Corner of Your Eye (8/14)
I'm not completely happy with this--it's a bit lopsided and there's some definite mood whiplash that I'm not sure what to do about, but the stupid sticky keys are driving me crazy, so this is probably as good as it's going to get for now.
Complete chapter list: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The story is also available in one document on my website: Corner of Your Eye
8
The next morning, Jack woke up, stared at the ceiling for a little bit, remembered everything that he had found out about the world last night, and decided that it was definitely time for waffles. Every problem could be improved by the presence of waffles. He paused momentarily, one slipper on and one off, thinking about missing sons and missing dads. Well, almost every problem could be improved by the presence of waffles. They certainly couldn’t hurt.
On his way to the kitchen, he paused at the guest room doorway to peek in at his visitor. Dean was sprawled face-down on the bed, taking up every inch of space, arms and legs askew in the kind of position that only the young and the very tired found comfortable. Jack could still see the slightly-matted patch of hair on the back of his head that hid a butterfly bandage and a misshapen lump, but if he hadn’t known it was there he wouldn’t have noticed it. A bottle of Advil and a half-drunk glass of water waited on the nightstand nearby, ready for when Dean woke.
Bacon. Bacon also made things better. Jack started some frying, pleased that the thought had occurred to him, then grabbed the mix from the cupboard and started whipping up a double batch. Manly men like them needed a lot of waffles.
The first waffle was just about ready to come out of the iron when Dean shuffled into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He blinked at Jack for a few seconds, watching him flip the bacon with one casual, efficient movement, finely honed from years of manning the grill at team barbecues. “Dude, it smells like freakin’ heaven in here.”
“If heaven smells like waffles and bacon, yeah.” Jack used the spatula in his hand to gesture imperiously at the table.
Dean sat down without protest. “If heaven is just a construct of your mind rather than an actual place and will be whatever you imagine it to be, then yeah, my heaven smells like waffles and bacon. Always assuming, of course, that there’s more than just nothing after death.”
Jack stared. “You always this metaphysical in the morning, kid?”
Dean looked startled, realizing what he had just said, then grinned that obfuscating smirk and leaned back in his chair, tucking it away. “Nah. That bump must have knocked some things around. I’m just channeling Sam, I guess.”
“Sam?” Jack kept his eyes on the waffle iron. Once the waffle was at its peak perfection, he would only have a few seconds to flip it out and onto a plate before it started to turn brown and not-as-delicious. A warrior’s reflexes served him well in these situations.
“My brother. He’s at Stanford.”
Dean clammed up and turned his head to look out the window. Jack nodded, understanding. The younger man hadn’t meant to be so open, so vulnerable. That was what waking up in a strange place did to you, sometimes. He probably wasn’t going to get anything personal out of him for the rest of day.
“I know a Sam, too,” he offered. Waffle! He opened the iron and flipped it out, golden perfection on a plate. “Samantha Carter. Smartest woman in the world. I’d lay good money on it.” More than that, he’d laid his life on it, and the lives of everyone he knew. More than once. And never regretted it.
“She the gorgeous blonde in your pictures?”
Jack added a few strips of bacon and walked over to plop the plate down in front of Dean. “That’s the one. Don’t let her hear you call her that, though. She’ll kick your ass across two states and never bat an eye.”
Dean smirked. “You sound like you speak from experience.”
“Kid, I have never disparaged a woman in my life.” Jack poured in more batter and gently closed the iron. “All I said was something vague about scientists on a military mission, and she bit me off at the knee. Something about reproductive organs-I didn’t quite catch all of it. Anyway, point is,” he pointed at Dean with a bacon-greased fork for emphasis, “you do not mess with Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter. She will humiliate you in front of everyone you know and look damn good doing it.”
Dean nodded solemnly and picked up his fork to dig in, only then realizing that something very, very important was missing. “Dude, no syrup?”
“Oh, crap.”
After a frenzied search of the cupboards, pantry, fridge, and under the sink, Jack had to admit the truth. He had forgotten to buy syrup.
He dropped the pale substitutions he’d been able to find in front of Dean. “We have powdered sugar, strawberry jam, and peanut butter. Your choice.”
Dean stared at them dubiously, then looked up, green eyes far too big. “It’s not the same.”
Doomed. Jack was absolutely doomed.
“I know. We’ll get some syrup in town, okay?”
Dammit, he was reacting exactly the same way he did when Daniel looked up at him like that. He was absolutely defenseless against this. Stupid puppy-dog eyes.
