(no subject)
Title: Apples
Author: essenceofmeanin
Pairing: None; Pre-series.
Rating: Gen; R for language.
Summary: Dean gets his first job the June after his fourteenth birthday. Beta'd by girlguidejones and hansbekhart. Thanks, ladies!
Dean gets his first job the June after his fourteenth birthday. Dad had made him a driver’s license now that he was old enough to pass for old enough, and he finds a job in a minor league stadium, of all places. Dean doesn’t know much about baseball -- remembers playing it with his Dad sometimes as a kid. So he learns about the game the first month he’s there: about runs and outs and double-headers and not to get too close to the mascot. Dean learns the seating capacity for a stadium at the first game when he has to fight down a wave of panic at the people swarming around him. People tip him when he smiles as he hands over their beer, so he looks at himself in the mirror and starts to figure out why. There’s a girl in concessions that blushes when he tries out a wink on her.
They’re in town cleaning up a nest of fairies that’d claimed the local park for their own. The job’s over fast but Dad keeps them there anyway, plunks down a few months rent on an apartment over a laundromat. Even Dean’s not sure where the money comes from. Dad takes off for a few days at a time, like usual. Dean’s amazed every day he comes home and nothing fucked up has happened, but his Dad is a friggin’ superhero, after all.
By July Dean’s sick of the stadium food they give out for crew chow and starts smuggling it home so that it doesn’t go to waste. Dad sometimes says it tastes like being back at a home town game, can almost feel the sun on his face and hear the crack of the bat. It just makes Dean think about the smell of the 50 gallon bags full of popcorn that warehouse sends them. Sammy loves the junk food. Not that he really needs the meat on his bones, but Sam always tries to punch him every time Dean calls him fat or talks about rolling him outta the house. Sam’s found friends to run around with, comes home dusty and ragged after every long hot day. Dean practically has to manhandle him into his bath every night.
By August every day is sticky and endless with heat. Dean sweats through his clothes, ruins a pair of socks a day. He smells hot dogs all the time. Dean re-wrenches the shoulder he sprained last year hunting an ornery poltergeist and he ices it from the minute he gets back to the apartment to the minute he goes to bed. It makes him feel a bit less like he’s being slow cooked from the inside out but doesn’t help his dreams feel any less like fever. In them every minute takes an hour, and he’s more tired when he wakes up than when he went to bed.
In the end Sam’s the one who gets sick -- he comes down with a summer flu in the middle of the heat wave and Dad derails an out-of-town hunt when Sam spikes a 104 the first night. Dean calls in to work the next day to stay with his brother and watch the clouds of dust follow the Impala out of town. He buys a box of grape popsicles for Sam’s throat and ends up sucking down half of them on the walk home -- even though he hates grape -- just to stop the waste of them melting out the box.
Dean’s still never watched a baseball game, always too busy or tired to care even when the crowds are going wild around him. He figures they’re excited about something but doesn’t really get what; far as he can tell the players spend half the game just standing around. Dean’s never sure what’s going on when he hears the announcer over the loudspeaker; just knows that the silence during the Pledge of Allegiance gives him the heebie-jeebies up and down his spine. And outside of a school he hasn’t even been around this many people period in a long time.
Dean tucks a knife into his steel-toes when he goes to work. Dad said never take a weapon to school but Dad’s seen him pull the knife out the rare times they come home at the same time and hasn’t said anything about it. The last year or so they’ve stuck to the back road gigs, settled in the outskirts of towns so little that Sam and Dean can rattle around for miles and miles and never see a soul. Dean’s never been much for the great outdoors but he misses the quiet even though no one else seems to. He spent the first month they were here jumping when someone came too close, always kinda on edge. .
The season ends in September. Nobody told the summer though, and every day is as hot as the last. They’re pulling up stakes soon; not even Sammy wants to stay here for fall, all three of them restless and ready to be on the road and anywhere else. Maybe someplace with snow. Sam shrugs when Dad asks about his friends; he doesn’t ask Dean. That’s okay with him.
The only time Dean really thinks about that summer is when he remembers the last day. The house was packed, clothes rolled into duffels and stuffed in the trunk, and the kind of things they always leave behind piled next to the dumpster out back. He had one last shift and it was a doozy, the last game of the season. He didn’t want to bother with showing up but he’d promised his boss ‘cuz they were desperate for extra bodies to pour beer and stuff hot dogs with a crowd this size. Dad taught him promises were worth something and Dad took it easy enough when Dean told him he had to go in. The game climbed into extra innings like nobody wanted it to end, and the spotlights were blinding in the clear night air. Dean was washing dishes in the guts of the stadium when the home team won and he can still remember how the crowd roared and the bleachers shook. It freaked him out but no one else even noticed, y’know, just doin’ their job.
There was a party afterwards thrown by his coworkers and Dean ended up invited despite his best efforts not to talk to anyone the entire season. Even a couple hours down the road he didn’t remember what sort of excuses he came up with so he didn’t have to celebrate with or for people he barely knew. He never saw those last few hours on the paycheck he wasn't around to pick up but Dean bought Sam a chocolate-flavored Home Run Pie at the first fill up joint they passed. It made as much sense as anything: how near to and far away from that apple pie life they’ll ever be.
