xover!
Title: The North Side of My Town Faced East (And the East was Facing South)
Author: mcee
Fandoms: Supernatural & Gilmore Girls
Characters: Mainly Sam Winchester (as Dean Forester), plus assorted Winchesters and Foresters.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None for either series, beyond the basic premise and characters.
Word count: 1,600
Notes: For shanalle, who wanted something about Dean Forester. This is perhaps not what she had in mind. Thanks to ink_stain and sevenfists for helping me beat this one into shape.
Summary: You couldn't make this up if you tried... or could you?
The North Side of My Town Faced East
(And the East was Facing South)
It's late October and Bev and Richard Forester from Chicago have just moved into a two-story house in a quiet little Connecticut town. They have an SUV, a picket fence, and a potting shed in the backyard--the works. They'd have a dog, probably a yellow lab, if Richard wasn't allergic. They also have two kids, a little girl and a teenage boy. The girl loves horses and the color pink; the boy likes monster trucks and football. You couldn't make this up if you tried.
Or could you. Because the Foresters are also liars, and while the new house and the potting shed and the allergies and the little girl who likes the color pink are real enough, the gangly sixteen year old whose bedroom is made up upstairs with dark plaid sheets and sports posters is as recent an addition to the household as the fresh bed of begonias Bev just planted along the front walk. But you don't know that. Very few people do, and Bev and Richard Forester are good enough liars to keep it that way.
A fellow fibber, John Winchester, stands in their kitchen (yellow curtains, oak dining set, pot roast in the oven) looking at his kid with a hand on his shoulder. These days when they manage to look each other in the eye, John no longer has to look down.
"Got everything you need?" he asks, because it sounds like the thing to say. Someone who were to accuse him of not having asked the question often enough over the last sixteen years wouldn't be out of line.
Sam Winchester shifts on his feet, curbing the urge to shrug off his father's hand. "Yeah. I'm fine." His sulking is childish and unnecessary and he wonders why John hasn't called him on it yet. But there are many things about this that he didn't expect, and he's able to recognize that for once, he's being given what he wants.
A break from the lifestyle, a home for a while, a full year at the same school. A chance at normal.
Sam has asked for the same thing since third grade. He's not sure why he's being granted it now, but he's not looking this gifthorse in the mouth. If the recent increase in scribbled notes and weapon acquisitions is any indication, Dad wants Sam out of his hair for whatever's about to come down. And maybe, just maybe, it's a little bit of kindness that's making John give in without a lecture for once.
Bev and Richard and the little girl named Clara smile at them from across the table, and John Winchester's smile actually reaches his eyes for a moment, before he lets go of Sam. His boots scuff the spotless linoleum as he backs away, scruffy and road-weary and at odds with the spotless decor. He doesn't quite look at Sam when he speaks again.
"Bev'll know where to reach me if there's an emergency. Richard's weapons are in the potting shed, if anything goes down while you're here. I'll call in a month to check in. All right?"
"Yes, sir."
Clara shoots an amused look at her father and Sam catches her eye, sticks his tongue out at her. She giggles. The perfect little sister.
The Foresters, real and not, follow John as far as the foyer. Bev goes out to the car with a box of fresh supplies for him and his oldest, sitting sullenly in the passenger seat of the boxy Chevy parked incongruously in between manicured hedges. Sam eyes the car from between the living room curtains. He can't bring himself to think he'll miss it, or miss sleeping in it, eating in it, living in it like vagrants rather than having both feet on solid ground somewhere he can call home, however temporarily.
Sam catches Dean's gaze just as he's about to step away from the window, and pauses mid-step. Dean, eyes dark, raises his jaw at him and squares it obstinately, four days of stubble making him look older than twenty. Sam's stomach does a funny flip and he raises his arm to wave, the movement aborted, unsure. Dean's mouth twitches tightly and he raises an eloquent finger at his brother.
The hot knot in Sam's belly loosens and he laughs, the last uncertainty settled when Dean smiles back and waves for real this time, just as John turns around in his seat to back the Impala out of the driveway and onto Peach Street.
::
Over dinner that night, Sam gets to pick a name, any name.
Forester is a given, to stick to their story, but he's meant to decide if he wants to stick with Sam or go for something new altogether. Usually it was Dean who picked the names, and Dad who reminded them that holding a cover is easier when everything is different, when reality bleeds as little as possible into necessary fiction.
Bev slaps another slice of pot roast onto Sam's plate and says that if she'd had a boy she'd have named him Marcus. Richard wanted Richard, Jr. Clara announces she's glad she's a girl and kicks a sneaker against Sam's knee. He reaches under the table and catches the offending foot, holding it until Clara has nearly fallen off her chair in squirmy giggles. Her father waves a fork at her and tells her to settle down and finish eating.