“Jack, your waffle!”
Crap. The steam rising from the iron was getting a little too dark for comfort. Jack hustled over to the counter and rescued it just before it started burning. Great. His waffle was going to be tough. Life just wasn’t fair.
Dean hoovered up his waffle-sans syrup-and stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth as he stood, already reaching for the pitcher full of batter. “Sit down, old guy. Let me show you how it’s done.”
After a few minutes it became clear that the kid was just as competent in the kitchen as he was in the woods, and Jack sat down and let him have the job. Dean even found an ancient, crusty can of real maple syrup that Jack couldn’t remember buying, tucked in the very back corner of the pantry under two bags of navy beans.
The waffles were fantastic.
X
“So, what’s next?” Jack asked.
They still sat at the table, digesting. Both of them had eaten a lot of waffles. Toward the end, Dean had gotten a little bored of syrup and tried one with peanut butter, just for variety. It had been really, really good.
Dean took a sip of his juice. (Jack had insisted that he drink some, just poured the glass and stuck it in his hand, because “balanced breakfast, kid, gotta start the day right,” even though Jack himself was drinking coffee, and despite the unfairness of it Dean didn’t feel like arguing with a retired Air Force major general who had just made him waffles and bacon for breakfast. So he drank it.) “Well, we have to go pick up my baby. She’s probably getting lonely, out there all alone. And you didn’t leave my stuff lying around in the woods, did you?”
“Of course not. I went back for your shotgun and the stupid Walkman. They’re in the truck. Your knife and hip flask are in the top drawer of the nightstand in the guest room.” Jack slurped at his coffee, and almost choked. “Did you say your baby?”
“Yeah. My poor baby, out there all on her own without me to take care of her…. Sorry, honey, I never would have left you on purpose….” Dean let a bit of soulful wistfulness into his voice, just to see what it would do to Jack.
The older man scowled. “We’re talking about a car, aren’t we?”
Okay, that hadn’t lasted very long. Dean nodded and sat up a little straighter, business-like. “I left her on a back road about an hour’s hike from where we met up. All my gear is there, except what I was carrying.”
“Yeah, I think I know the road you’re talking about. We can stop by there easy enough. But what about the…the ghost, the spirit or whatever? What do we do about that?”
Dean narrowed his eyes at him, resting his chin on his hand, elbow on the table. “You sure you want to get into this? Because it’s not too late, man. You can drop me with my baby and let me take care of it, and you’ll never have to think about it again.”
“What, and let you have all the fun?” Jack smirked, though Dean knew that it wasn’t quite as cocky and bull-headed as the old guy would have him believe. “Nah, I’m in this now. You’re not getting rid of me so easily.”
“I know.”
He said it without thinking, then looked away, out the window, fingers tight on his juice glass. This was too familiar. This was how it had been four years ago, when hunting was the most exhilarating thing imaginable, his dad and his brother solid at his shoulders. That certainty, that knowing that they were doing good, saving people, destroying evil, that the Winchester men were the toughest sons-of-bitches in the world and nothing could stand against them.
Then Sam left. And Dad. They hadn’t meant to tear him apart, he knew that, they were only doing what they thought was best for themselves. But he couldn’t get used to this again. He couldn’t depend on it. Jack was great, easily the most awesome civilian he’d ever met, but he couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t say I know, not about this, couldn’t let the thought exist anywhere in his head. That way led madness.
The concussion had to be screwing with him. That was all this was.
So he looked back, grinning bright and wide, and said something unreasonably smart-assed, and Jack frowned and shot back at him, just as sharp, and they sniped at each other all through cleaning up and doing the dishes. A brief break while they showered and dressed, insulting each other as they passed in the hall, “kid,” “old guy,” “don’t leave the towels on the floor,” “don’t put your back out picking them up,” and Dean pulled on his dirty jeans from yesterday like sheathing himself in an old skin, familiar and worn. All the way out to the truck, driving along the back roads, Dean making fun of Jack for driving like the old guy he was, Jack making fun of Dean for getting the roads mixed up and forcing them to backtrack twice to finally find the Impala.
Even that was too easy, too familiar, the quips and remarks they tossed at each other, not actually meaning anything, just doing it because that was how they both worked. But Dean didn’t let himself think about it anymore. He had a partner for this particular hunt, that was all, and that was cool, but it wasn’t anything more than that. Jack was a good guy, and Dean liked hanging with him. They would kill this thing together, and then Dean would get back to his father and his real life.
