
"Wow." Dean winced and grimaced. "You know, I really don't miss that teenaged angst."
"Oh, bite me." Frowning, Sam turned to the business of laying out bread slices and stacking them with succulent slices of pastrami. "They're just immature, that's all. They place way too much importance on crap that totally won't mean a thing when they're out there trying to make it in the real world."
"Thank you, Sam, for that bulletin on social awareness from the vast old age of seventeen." Dean shouldered himself off the doorframe and ambled closer. "Hey, look, if you got no plans, I was thinkin' we could go bust some caps." Thumb and forefinger shaping an imaginary pistol, he made kapow noises on the back of his tongue. "Be a fun way to finish off your birthday."
Mayonnaise spread thickly beneath the sweep of his knife and Sam shot Dean a sidelong glance. "Dude. We shoot because we have to, because it's training. Since when is shooting something we do for fun?"
"Since today?" Both eyebrows raised, Dean stared at Sam hopefully, willing his compliance. "C'mon, man, humor me. We don't have to be gone long. Besides ..." He turned away and sauntered on out of the room. "I'll out-shoot you in about five minutes."
"Like hell!" Sam clapped the lid back on the mayonnaise, twisted it sharply, and raised his voice to pursue Dean's retreating back. "You just can't admit your 'little' brother can kick your ass!"
Daylight briefly flooded the living room, as Dean opened the front door. "You can try, Sammy!" he called back, "and you can cry. Don't forget the targets!"
Then he stepped out into a halo of blinding desert sun, and slammed the door behind him. In his wake, the soft whir of an electric fan made the only sound.
"Crap," said Sam to the pastrami, and let his shoulders slump. Dean set the trap and Sam had walked right into it. No problem, though. He smirked a grin as he mashed his sandwich together. In a few minutes, Dean's ego and a pile of Dinty Moore Stew cans were going down.
Their homegrown shooting range lay just a quarter mile up the dirt road above their house, but why walk, when the Impala could haul everything for them? Thus, Dean already sat in the car with Aerosmith blasting when Sam clattered down the steps, a sack of stew cans heavy in his hand. Dad wasn't really a survivalist, but that whole Y2K thing over the winter (never mind Sam's insistence that the millennium didn't really end until 2001) had brought out a certain wary preparedness in John Winchester. This meant, among other things, they now had more canned goods than some grocery chains, and the boys were only too happy to help thin out the supply.
"Dude, turn it down!" Sam shouted over Steven Tyler's screech: 'Dude looked like a lay-deh!'
"WHAT?" Dean hollered back, and pointed a finger towards his ear. "CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
Sam narrowed his eyes, but Dean just grinned. "C'mon, get in, we gotta buy some more practice ammo."
Shaking his head, Sam flung the stew cans in the back and himself into the passenger seat. He didn't even have the door shut before Dean hit the gas and the Impala surged with a roar, Arizona dirt arching in a rooster tail behind them.
Out on the highway, Sam relaxed as the big car powered up to speed, the solid lurch and sway of its chassis the closest thing he could remember to a cradle, the pound of classic rock his lullaby. A sun-blasted landscape of mesquite, cactus, and raw, dry ridges scrolled past his open window, and he skated his hand on the rush of the wind, tilting the plane of his fingers to let his arm lift or fall.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into Wickenburg, a dusty little town that never forgot its Wild West roots, and made sure nobody else forgot, either. They rumbled past the Jail Tree and turned off towards a low adobe building, where they parked next to a pickup with a saddle in the back and a dusty horse trailer hooked behind.
The door to The Gun Trader jangled as Dean pushed it open and Sam breathed in the familiar scents of leather, solvents and gun oil. While Dean exchanged pleasantries with Eli at the counter, Sam glanced about the crowded aisles. He had tagged along with his brother or dad numerous times over the winter, and he figured he already knew every tale the regulars had to tell, right down to the one about the sand trout that swam in the dry Hassayampa River.
Thus, he flinched from his perusal of black powder shooting supplies when Dean shouted his name.
"Yo, Sammy! Get your butt up here!"
With a sigh, Sam did as bidden. Eli just winked at him, and Dean slapped a hand on the glass top of the case.
"Step right up, little brother," he said with a beaming smile. "Pick anything you want, just so long as you don't go over five hundred bucks."
"Pick ..." Sam stared at his brother. "Pick what?"
Dean rolled his eyes and flung out his hands. "See, Eli? See what I have to put up with? It's your birthday, idiot. Get over here!"
