SPN FIC - For Thereby Some Have Entertained
charis_kalos -- I think the Muse has fed me your ordination fic a little early. Does it still count? 'Cause I'm thinking this hits the right notes. Hope you like.
He came into his study almost an hour ago, well-fed and coffee'd up, ready to fill three or four pages with a flow of inspirational words, but his enthusiasm seemed to fade away the moment his backside hit the chair.
Characters: Pastor Jim, OFC (Mrs. Lundquist), John and the wee!ones
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG, for language
Spoilers: none
Length: 1294 words
FOR THEREBY SOME HAVE ENTERTAINED
By Carol Davis
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unaware. - Hebrews 13:2
March rain hammers on the roof, like it's trying mightily to get his attention - with no luck, so far. He hears it, ignores it, lets it dissolve into white noise. Focus, he thinks, but it's easier said than done.
More than once, he's considered writing
James Murphy
Grade 1
at the top of the sheet of paper, each letter neatly formed and evenly spaced from its fellows, the way he did long ago, a lot of miles from here. That way, the yellow sheet with its thin blue lines wouldn't be so mockingly blank.
He came into his study almost an hour ago, well-fed and coffee'd up, ready to fill three or four pages with a flow of inspirational words, but his enthusiasm seemed to fade away the moment his backside hit the chair.
He sighs softly, a whisper of warm air, and thinks of warm breezes on a tropical beach. St. Maarten, maybe, or Kingston. A winter's worth of Blue Earth, Minnesota has numbed him right down to his bones. The people who live here - and no, even after all these months, he still doesn't quite feel that he lives here, belongs here - are of sturdy Scandinavian stock. They gripe about the weather, but it wouldn't occur to them to pack up and leave, seek out someplace to live where you need to thaw meat for dinner and not yourself. James Peter Murphy, on the other hand, is 99 and 44/100ths percent Irish, and the tips of his fingers are blue from the cold. He could go upstairs and find a thicker sweater, he supposes, but he promised himself he wouldn't leave this room until his sermon was finished.
At this rate, he'll be in here till Memorial Day.
Just beyond the doorway, the cuckoo clock his predecessor left behind ticks off seconds: tucktuck, tucktuck.
Tucktuck
He rolls the pen between his fingers. It's solid, sturdy in ways he isn't. A gift from his parents, with his initials engraved on its brushed silver barrel. Eyes hooded with weariness, with lack of inspiration, lulled by the sound of the rain and the tucktuck of the old clock, he carefully prints James Peter Murphy at the top of that desperately blank yellow sheet.
It's only Thursday, he thinks. There's still time.
Caroline Lundquist's voice jolts him awake. "Jim?" she says, obviously not for the first time, as she moves a step or two into the room.
He straightens up. Produces a smile. "Yes."
"There's someone to see you."
If he couldn't find the will to write... His brain is muzzy, making him wonder how long he was asleep as he tries to decide whether he feels like much of a counselor, much of an advisor, on this bleak Minnesota afternoon. If he can't write, can he speak? Maybe his presence will be enough, but that seems like a joke - has, for a couple of weeks now. It's not a crisis of faith, exactly; more like simply trying to find the right James Peter Murphy for the occasion. He's young, just a kid compared to the man who used to sit at this desk. His flock has been warm, accepting, friendly, but he wonders every day if they honestly think he's seasoned enough to guide them. Or is he just a kid, groping for the right choices?
Is he really any more of a leader than that little boy who sat, tongue gripped between his teeth, and painstakingly formed letters to say This is me?
"Show them in," he tells Caroline, although he thinks she's got two shoulders that are a lot sturdier than his own.
"They wouldn't come in. They're in the church."
The church. His face twitches as he thinks of walking through the pouring, bitter-cold rain.
No one ever said this would be easy. But some days are... Well, the word trial seems insufficient. It's been a long time since he's felt the rush of joy that means he made the right choice, started down the right path. There's something missing, he thinks. Something he doesn't understand, that hasn't been explained to him. For a long moment he feels like someone's assistant - "someone" being the man who used to sit in this chair, for example - and wonders when he'll be booted up a couple of steps, to the place where he's on the Need To Know list.
"I could tell them you're on the phone," Caroline offers. It won't be a lie; he can easily pick up the phone and call someone before she makes the statement. And it'll buy him a little time. Allow him to get himself together. But that will send her out into the rain, and that's pretty chickenshit.
She smiles, as if she heard the thought.
"I'll go," he says.
As they pass through the foyer, she hands him his coat and an umbrella. She's not much more than a kid herself, but she's a wife, a mother, knows how to think one step ahead. She's one of the blessings Blue Earth has given him: someone to watch out for him, as he attempts to watch out for his congregation.
He's very sure who's gotten the better end of that deal.
Head pulled in so the collar of his coat nearly covers his ears, hunched under the big black cone of the umbrella, he hustles down the path that connects the house to the church. The wind's blowing the wrong way, of course, and he has to haul on the door to get it open. It crashes shut behind him, making him jump, and as he stands in the echoing near-silence he thinks whoever it was that came looking for him gave up and went home.
Then he sees the boy.
Five years old, maybe, about the same size as Caroline's daughter. Shaggy, blondish hair, enormous eyes that search Jim Murphy as they stand at opposite ends of the center aisle. One small hand is resting on the edge of the front pew, and when Jim shifts his attention that way he sees a darker head of hair on a head bent low as if its owner is lost in prayer.
The boy continues to stare, almost unblinking, as Jim walks up the aisle. He's a stranger, Jim thinks, but there's something about him that's familiar. Jim's frowning as he approaches the pew and sees that his visitors are three: there's a baby in the pew, warmly swaddled in blankets, guarded by a large hand splayed flat on its belly.
"How can I -" Jim begins.
That dark head turns toward him. It takes Jim a few seconds to make the connection, because all of this is so completely out of context. The last time he saw this man they were both in uniform.
"John?" he says. "What -"
What rocks the church then is the wind. An ugly storm that won't let go of the fierce bite of winter. What rocks Jim is something else entirely. He has to plant a hand on the back lip of the pew he's closest to because he feels like stumbling. There's something dark outside, he thinks, and it's got nothing to do with that rainstorm.
Or maybe it's got everything to do with it.
"I need your help," John Winchester tells him.
And that's it. That's what was missing. That's all of what was missing, Jim thinks as he sinks to a seat in the pew behind John's. He's being watched, that's plain, and not just by three Winchesters who sought refuge in his church.
It all changes from here. From now.
Jim nods, a single dip of his head, and says quietly, "Tell me."
~~~~~~~~~~~~