Simple.
Part 9
Complete chapter list: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
The story is also available in one document on my website: Corner of Your Eye
8
The next morning, Jack woke up, stared at the ceiling for a little bit, remembered everything that he had found out about the world last night, and decided that it was definitely time for waffles. Every problem could be improved by the presence of waffles. He paused momentarily, one slipper on and one off, thinking about missing sons and missing dads. Well, almost every problem could be improved by the presence of waffles. They certainly couldn’t hurt.
On his way to the kitchen, he paused at the guest room doorway to peek in at his visitor. Dean was sprawled face-down on the bed, taking up every inch of space, arms and legs askew in the kind of position that only the young and the very tired found comfortable. Jack could still see the slightly-matted patch of hair on the back of his head that hid a butterfly bandage and a misshapen lump, but if he hadn’t known it was there he wouldn’t have noticed it. A bottle of Advil and a half-drunk glass of water waited on the nightstand nearby, ready for when Dean woke.
Bacon. Bacon also made things better. Jack started some frying, pleased that the thought had occurred to him, then grabbed the mix from the cupboard and started whipping up a double batch. Manly men like them needed a lot of waffles.
The first waffle was just about ready to come out of the iron when Dean shuffled into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He blinked at Jack for a few seconds, watching him flip the bacon with one casual, efficient movement, finely honed from years of manning the grill at team barbecues. “Dude, it smells like freakin’ heaven in here.”
“If heaven smells like waffles and bacon, yeah.” Jack used the spatula in his hand to gesture imperiously at the table.
Dean sat down without protest. “If heaven is just a construct of your mind rather than an actual place and will be whatever you imagine it to be, then yeah, my heaven smells like waffles and bacon. Always assuming, of course, that there’s more than just nothing after death.”
Jack stared. “You always this metaphysical in the morning, kid?”
Dean looked startled, realizing what he had just said, then grinned that obfuscating smirk and leaned back in his chair, tucking it away. “Nah. That bump must have knocked some things around. I’m just channeling Sam, I guess.”
“Sam?” Jack kept his eyes on the waffle iron. Once the waffle was at its peak perfection, he would only have a few seconds to flip it out and onto a plate before it started to turn brown and not-as-delicious. A warrior’s reflexes served him well in these situations.
“My brother. He’s at Stanford.”
Dean clammed up and turned his head to look out the window. Jack nodded, understanding. The younger man hadn’t meant to be so open, so vulnerable. That was what waking up in a strange place did to you, sometimes. He probably wasn’t going to get anything personal out of him for the rest of day.
“I know a Sam, too,” he offered. Waffle! He opened the iron and flipped it out, golden perfection on a plate. “Samantha Carter. Smartest woman in the world. I’d lay good money on it.” More than that, he’d laid his life on it, and the lives of everyone he knew. More than once. And never regretted it.
“She the gorgeous blonde in your pictures?”
Jack added a few strips of bacon and walked over to plop the plate down in front of Dean. “That’s the one. Don’t let her hear you call her that, though. She’ll kick your ass across two states and never bat an eye.”
Dean smirked. “You sound like you speak from experience.”
“Kid, I have never disparaged a woman in my life.” Jack poured in more batter and gently closed the iron. “All I said was something vague about scientists on a military mission, and she bit me off at the knee. Something about reproductive organs-I didn’t quite catch all of it. Anyway, point is,” he pointed at Dean with a bacon-greased fork for emphasis, “you do not mess with Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter. She will humiliate you in front of everyone you know and look damn good doing it.”
Dean nodded solemnly and picked up his fork to dig in, only then realizing that something very, very important was missing. “Dude, no syrup?”
“Oh, crap.”
After a frenzied search of the cupboards, pantry, fridge, and under the sink, Jack had to admit the truth. He had forgotten to buy syrup.
He dropped the pale substitutions he’d been able to find in front of Dean. “We have powdered sugar, strawberry jam, and peanut butter. Your choice.”
Dean stared at them dubiously, then looked up, green eyes far too big. “It’s not the same.”
Doomed. Jack was absolutely doomed.
“I know. We’ll get some syrup in town, okay?”
Dammit, he was reacting exactly the same way he did when Daniel looked up at him like that. He was absolutely defenseless against this. Stupid puppy-dog eyes.
“Jack, your waffle!”
