GLOW/LOPSIDED (SPN AU)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: AU where John never goes missing and Yellow Eyes never comes for Jess and Sam.
This happens to be two prompts from the same verse! I just smooshed them together.
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I. G L O W
“Sam, sweetie,” Jess announces, voice strained with pain, “I love you, but if you don’t stop pacing in front of my bed I’m throwing the equipment at you.” The hospital room isn’t really all that active, which is weird to Sam, because this seems like the utmost emergency - his wife is trying to force another living creature through a place that literally pulls itself apart, and approximately 800 women a day die from it, and even if that is practically all in developing countries he’s still biting his fingernails from the nightmare scenarios his mind conjures up. She’d already had some pretty heavy symptoms from the last nine months alone, and the baby is a little sooner than expected -
“I’m sorry,” he says, wandering over quickly to her side with steeled resolve. He clasps her hand in his, taking in the transferred, faint heartbeat between them. One swipe of his oversized palm over her forehead alerts him to a possibly low fever and sweat. It’s to be expected; she’s working hard. “Are you okay? You need anything?”
“Need you to relax a little,” she laughs, wincing.
“It’s bullcrap; they should have had at least one anesthesiologist on site. Who lets them all take vacations at the same time?” But Jess just crinkles her nose at that, as if he’s just being dramatic; even if it’s pretty much Christmas right now, his wife’s health is way more important to Sam than them rushing off to another state for the holidays. He knows it’s selfish and he’ll regret thinking like that later, but right now all he can focus on is that she’s suffering and he’s pretty much just a pacing moron whose best contribution is unintentionally humoring her. That, and he’s efficient at getting her water.
“Sam’s right, Jessie, it’s a bunch of bull,” Jessica’s mother speaks up, waving her hand at the world; she’d been vigilantly staying with them off and on, leaving only to keep track of Jessica’s overwhelmingly complex family tree that was content to either give Sam an innocently hard time or to pepper Jess with moral support. There were some kids running around outside, some of them following the Moore lineage with their blond hair and light eyes. He’s still not sure who they belonged to.
The doctor finally comes in, and by the time it’s Time, Jess is pretty much crushing all the bones in his fingers, and somewhere in the back of his mind he’s thinking of how Dean would probably be starstruck by her ability to produce power through pain. She breathes in and out and Sam sort of almost does it with her, but instead he puts his hand on her arm and rubs there. “You’re doing so good, babe,” he says, unsure if he should be next to her or watching his daughter being born; what would she want? He feels like leaving her up top is like betrayal. She screams out, gritting her teeth, and Sam decides to stay put. “Doing great, you hear that? You’ve almost got it. That’s your little girl, Jess. We’re gonna get to use that nursery, and you’ll get to buy little dresses and do her nails and all that stuff.”
There’s an infant’s cry in the room, and the doctor lifts up a healthy, pink baby into a swathe of blankets. Jess relaxes back into the pillows, exhausted - tears in her eyes, and soon Sam’s fighting his own.
“Looks like little Mariah is going to a handful already,” the doctor announces over the royally pissed baby cries. Sam laughs and offers Jess a kiss on the hand (his feels like it’s gonna be bruised tomorrow, but it doesn’t really compare even a molecule, now does it?), and then he carefully retrieves Mariah from the doctor’s arms after they’ve helped clean her off. Mariah. It’s insane to think that there’s someone in the world now, that their names will finally be used. That it applies now, makes it all real. This is a person.
“It’s our daughter,” Sam manages to choke out. He’s always had a hard time with sappiness. It’s like a curse in the Winchester household, his wet doe eyes. He hands her over to Jess, and Sam feels like he’s dreaming, and they sit in their small world for a long while before family begins to filter in, eager to see the new addition to the overloaded family. By the time it’s getting late and visiting hours are dwindling down, Jessica’s exhausted and sleeping with her hand curled on the edge of Mariah’s little hospital-grade bassinet.
Sam leaves for a moment to grab something from the snack machine, when he freezes, catching sight of a familiar leather jacket; Dean stands in front of him, looking sheepish, a gift box and a bear under his arm; it looks completely ridiculous and foreign to what Sam knows of him, but more importantly, he hasn’t seen Dean physically in years. Something in his chest constricts. Dean looks down, shuffling his feet. Last he’d spoken to Dean on the phone, he seemed pretty flippant and unsure of the whole thing.
And yet here he is, wandering over to bridge the distance.
“Papa Sam, huh? Brought you, uh. Stuff. Wanted to come say congrats. Dad wanted to come, but…”
“… I… Yeah. Hey.”
Which is apparently code for I missed you so much, because Dean’s got Sam in a bear hug, awkwardly crushing the teddy between their chests. And Sam’s arms are like magnets, reciprocating the gesture as he hugs back.
“Real cute. Did the gift shop lady look at you funny when you got these, Mr. Tough Guy?”
“Oh, haha.”
He looks nervous, but Dean’s never been one to back down from his nerves. He breathes out deep and then says, more proudly, “Show Uncle Dean where the little terror is.”
… Well, if there’s any way to break his family into his normal, new life, this would be one way to do it. Sam nudges Dean’s shoulder, walking him toward the room, where Jess is holding his little girl, glowing and proud. And Dean glows, too, at the sight of it - and Sam glows with them.