He grabbed Sam, dragged him bodily to thump against the case, and clamped a bruising grip on his shoulder to hold him in place. "Guns, Sam. There are guns in here. See them? You are to pick one."
"But Dad -."
"Said it's about damn time you carried your own piece. Now c'mon, what do you want?"
Uneasy about the whole idea, Sam leaned over the case as bidden. He'd been shooting since he was nine, could fieldstrip every firearm they owned, and had shot every weapon in their arsenal until he knew them in his sleep. But somehow, the thought of personal ownership had never dawned on him, and he found the prospect vaguely unsettling. To own an implement of destruction, to claim as his property a device built solely to destroy...
"C'mon, Sam. Pick something good."
Shaking off the buzz of his thoughts, Sam braced both hands on the glass and tried to look with an objective eye. The Gun Trader kept a steadily rotating stock of about any weapon a man could wish, from shotguns to peashooters, and in calibers not every shop carried. Yet common sense told Sam he should pass over the exotic stuff, even if they could afford one. A Ruger Super Redhawk that fired .454 Casull might bring down small elephants, but the rounds would cost a small fortune and nothing else in their armory could take the same cartridge. He likewise discounted a Desert Eagle which looked large enough to tow around on wheels.
Nine millimeters, forty-fives, those were the Winchesters' stock in trade, and Sam leaned his head on folded arms to peer through the glass. One pistol in particular kept catching his eye, a gleam of stainless steel and mother-of-pearl winking in the fluorescent light. He frowned and straightened and asked to see a Beretta Mini-Cougar, and frowned some more when the grip didn't suit his long-fingered hands. He asked for a Ruger GP100 .357, for a blued steel Colt 1991-A1, for a Smith & Wesson .38 Chief Special, which Dean scoffed at as a ladies' gun.
But still the gleam of pearlescent shell drew his eye, and he knew he'd been busted when he heard Dean chuckle.
"Hey, Eli, let's see that Taurus."
"Dean -." But a smile tugged unbidden at his lips when Eli bent to take it out of the case.
"Good choice, son," Eli said, his hands flowing through the practiced moves of dropping the magazine, opening the slide, showing the gun empty, and letting the slide back down. "This here is the Taurus PT-92.* That's 9mm, comes with a 10-round magazine, and that open slide design is guaranteed to save you a lot of grief from mis-feeds or jamming. Plus, look, here's your magazine release right behind the trigger guard, and you have the ambidextrous thumb safety."
He handed the pistol, butt-first, to Sam and grinned as Sam's smile widened. "You can carry her cocked and locked with complete confidence. Go ahead, son. See how she feels."
Sam knew how stupid his grin must look, but he couldn't seem to stop as he took the pistol and assumed a shooting stance, aiming at a mule deer mount on the back wall. The grips, broad enough to accommodate the double-stacked magazine, felt good in his grasp, plus his forefinger settled right into the comfortable curve of the trigger.
"My son had one of these," Eli said, freckled hands resting on the counter. "He fired thousands of rounds through that thing, and it never once jammed or failed to feed. Probably the best gun Taurus ever made."
"Whattaya think, Sammy?"
He thought ... Sam shifted the sights from the glassy-eyed deer to a rack of long guns against the wall. He thought that, like a good pair of shoes or an honest handshake, the Taurus simply fit. He also felt unaccountably bashful when he met his brother's twinkling eyes.
"Seriously?"
Dean grinned and tilted his head. "All yours, brother. If you want it."
"Dad's cool with this?"
"His idea."
"Huh."
It was a beautiful thing, stainless steel gleaming softly, the grips warming to the palm of his hand. He could feel his heart thumping heavily, which frankly weirded him out, but ... his? His own gun? Coolness seemed to pool in his gut as he sighted one more time, firming his stance, willing himself to own the responsibility in his hands, even as his heart thudded like a trip-hammer and his palms grew greasy-damp.
"I think he likes it, Eli," Dean drawled behind him.
"Looks to be that way," the man chuckled and clicked the case shut.
Sam heaved a great breath as he turned back to them, and laid the semi-automatic down on a silicone cloth. "I ... guess I do."
"Awesome!" Dean clapped Sam on the back hard enough to stagger him, and then fumbled for his wallet. "All right, let's do this. Oh, and hey, two boxes of that Winchester White Box, there."
***
Another side of Dean emerged when they parked beneath the giant old sycamore tree that marked their makeshift shooting range. His demeanor turned businesslike, all teasing aside, and albeit with some effort, Sam withheld complaint, when Dean took the Taurus to examine it before loading.