Crap. The steam rising from the iron was getting a little too dark for comfort. Jack hustled over to the counter and rescued it just before it started burning. Great. His waffle was going to be tough. Life just wasn’t fair.
Dean hoovered up his waffle-sans syrup-and stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth as he stood, already reaching for the pitcher full of batter. “Sit down, old guy. Let me show you how it’s done.”
After a few minutes it became clear that the kid was just as competent in the kitchen as he was in the woods, and Jack sat down and let him have the job. Dean even found an ancient, crusty can of real maple syrup that Jack couldn’t remember buying, tucked in the very back corner of the pantry under two bags of navy beans.
The waffles were fantastic.
X
“So, what’s next?” Jack asked.
They still sat at the table, digesting. Both of them had eaten a lot of waffles. Toward the end, Dean had gotten a little bored of syrup and tried one with peanut butter, just for variety. It had been really, really good.
Dean took a sip of his juice. (Jack had insisted that he drink some, just poured the glass and stuck it in his hand, because “balanced breakfast, kid, gotta start the day right,” even though Jack himself was drinking coffee, and despite the unfairness of it Dean didn’t feel like arguing with a retired Air Force major general who had just made him waffles and bacon for breakfast. So he drank it.) “Well, we have to go pick up my baby. She’s probably getting lonely, out there all alone. And you didn’t leave my stuff lying around in the woods, did you?”
“Of course not. I went back for your shotgun and the stupid Walkman. They’re in the truck. Your knife and hip flask are in the top drawer of the nightstand in the guest room.” Jack slurped at his coffee, and almost choked. “Did you say your baby?”
“Yeah. My poor baby, out there all on her own without me to take care of her…. Sorry, honey, I never would have left you on purpose….” Dean let a bit of soulful wistfulness into his voice, just to see what it would do to Jack.
The older man scowled. “We’re talking about a car, aren’t we?”
Okay, that hadn’t lasted very long. Dean nodded and sat up a little straighter, business-like. “I left her on a back road about an hour’s hike from where we met up. All my gear is there, except what I was carrying.”
“Yeah, I think I know the road you’re talking about. We can stop by there easy enough. But what about the…the ghost, the spirit or whatever? What do we do about that?”
Dean narrowed his eyes at him, resting his chin on his hand, elbow on the table. “You sure you want to get into this? Because it’s not too late, man. You can drop me with my baby and let me take care of it, and you’ll never have to think about it again.”
“What, and let you have all the fun?” Jack smirked, though Dean knew that it wasn’t quite as cocky and bull-headed as the old guy would have him believe. “Nah, I’m in this now. You’re not getting rid of me so easily.”
“I know.”
He said it without thinking, then looked away, out the window, fingers tight on his juice glass. This was too familiar. This was how it had been four years ago, when hunting was the most exhilarating thing imaginable, his dad and his brother solid at his shoulders. That certainty, that knowing that they were doing good, saving people, destroying evil, that the Winchester men were the toughest sons-of-bitches in the world and nothing could stand against them.
Then Sam left. And Dad. They hadn’t meant to tear him apart, he knew that, they were only doing what they thought was best for themselves. But he couldn’t get used to this again. He couldn’t depend on it. Jack was great, easily the most awesome civilian he’d ever met, but he couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t say I know, not about this, couldn’t let the thought exist anywhere in his head. That way led madness.
The concussion had to be screwing with him. That was all this was.
So he looked back, grinning bright and wide, and said something unreasonably smart-assed, and Jack frowned and shot back at him, just as sharp, and they sniped at each other all through cleaning up and doing the dishes. A brief break while they showered and dressed, insulting each other as they passed in the hall, “kid,” “old guy,” “don’t leave the towels on the floor,” “don’t put your back out picking them up,” and Dean pulled on his dirty jeans from yesterday like sheathing himself in an old skin, familiar and worn. All the way out to the truck, driving along the back roads, Dean making fun of Jack for driving like the old guy he was, Jack making fun of Dean for getting the roads mixed up and forcing them to backtrack twice to finally find the Impala.
Even that was too easy, too familiar, the quips and remarks they tossed at each other, not actually meaning anything, just doing it because that was how they both worked. But Dean didn’t let himself think about it anymore. He had a partner for this particular hunt, that was all, and that was cool, but it wasn’t anything more than that. Jack was a good guy, and Dean liked hanging with him. They would kill this thing together, and then Dean would get back to his father and his real life.
Simple.
Part 9