****
II. Lopsided
Life goes on. About as well as can be expected, anyway. Mariah gets the chicken pox when she’s pretty young, but she grows like a weed - one of the cutest little accidental weeds Sam’s seen, anyway. Dean drops by often to see them, and John drops off the map, and Sam knows it eats away at his brother; so he invites him in, kicks his feet off the coffee table. Jess and Mariah and he go to amusement parks, to the beach. Anywhere the car gets them. Sam gets in a harmless little accident when some idiot rear-ends him. Another Moore is born; two, actually. Jessica’s aunt loses her battle with cancer in the summertime, and Sam dresses Mariah in her aunt’s favorite little outfit she’d bought her. Sam and Jessica graduate college and get pictures blown up for the dresser, and then Sam goes to work; days are long sometimes, and it’s not exactly a white picket fence, but it’s the happiest Sam’s ever been in the entirety of his life; it’s a place he belongs, a place with roots. Thriving, heavy roots.
Dean’s over today, though it’s not the usual. He’d gotten into it bad with a water wraith and it nearly drowned his stupid ass. Sam had spent the day sewing a large cut on Dean’s side, and Jess knows enough about their lives to know that this is to be expected sometimes; she doesn’t mind it. Maybe because Sam worries too much in her presence when Dean’s gone for longer than usual. After Dean’s laid up in the guest room with painkillers and a neat row of dental floss sutures across his ribs, Sam immediately transfers into Mariah’s room. Cleans his hands of blood and sets her in his lap, adjusting his tie, multi-tasking before he needs to go. She’d just turned three now, heart set on the giraffe doll her uncle had given her at her jungle-themed celebration, hair a bedheaded mess on her head.
“Your hair is a nightmare,” he says, running a comb through it. It’s coarse brown hair, framing a chubby face that turns upward toward him. Dean tells him over and over that Mariah is like an even girlier version of her dad, but Sam swears up and down she’s got her mom’s looks. He would never say it outright because it’s kind of dreary, but he couldn’t imagine that taking after him would be a compliment. He couldn’t explain why, couldn’t really comprehend his own line of thinking, but it’s just… It’s not fair to think like that. There’s nothing wrong with looking like him. Dean just sees more of the good in that little boy from then, and there’s nothing wrong with that, because Sam was just an innocent kid. Before that Christmas.
But… This feeling… like his skin isn’t fitting him right -
“You’re going to be late,” Jess says from the doorway, wandering over to crouch next to them. Sam snaps out of it, blinking up to stare at the lovely pair of eyes as a smile crosses his face.
“Sorry. Trying to figure out how to tame this beast here.” He motions to Mariah’s hair, hooking his finger around the back of her pull-ups to keep her from running off on him. Jess just shakes her head in amusement, and Sam forgets every negative little thing eating away at his thoughts. Focus on something else - yeah, like getting this little dress over Mariah despite her trying to weasel her way out of it.
“Just go for the pigtails, Sam.” Jess grins. “You can never go wrong with pigtails. It’s a little girl’s best weapon; when I was little, it’s all Mom ever put me in until I was at least seven.”
“That’s pretty cute, Jessie-wessie,” he teases lightly. She nudges his arm, but he just smiles and smiles as he reigns in Mariah’s wavy brown locks. For a toddler, she sure does have a lot of hair.
Mariah plays around, says, “Daaaaddy. Look, look, my gur-affe, s'talking. Mer-mer-merrrp.”
Translating her thought process is a work in progress, he thinks. Meanwhile Jess blows out air, sweeping her bangs up with it. “They’re crooked.”
“Crooked??”
“Look! Look, you’ve got them all lopsided!”
Sam examines the pigtails carefully (yeah, definitely jacked them up), before he scoops up Mariah and takes off through the house, toward the front door. “Then she’s ready for her daycare! My turn to do the drop-off - Winchester-style!” And Jess follows after him, cursing her mini-skirt, demanding he turn his tall self back around before she takes his car keys from him. He’s kind enough to let her fix their daughter’s hair as she’s buckled in, and then Jess loops around to adjust Sam’s tie and hair. He explains not to let Dean into the fridge, because he’s going to do something with that lobster later tonight. Not that Dean’s even really able to move from the bed, and it makes Sam a little guilty to have Jess put up with him.
She waves it off. “You serious? We play card games and watch Family Feud ‘til I leave.”
The image earns a laugh. “Yeah, well, he’s a cheater. Never forget that.”
“Daddy, dive,” Mariah complains. “Go fas, go dive!”
“And that’s my cue.”
As he pulls away from the drive, he gives Jess one contented glance before he adjusts his rearview mirror, looks at Mariah watching the scenery pass with a quiet, thoughtful expression. Green-gray eyes reflect the sky. He thinks maybe this is what his Dad saw - what Dean saw - when they looked into the back of the Impala once, a long time ago. The thought is bittersweet, and his lips curl up gently as he pulls away to start another day that is going by far too soon. Even if he feels off, always feels like some piece of a puzzle is missing inside him, or perhaps that there’s too many pieces in the first place…
He’s complete enough to see the big picture.
And it’s good.