SPN FIC - Table for 8, No Time Travel Allowed
irismay42 asked for the boys to spend some more time with Grandpa Henry -- and that's something Sam's been pondering. A little time with all of their grandparents, and their parents, during a Thanksgiving meal. But that? Is a scenario that's more ludicrous than heartwarming.
"Something funny?" Dean ventures.
CHARACTERS: Sam and Dean
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1000 words
TABLE FOR 8, NO TIME TRAVEL ALLOWED
By Carol Davis
Sam's laughing.
And the fine thing is, there's no bite to it - no mockery, no frustration, none of that "I'm the king of the freaking world and I'm gonna eat your liver for breakfast" crap that Crowley and Dick and Lucifer and all those other evil sons of bitches come up with.
God, it sounds good, hearing Sammy laugh.
Still, Dean rounds the corner into the reading room a little hesitantly, because unless Sam's prowling PeopleOfWalmart.com again, there aren't a lot of big yuks to be found around the Batcave. Spotting Sam sitting alone at the long library table, minus his laptop, doesn't do much to ease that hinky feeling, even though Sam's still chuckling, and seems to be in no kind of distress.
"Something funny?" Dean ventures.
There are actual tears streaming down Sam's face. Shaking his head, he scrubs them away with the back of his hand and snuffles a couple of times. "I was just -" he starts, then bursts out laughing again.
It's a spell, Dean thinks. Sam's been messing with a potion, or an incantation in one of those old books. "Dude," he says. "Seriously."
After a minute of cackling, Sam manages to pull himself together. He does nothing but breathe, and grin, and shake his head until Dean sits down opposite him and leans toward him across the table, looking for signs that Sam's genuinely under the influence of… something.
"I was thinking," Sam says quietly. "What if things were just… normal."
"Dude," Dean chides, because they've had that conversation before, something like eighty thousand times.
"If - you know," Sam persists. "If the Campbells and the Winchesters weren't - if they were all just regular people. And nobody had died. And there was no time travel involved. I was thinking - God, man. Thanksgiving dinner! With us, Mom and Dad, our grandparents. Henry and Samuel, sitting at the same table. Can you see that? It'd be like every bad holiday movie ever made." Grinning again, Sam thumps the table with his palms. "And Dad? With our grandfathers? All of them. Sitting around some big table, bickering over who's gonna carve the damn turkey, and arguing about Obamacare."
A squeaky snort escapes Sam's lips. A second later he's lost it again and is convulsed with laughter, to the point where he's barely breathing.
All he can manage to say is a wheezy, "Oh my God, man."
You've lost your frigging mind, Dean almost says. But he's got to admit, that's one eye-opening scenario.
"That's -" he says.
Sam sobers up again, suddenly, and announces, "I would have hit the road the minute I learned to drive." Nostrils flared, lips compressed, he shoves his hands through his hair until it's sticking out every which-ways. "God, Dean, our family. Even without the hunting and the deals and the big damn destiny. Our family. Henry sold insurance. Did you know that? Instead of Dad being raised by a mechanic, and following that route, he would've been raised by an insurance salesman."
"And Mom still would have been raised by a raging nutball."
"You said Deanna was nice, though."
It's easy to recall her face: pretty, calm, quick with a smile. Could well be that there was a lot going on behind that placid exterior, but who knows. There's no one around to ask, any more.
Sam shuffles the papers and paraphernalia on the table and comes up with something small that he holds out to Dean. A photo, folded to fit the confines of the plastic sleeve inside a wallet. "Our grandmother," Sam says. "Henry's wife. Her name was Lucy."
Much like Deanna Campbell, she has a sweet smile.
Dad never talked about any of them, unless he was drunk - the Winchesters or the Campbells. Even then, he offered so little information that Dean had no idea what his grandparents' first names had been until he met them.
"Our family," he murmurs.
Now, there's just the two of them. Their grandparents are gone, and their parents. The few distant relatives who remained have all been slaughtered. There's nobody, any more, not even a third cousin twice removed. Once in a while Dean thinks that maybe that's just as well. There aren't any more targets. Nobody to be used as leverage.
He takes the tiny picture from Sam with some hesitation and holds it gently between his fingers, the only image of this woman that he's ever seen. She was nice, he supposes; Dad never had anything bad to say about his mother, who died long before Dean was born.
For all he knows, she'll pop up at some point, thanks to some crazy hinky shit that's got no right to happen.
"You want a Thanksgiving dinner?" he asks Sam as he lays the picture down on the table.
"It's January, man."
"We didn't do one in November. You want one? I can give it a whirl. How hard can it be?"
"Hard," Sam says. "Complicated."
"There's a website, right? There's always a website."
There's just the two of them, Dean thinks. More or less, there's always been just the two of them. But thanks to Henry, now they've got a home. Someplace safe, warm, dry, reasonably well furnished and supplied. Things could be a lot worse. For instance, they could be trapped at a table with a stuck-up insurance salesman and a bullying loudmouth, listening to the two of them out-shout each other over turkey and apple-cornbread stuffing and… well, pie.
"Yeah," Sam says, and his hair is whole original kinds of crazy. "There's probably a website."
"Let's go for it, then."
She's lying on the table in between the two of them: the pretty, smiling Lucy Winchester, a woman neither one of them has ever met. Of their entire family, she's the only one who died in a reasonably normal way. With a last glance at her picture, Dean pushes up out of his chair.