Author: essenceofmeanin
Pairing: None; Pre-series.
Rating: Gen; R for language.
Summary: Dean gets his first job the June after his fourteenth birthday. Beta'd by girlguidejones and hansbekhart. Thanks, ladies!
Dean gets his first job the June after his fourteenth birthday. Dad had made him a driver’s license now that he was old enough to pass for old enough, and he finds a job in a minor league stadium, of all places. Dean doesn’t know much about baseball -- remembers playing it with his Dad sometimes as a kid. So he learns about the game the first month he’s there: about runs and outs and double-headers and not to get too close to the mascot. Dean learns the seating capacity for a stadium at the first game when he has to fight down a wave of panic at the people swarming around him. People tip him when he smiles as he hands over their beer, so he looks at himself in the mirror and starts to figure out why. There’s a girl in concessions that blushes when he tries out a wink on her.
They’re in town cleaning up a nest of fairies that’d claimed the local park for their own. The job’s over fast but Dad keeps them there anyway, plunks down a few months rent on an apartment over a laundromat. Even Dean’s not sure where the money comes from. Dad takes off for a few days at a time, like usual. Dean’s amazed every day he comes home and nothing fucked up has happened, but his Dad is a friggin’ superhero, after all.
By July Dean’s sick of the stadium food they give out for crew chow and starts smuggling it home so that it doesn’t go to waste. Dad sometimes says it tastes like being back at a home town game, can almost feel the sun on his face and hear the crack of the bat. It just makes Dean think about the smell of the 50 gallon bags full of popcorn that warehouse sends them. Sammy loves the junk food. Not that he really needs the meat on his bones, but Sam always tries to punch him every time Dean calls him fat or talks about rolling him outta the house. Sam’s found friends to run around with, comes home dusty and ragged after every long hot day. Dean practically has to manhandle him into his bath every night.
By August every day is sticky and endless with heat. Dean sweats through his clothes, ruins a pair of socks a day. He smells hot dogs all the time. Dean re-wrenches the shoulder he sprained last year hunting an ornery poltergeist and he ices it from the minute he gets back to the apartment to the minute he goes to bed. It makes him feel a bit less like he’s being slow cooked from the inside out but doesn’t help his dreams feel any less like fever. In them every minute takes an hour, and he’s more tired when he wakes up than when he went to bed.
In the end Sam’s the one who gets sick -- he comes down with a summer flu in the middle of the heat wave and Dad derails an out-of-town hunt when Sam spikes a 104 the first night. Dean calls in to work the next day to stay with his brother and watch the clouds of dust follow the Impala out of town. He buys a box of grape popsicles for Sam’s throat and ends up sucking down half of them on the walk home -- even though he hates grape -- just to stop the waste of them melting out the box.
Dean’s still never watched a baseball game, always too busy or tired to care even when the crowds are going wild around him. He figures they’re excited about something but doesn’t really get what; far as he can tell the players spend half the game just standing around. Dean’s never sure what’s going on when he hears the announcer over the loudspeaker; just knows that the silence during the Pledge of Allegiance gives him the heebie-jeebies up and down his spine. And outside of a school he hasn’t even been around this many people period in a long time.
Dean tucks a knife into his steel-toes when he goes to work. Dad said never take a weapon to school but Dad’s seen him pull the knife out the rare times they come home at the same time and hasn’t said anything about it. The last year or so they’ve stuck to the back road gigs, settled in the outskirts of towns so little that Sam and Dean can rattle around for miles and miles and never see a soul. Dean’s never been much for the great outdoors but he misses the quiet even though no one else seems to. He spent the first month they were here jumping when someone came too close, always kinda on edge. .
The season ends in September. Nobody told the summer though, and every day is as hot as the last. They’re pulling up stakes soon; not even Sammy wants to stay here for fall, all three of them restless and ready to be on the road and anywhere else. Maybe someplace with snow. Sam shrugs when Dad asks about his friends; he doesn’t ask Dean. That’s okay with him.
The only time Dean really thinks about that summer is when he remembers the last day. The house was packed, clothes rolled into duffels and stuffed in the trunk, and the kind of things they always leave behind piled next to the dumpster out back. He had one last shift and it was a doozy, the last game of the season. He didn’t want to bother with showing up but he’d promised his boss ‘cuz they were desperate for extra bodies to pour beer and stuff hot dogs with a crowd this size. Dad taught him promises were worth something and Dad took it easy enough when Dean told him he had to go in. The game climbed into extra innings like nobody wanted it to end, and the spotlights were blinding in the clear night air. Dean was washing dishes in the guts of the stadium when the home team won and he can still remember how the crowd roared and the bleachers shook. It freaked him out but no one else even noticed, y’know, just doin’ their job.
There was a party afterwards thrown by his coworkers and Dean ended up invited despite his best efforts not to talk to anyone the entire season. Even a couple hours down the road he didn’t remember what sort of excuses he came up with so he didn’t have to celebrate with or for people he barely knew. He never saw those last few hours on the paycheck he wasn't around to pick up but Dean bought Sam a chocolate-flavored Home Run Pie at the first fill up joint they passed. It made as much sense as anything: how near to and far away from that apple pie life they’ll ever be.