"Once, I laughed so hard milk came out of my nose," she stage-whispers at Sam, eyes crinkling with complicity.
Sam leans over to her. "Once, my brother made me spew a mouthful of Pepsi and it got all over the car," he confides back, and Clara clamps her small hands over her mouth, eyes wide, a laugh stifled behind her fingers.
"So what'll it be, Sam?" Bev prods, forking more green beans next to Sam's third helping of pot roast.
It feels odd to be asked instead of told, to be overfed rather than being expected to ration. It feels good to the big brother, suddenly, and Sam has no doubt he can pull if off; he's learned from the best.
"Dean," he answers finally, and Richard nods, tucking a forkful of mashed potato into his mouth in approval.
Bev gives him an unreadable look, but says nothing.
::
He's fallen asleep on the sofa, lulled by the muffled sound of the news on television and Bev and Richard chatting about a town meeting they'd been to the day before. He's shaken awake a little after ten o'clock, Bev's kind face smiling down at him.
"Your room is made up upstairs, second door to the right," she whispers. "Richard took your bag up there. You should have everything you need."
"Thanks," Sam manages, groggy, grateful but not at ease enough yet to call her anything other than Mrs. Forester. He's not sure he'll ever make it to "mom", but he thinks this woman might understand.
His bedroom smells new, welcoming, and a little like fabric softener. A bedside lamp is giving it a cozy yellowish glow. Sam opens and closes drawers, smiling at his ratty hand-me-downs folded into impeccable stacks, at the row of new clothes (his size, if not quite his style) hung in the closet on wooden hangers.
"Big day tomorrow," comes Richard's deep voice from the door, and Sam turns, crams his hands in his pockets and nods. He starts at his new school tomorrow. He needs haircut, a backpack, a job. These mundane tasks are welcomingly novel to him, and he looks forward to sleeping in a fresh bed for once, alone.
"Better get some sleep, then. I'll see you in the morning." He makes to walk away then doubles back half a step, eyeing Sam from the doorway. "And Dean?"
The name hangs off-kilter between them, but Sam turns expectedly just the same, relearning the familiar syllable for a different purpose, slipping it on with more ease than he expected. "Yes?" Sir.
His new dad drums his fingers on the doorjamb to his new room, and it might be genuine fondness hidden there under the smirk and the serious angle of his brow, where Sam spies an old, barely-there scar. "Stay out of my potting shed."
Author: mcee
Fandoms: Supernatural & Gilmore Girls
Characters: Mainly Sam Winchester (as Dean Forester), plus assorted Winchesters and Foresters.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None for either series, beyond the basic premise and characters.
Word count: 1,600
Notes: For shanalle, who wanted something about Dean Forester. This is perhaps not what she had in mind. Thanks to ink_stain and sevenfists for helping me beat this one into shape.
Summary: You couldn't make this up if you tried... or could you?
The North Side of My Town Faced East
(And the East was Facing South)
It's late October and Bev and Richard Forester from Chicago have just moved into a two-story house in a quiet little Connecticut town. They have an SUV, a picket fence, and a potting shed in the backyard--the works. They'd have a dog, probably a yellow lab, if Richard wasn't allergic. They also have two kids, a little girl and a teenage boy. The girl loves horses and the color pink; the boy likes monster trucks and football. You couldn't make this up if you tried.
Or could you. Because the Foresters are also liars, and while the new house and the potting shed and the allergies and the little girl who likes the color pink are real enough, the gangly sixteen year old whose bedroom is made up upstairs with dark plaid sheets and sports posters is as recent an addition to the household as the fresh bed of begonias Bev just planted along the front walk. But you don't know that. Very few people do, and Bev and Richard Forester are good enough liars to keep it that way.
A fellow fibber, John Winchester, stands in their kitchen (yellow curtains, oak dining set, pot roast in the oven) looking at his kid with a hand on his shoulder. These days when they manage to look each other in the eye, John no longer has to look down.
"Got everything you need?" he asks, because it sounds like the thing to say. Someone who were to accuse him of not having asked the question often enough over the last sixteen years wouldn't be out of line.
Sam Winchester shifts on his feet, curbing the urge to shrug off his father's hand. "Yeah. I'm fine." His sulking is childish and unnecessary and he wonders why John hasn't called him on it yet. But there are many things about this that he didn't expect, and he's able to recognize that for once, he's being given what he wants.
A break from the lifestyle, a home for a while, a full year at the same school. A chance at normal.
Sam has asked for the same thing since third grade. He's not sure why he's being granted it now, but he's not looking this gifthorse in the mouth. If the recent increase in scribbled notes and weapon acquisitions is any indication, Dad wants Sam out of his hair for whatever's about to come down. And maybe, just maybe, it's a little bit of kindness that's making John give in without a lecture for once.