"Just remember to take your time," Dean instructed, frowning thoughtfully as he compressed the spring in the magazine with one forefinger. "Learn your sights and watch your bullet placement."
"Yes, Dad," Sam sighed, and Dean looked up without raising his head, eyebrow cocked.
"Hey, you blow your own head off, I'm gonna leave you to do the explaining when Dad gets home."
Sam snorted and inhaled ruefully as he shook his head. "Sure, Dean. Now can I please have my gun?"
Smirking, Dean shoved it into his chest, where Sam caught it and turned to the boxes of ammunition sitting on the Impala's hood.
The aged sycamore which marked their shooting range stood on the site of the original homestead, though little remained but melting adobe walls, a pile of weathered boards, and a small spring that seeped on the hillside. No one else came up here, and only a raven wheeling in a flash of black against the blue noted the sudden stuttering pop of gunfire.
Learning a new gun was a bit like dancing with a new girl, or so said Dean. Just get used to the way she moves, the way she feels in your hands - at which point Sam lowed the gun, blew a sharp breath through his bangs, and glared at Dean as hard as he could. For which he got a shrug and a grin, and Sam resumed his shooting stance. Still, Dean kind of had a point. Kind of. The sight picture was different from the Berretta or Dean's Colt 1991 A1, and his first rounds went kind of this way, then that.
But a little bit of practice ... and yeah. He and the Taurus were getting the dance steps nailed. When he stepped up with his magazine filled for the third time, he quirked his mouth in a crooked grin, and - pow-pow-pow-pow-pow. Just as quick and certain as he could aim and squeeze the trigger, the stew can jerked and leapt.
"Jeez, Sam!" Dean yelped, somewhere beyond the muffled popping in his earplugs. When he had done ... well, the stew can had a few holes, anyhow, whilst the earth around it looked considerably chewed.
He popped out his earplugs and the first thing he heard was Dean shouting, "The hell, Sam! You ever try aiming?"
Sam looked at him, tilted up the warm muzzle of the gun, and blew away imaginary smoke. He grinned as Dean grimaced in brotherly disgust.
"Whatever, dude, but you get to buy the next box of ammo."
They shot for maybe half an hour, taking turns, walking down to replace targets, exchanging friendly insults. The passage of time bore no meaning at all. When they finally called it quits, the heel of Sam's right hand tingled ever so slightly from recoil, and he tasted the oily tang of gun smoke on the back of his tongue.
"Not bad, little brother," Dean said with a grin, as he picked up the last dripping, mangled stew can and displayed it before dropping it into the trash bag Sam held. Sam tried not to let slip the stupid grin he felt tugging at his mouth, but it got away anyhow.
Minutes later, they lay in the shade with their backs against the old sycamore, each with a cold beer in his hand. The Taurus rested heavily on Sam's stomach, still warm from sun and use. Beside him, Dean took a swig and exhaled noisily, and on that breath seemed to go flat and utterly relaxed. Sam smiled and took a pull from his own beer; let the cool, yeasty flavor slide down his throat.
Sam liked this place, its whispering peace, its quiet echoes of lives well lived. Sometimes he imagined that long ago family and the adobe house square and sturdy. He pictured a lean brown man and his tall brown sons riding in from a day on the range. Their shadows slanted above flashing hooves and dust burst from every beat. When the clatter of their arrival filled the yard, the woman of the house would emerge, bringing with her smiles of welcome and the aromas of dinner cooking.
"You know," said Dean, "I could totally see Butch Cassidy galloping in right now."
Sam slanted a look of amusement. "Dean. I don't think Butch would have much reason to come here."
Dean frowned. "How do you know? If he was being chased by the law, there's no telling where he went. Not everything is written down in books, you know."
They argued for a while about the plausibility of Cassidy's presence, but Sam's heart wasn't really in it. He found himself turning the Taurus in his lap for contemplation. Dean knocked his boot against Sam's.
"So? You like it?"
A small smile tugged the corner of Sam's mouth as he caught his brother's grinning, sidelong glance. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do."
"Good. Happy birthday, bro."
Dean belched, slid down against the sycamore's bole, and settled with his beer between two hands, balanced precariously on his belly. His eyes slipped closed, but Sam swigged his beer and looked at sunlight and mesquite and sand. The Taurus rested heavily on his thigh, and he thought about Dad wanting him to have his own gun. He thought about changes and coming of age and what it all might mean.
Or he tried to, but the first beer went down in a few long, thirsty slugs, and the second one spread slowly from his stomach to make his arms and legs feel loose. So maybe he'd save thinking for later. Maybe for now he'd just imagine dusty men trotting off to a far, hazy horizon, and lay here beside his brother amidst the warmth of Arizona in May.