"Rest in peace, Lucy," he says. Then he turns and heads for the kitchen.
* * * * *
"Something funny?" Dean ventures.
CHARACTERS: Sam and Dean
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 1000 words
TABLE FOR 8, NO TIME TRAVEL ALLOWED
By Carol Davis
Sam's laughing.
And the fine thing is, there's no bite to it - no mockery, no frustration, none of that "I'm the king of the freaking world and I'm gonna eat your liver for breakfast" crap that Crowley and Dick and Lucifer and all those other evil sons of bitches come up with.
God, it sounds good, hearing Sammy laugh.
Still, Dean rounds the corner into the reading room a little hesitantly, because unless Sam's prowling PeopleOfWalmart.com again, there aren't a lot of big yuks to be found around the Batcave. Spotting Sam sitting alone at the long library table, minus his laptop, doesn't do much to ease that hinky feeling, even though Sam's still chuckling, and seems to be in no kind of distress.
"Something funny?" Dean ventures.
There are actual tears streaming down Sam's face. Shaking his head, he scrubs them away with the back of his hand and snuffles a couple of times. "I was just -" he starts, then bursts out laughing again.
It's a spell, Dean thinks. Sam's been messing with a potion, or an incantation in one of those old books. "Dude," he says. "Seriously."
After a minute of cackling, Sam manages to pull himself together. He does nothing but breathe, and grin, and shake his head until Dean sits down opposite him and leans toward him across the table, looking for signs that Sam's genuinely under the influence of… something.
"I was thinking," Sam says quietly. "What if things were just… normal."
"Dude," Dean chides, because they've had that conversation before, something like eighty thousand times.
"If - you know," Sam persists. "If the Campbells and the Winchesters weren't - if they were all just regular people. And nobody had died. And there was no time travel involved. I was thinking - God, man. Thanksgiving dinner! With us, Mom and Dad, our grandparents. Henry and Samuel, sitting at the same table. Can you see that? It'd be like every bad holiday movie ever made." Grinning again, Sam thumps the table with his palms. "And Dad? With our grandfathers? All of them. Sitting around some big table, bickering over who's gonna carve the damn turkey, and arguing about Obamacare."
A squeaky snort escapes Sam's lips. A second later he's lost it again and is convulsed with laughter, to the point where he's barely breathing.
All he can manage to say is a wheezy, "Oh my God, man."
You've lost your frigging mind, Dean almost says. But he's got to admit, that's one eye-opening scenario.
"That's -" he says.
Sam sobers up again, suddenly, and announces, "I would have hit the road the minute I learned to drive." Nostrils flared, lips compressed, he shoves his hands through his hair until it's sticking out every which-ways. "God, Dean, our family. Even without the hunting and the deals and the big damn destiny. Our family. Henry sold insurance. Did you know that? Instead of Dad being raised by a mechanic, and following that route, he would've been raised by an insurance salesman."
"And Mom still would have been raised by a raging nutball."
"You said Deanna was nice, though."
It's easy to recall her face: pretty, calm, quick with a smile. Could well be that there was a lot going on behind that placid exterior, but who knows. There's no one around to ask, any more.
Sam shuffles the papers and paraphernalia on the table and comes up with something small that he holds out to Dean. A photo, folded to fit the confines of the plastic sleeve inside a wallet. "Our grandmother," Sam says. "Henry's wife. Her name was Lucy."
Much like Deanna Campbell, she has a sweet smile.
Dad never talked about any of them, unless he was drunk - the Winchesters or the Campbells. Even then, he offered so little information that Dean had no idea what his grandparents' first names had been until he met them.
"Our family," he murmurs.
Now, there's just the two of them. Their grandparents are gone, and their parents. The few distant relatives who remained have all been slaughtered. There's nobody, any more, not even a third cousin twice removed. Once in a while Dean thinks that maybe that's just as well. There aren't any more targets. Nobody to be used as leverage.
He takes the tiny picture from Sam with some hesitation and holds it gently between his fingers, the only image of this woman that he's ever seen. She was nice, he supposes; Dad never had anything bad to say about his mother, who died long before Dean was born.
For all he knows, she'll pop up at some point, thanks to some crazy hinky shit that's got no right to happen.
"You want a Thanksgiving dinner?" he asks Sam as he lays the picture down on the table.
"It's January, man."
"We didn't do one in November. You want one? I can give it a whirl. How hard can it be?"
"Hard," Sam says. "Complicated."
"There's a website, right? There's always a website."
There's just the two of them, Dean thinks. More or less, there's always been just the two of them. But thanks to Henry, now they've got a home. Someplace safe, warm, dry, reasonably well furnished and supplied. Things could be a lot worse. For instance, they could be trapped at a table with a stuck-up insurance salesman and a bullying loudmouth, listening to the two of them out-shout each other over turkey and apple-cornbread stuffing and… well, pie.
"Yeah," Sam says, and his hair is whole original kinds of crazy. "There's probably a website."
"Let's go for it, then."
She's lying on the table in between the two of them: the pretty, smiling Lucy Winchester, a woman neither one of them has ever met. Of their entire family, she's the only one who died in a reasonably normal way. With a last glance at her picture, Dean pushes up out of his chair.
"Rest in peace, Lucy," he says. Then he turns and heads for the kitchen.
* * * * *