Bev and Richard and the little girl named Clara smile at them from across the table, and John Winchester's smile actually reaches his eyes for a moment, before he lets go of Sam. His boots scuff the spotless linoleum as he backs away, scruffy and road-weary and at odds with the spotless decor. He doesn't quite look at Sam when he speaks again.
"Bev'll know where to reach me if there's an emergency. Richard's weapons are in the potting shed, if anything goes down while you're here. I'll call in a month to check in. All right?"
"Yes, sir."
Clara shoots an amused look at her father and Sam catches her eye, sticks his tongue out at her. She giggles. The perfect little sister.
The Foresters, real and not, follow John as far as the foyer. Bev goes out to the car with a box of fresh supplies for him and his oldest, sitting sullenly in the passenger seat of the boxy Chevy parked incongruously in between manicured hedges. Sam eyes the car from between the living room curtains. He can't bring himself to think he'll miss it, or miss sleeping in it, eating in it, living in it like vagrants rather than having both feet on solid ground somewhere he can call home, however temporarily.
Sam catches Dean's gaze just as he's about to step away from the window, and pauses mid-step. Dean, eyes dark, raises his jaw at him and squares it obstinately, four days of stubble making him look older than twenty. Sam's stomach does a funny flip and he raises his arm to wave, the movement aborted, unsure. Dean's mouth twitches tightly and he raises an eloquent finger at his brother.
The hot knot in Sam's belly loosens and he laughs, the last uncertainty settled when Dean smiles back and waves for real this time, just as John turns around in his seat to back the Impala out of the driveway and onto Peach Street.
::
Over dinner that night, Sam gets to pick a name, any name.
Forester is a given, to stick to their story, but he's meant to decide if he wants to stick with Sam or go for something new altogether. Usually it was Dean who picked the names, and Dad who reminded them that holding a cover is easier when everything is different, when reality bleeds as little as possible into necessary fiction.
Bev slaps another slice of pot roast onto Sam's plate and says that if she'd had a boy she'd have named him Marcus. Richard wanted Richard, Jr. Clara announces she's glad she's a girl and kicks a sneaker against Sam's knee. He reaches under the table and catches the offending foot, holding it until Clara has nearly fallen off her chair in squirmy giggles. Her father waves a fork at her and tells her to settle down and finish eating.
"Once, I laughed so hard milk came out of my nose," she stage-whispers at Sam, eyes crinkling with complicity.
Sam leans over to her. "Once, my brother made me spew a mouthful of Pepsi and it got all over the car," he confides back, and Clara clamps her small hands over her mouth, eyes wide, a laugh stifled behind her fingers.
"So what'll it be, Sam?" Bev prods, forking more green beans next to Sam's third helping of pot roast.
It feels odd to be asked instead of told, to be overfed rather than being expected to ration. It feels good to the big brother, suddenly, and Sam has no doubt he can pull if off; he's learned from the best.
"Dean," he answers finally, and Richard nods, tucking a forkful of mashed potato into his mouth in approval.
Bev gives him an unreadable look, but says nothing.
::
He's fallen asleep on the sofa, lulled by the muffled sound of the news on television and Bev and Richard chatting about a town meeting they'd been to the day before. He's shaken awake a little after ten o'clock, Bev's kind face smiling down at him.
"Your room is made up upstairs, second door to the right," she whispers. "Richard took your bag up there. You should have everything you need."
"Thanks," Sam manages, groggy, grateful but not at ease enough yet to call her anything other than Mrs. Forester. He's not sure he'll ever make it to "mom", but he thinks this woman might understand.
His bedroom smells new, welcoming, and a little like fabric softener. A bedside lamp is giving it a cozy yellowish glow. Sam opens and closes drawers, smiling at his ratty hand-me-downs folded into impeccable stacks, at the row of new clothes (his size, if not quite his style) hung in the closet on wooden hangers.
"Big day tomorrow," comes Richard's deep voice from the door, and Sam turns, crams his hands in his pockets and nods. He starts at his new school tomorrow. He needs haircut, a backpack, a job. These mundane tasks are welcomingly novel to him, and he looks forward to sleeping in a fresh bed for once, alone.
"Better get some sleep, then. I'll see you in the morning." He makes to walk away then doubles back half a step, eyeing Sam from the doorway. "And Dean?"
The name hangs off-kilter between them, but Sam turns expectedly just the same, relearning the familiar syllable for a different purpose, slipping it on with more ease than he expected. "Yes?" Sir.
His new dad drums his fingers on the doorjamb to his new room, and it might be genuine fondness hidden there under the smirk and the serious angle of his brow, where Sam spies an old, barely-there scar. "Stay out of my potting shed."