***
Dad had moved them a thousand miles away by the time Sam found a gun magazine jammed in the Impala's trunk. He'd have thought nothing of it, but for the yellow Post-it note poking from between the pages. So, he picked it up, flipped it open, and stared a moment before computing what he saw. The article's byline read: "by D. Winchester." A piece of paper slid out and he caught it, and seeing the magazine's letterhead on top, he read unashamedly.
"Dear Mr. Winchester,
Thank you for your submission. Please find enclosed your check and contributor copy. I hope you will continue to submit to us, as it is a pleasure to hear from the younger members of our shooting community.
Sincerely,
J. D. Anderson, Guns 'n Shooters Magazine"
And like a floodlight going on in Sam's head, all those cryptic notes Dean had left made sense.
"Why, you sneaky ...." Sam murmured.
Then he folded the magazine open, sank down with one hip on the lip of the open trunk, and read. He found it hard to believe that these were his brother's words, preserved in glossy print. Dean's thoughts captured with a casual fluency that astonished Sam, and then shamed him that he should be surprised.
The premise of the article was no surprise: family, heritage, the value of practice and training. But its execution held unexpected appeal, and Sam smiled as he imagined his brother's voice. It was the final paragraph, however, that brought an odd thickness to his throat:
But I'm just talking, when it's really pretty simple. It's the things you can't touch or practice that are important. It's when you take your kid brother shooting and he just can't miss, and he gets that dopey smile. You know the one, where you feel kind of dopey yourself. Then you understand - this is what it's all about. This time you've more than hit the mark.
Sam took a deep breath and closed the magazine to stare at pretty much nothing. Instead, his mind's eye looked back to a sycamore tree and a heap of obliterated Dinty Moore Stew, and the twist of a grin on his brother's dorky face. Sam smiled, huffed a soundless chuckle, and folded the magazine to cram it back where he found it.
As birthdays went, seventeen had been pretty awesome.
~ * ~
* (In the Season 2 DVD extras, props master Christopher Cooper said that Sam carries a Taurus Model 99. The 99 is based on the 92 but has an adjustable rear sight and holds a 17-round magazine. However - screen caps do not show the adjusting screw, so ... whatever! *G*)
Also, the Gun Trader in Wickenburg really exists. I found it on Google.
Challenge Me fic requests still outstanding:
1) sadelyrate: ..... I sure wouldn't mind seeing the boys meeting an old vampire... *ponders*
2) sadelyrate: So how about telling us about the one time Dean lost his shadow?
3) larienelengasse: Okay.... here's what I want. I want a Glorfindel/Gildor slash fic, how explicit it is is up to you within the constraints. But I would like masculine elves in a somewhat compromising position. *squeak!*
4) kimmer1227: SPN. How about the origin of the duress code "Funky Town"
5) just_ruth: Hee! Here's one - Sam and Dean head back to Florida because there's rumors of a Pirate from the 1700's who claims to know where the fountain of youth is because he's been drinking it with his rum.
(Crossover with Jack Sparrow - I double dare you!)
6) hanncoll: Ooh, how about some wee!chesters? Maybe Sammy being a pain-in-the-ass little brother and Dean torturing ('cause what are big brothers for, if not to torture their little brothers?) :D
7) starrylizard: Fandom: Supernatural. Prompt: John (and anyone else you like), Mexican standoff.
8) Sevilodorf: I want a fic set in 1458 SR... 37 years after Sev and Anardil met... Sev is 78, Anardil 87.
Setting is Houses of Healing Minas Tirith... Sev's death imminent... Anardil wandering stone corridors... A round summerhouse thingy with triptych bas-relief on walls of Aragorn healing Éowyn, Merry, Faramir... On fourth wall a bronze statue of Aragorn in Ranger garb... Standing in "flower box" of athelas and on the wall the words, The hands of the king bring healing... Anardil's thoughts/reactions...
9) kayden_eidyak: I want you to write an Aedan story. Aedan doing...anything. Aedan sitting around and mending a bridle or Aedan getting all pissed at Tam and trying to bash his head off or...Aedan wet and shirtless...yum. Or you could give the poor guy a girl. He doesn't get a girl and it's not fair. *pouts* Aedan after the war, though. Or before. During happy times. When he's not all stressed and brooding. Hot Aedan.
Pwease? I'll make you cupcakes.
(A couple of those are for Original Characters, so never mind if you don't know what those folks are talking about. *G*)