Fic: The Misbegotten, Chapter 5
Title: The Misbegotten, Chapter 5
Author: Piratelf
Rating: R (for strong language)
Fandom: Gilmore Girls and Supernatural crossover inspired by, but in no way a part of the whatwekeep 'verse.
Disclaimer: Gilmore Girls and Supernatural belong to their respective owners, bought and paid for. I am not one of the owners, more's the pity. The AKB 'verse was created by poisontaster in her fic "A Kept Boy". This fic is inspired by that 'verse, though not a part of it.
Beta: Nadnewraid
Summary: Something in common.
WARNINGS: Strong language. Slavery. Also, I need to warn you that this fic is a WIP.
Author's Notes: According to the AKB 'verse slaves are freeze branded. It isn't said what with. I feel it would be something small and universally acknowledged. Such as a particular design that has come to designate slave. I'm thinking an S that resembles a figure kneeling. This is what a freeze brand looks like on human skin. Freeze Branding Yourself, Though I feel that one looks a bit thick and clumsy. I think the slave brands would look more like this.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Dean was happy to get away from the house. His master's guest was making him nervous. At Lord Gilmore's, he'd only been in the presence of guests when his master would bring them to the garage to see a new automotive acquisition, or when he'd had to serve at parties. That was easy though, because most of the party guests just ignored him, only paying attention to the tray he was carrying. Entertaining guests alone was more the purvey of body slaves.
Dean wondered if the guest would stay the night. So far his master had made no nightly demands on him, allowing him to sleep by himself on the couch. But a guest might be offered a slave as entertainment. In a large household, it would only be the body slaves who would be offered, but as Dean was the only slave of Master Singer's, he knew he might be called upon for any number of services.
When John entered the workshop Dean jumped, startled, and may have even emitted a little squeak of surprise.
"Whoa, whoa, settle down," John calmed him.
"Sorry, sir." Dean knelt on the workshop floor.
"It's alright. Get up."
"Yes, sir." Dean stood with his hands behind his back and his head bowed.
"Look at me," John ordered.
"Yes, sir." Dean's head came up immediately and his eyes met John's. They were the same deep brown color as his own.
"You were born in Chicago?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you're seventeen?"
"Yes, sir."
"What was your mother's name?"
Dean blinked in surprise. No one had ever asked him about his past before. Nobody cared about a slave's past. Why was this man so interested? "I don't remember, sir."
"Yes you do. What was it?" There was an edge to John's voice now.
Dean bit his lip. "I'm sorry sir, I honestly don't remember."
John came closer, putting his face mere centimeters from Dean's. "Don't give me that crap! I know you weren't made a slave until you were eight! That's just nine years ago! You don't forget your own mother's name in nine years! Now what was her name?!"
Dean had no idea how to please this man. He didn't know the answer. And there wasn't room between the man in front of him and the wall behind him to fully prostrate himself. He sank to his knees. "I'm sorry sir. I do not know. I present myself for punishment."
John backed up a few paces and sighed. "I'm not going to punish you. I just want you to tell me the truth."
Dean looked up at John. "It is the truth, sir. I swear."
"Alright," John decided to let it go for now. "Stand up. You're going to wear your knees out doing that."
"Yes, sir." Dean stood wondering what to do.
"So, you're rebuilding the engine, huh?"
"Yes, sir." John noticed the life that came into the kid's face and voice. "It's going pretty well. I'm almost finished. Master Singer has everything here! I think I'll be able to put it back in the car tomorrow and test it. It's a '69 Camaro."
"Sweet. I have a '67 Impala," John told him. "Well, actually my son does. I gave it to him."
"That's very generous, sir."
"Well, he earned it."
Dean nodded.
John picked up the carburetor that Bobby had been working on. "Hand me that wrench, will ya?"
"Yes, sir."
They worked amiably together for a few hours. John saw flashes of the boy's smile, and it made his heart ache. It seemed like years since he'd seen Sammy's smile directed at him. And the more time John spent with the kid, the more he saw in him that reminded him of himself or his sons. He had the same love of mechanics that John and Dean shared, as well as a real talent for it. He was soft-spoken and gentle-natured, like Sammy. He held his tools in a similar grip to John's, though he was slightly clumsy, as Sammy had been during his growth spurt.
After dark, Bobby came out to the workshop to tell Dean to knock off and go to bed. John put down his work too and followed them into the house.
"I'm gonna hit the sack. You two are gonna have to flip for the couch," Bobby said.
"I'll take the floor, sir," Dean said.
"I'll let ya, kid." John grinned, slapping Dean on the back.
Hours later, a noise woke John. He couldn't quite identify it, but it sounded wrong. He opened his eyes and turned over so he could investigate the room. Immediately he located the source of the sound. Dean was curled up in a ball, clutching his calves, with his blanket stuffed in his mouth to stifle any noise. John went over and sat behind him. He rubbed Dean's back with one hand while he gently extracted the blanket with the other. "Hey, kiddo, what's the matter?"
Dean whimpered then tried to speak through gritted teeth. "Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to wake you."
"It's okay." John moved his hands down to Dean's calves and began massaging them. "Your legs hurt, huh?"
"Yes sir," Dean ground out.
"Lie on your belly."
Dean obeyed, though he protested John's ministrations. "Please sir, you shouldn't - Mmmmff!" He closed his mouth to keep from screaming as a particularly sharp pain hit while he was turning over.
"Shh, try and relax. How long have you been having these pains?"
"A couple years, sir. I'm sorry. I don't know what causes them."
"No? They're growing pains. My sons had them too. The oldest had more aches than actual pain, but my youngest had them bad, like you." John continued to rub Dean's legs and back, feeling him relax slightly. "Your bones are growing faster than your muscles, and your muscles get stretched, which hurts like a bitch." He hit a particularly tender spot and Dean cried out. They apologized simultaneously.
"Listen, dude, I need you to hang on a minute so I can get some aspirin and some towels."
"Please sir, you shouldn't interrupt your sleep. I'm fine. I won't make any more noise."
John had never dealt with a slave before, but he had dealt with boys who didn't want to admit they were sick, and this was pretty similar. If they won't cooperate with their dad, they will obey their drill sergeant. "Boy, you stay there and don't you move until I get back. You hear me?"
"Yes, sir." Dean was chastened to hear that tone directed at him. But he didn't have time to worry over it as he felt an immediate heightening of the pain as soon as John let go, which pushed all thought from his mind. He held his breath and gripped his pillow hard. He knew he shouldn't just lie there while a free person worked for him. He should get up and say that he was fine and not draw attention to himself. But he couldn't do it. He just hurt so bad. He knew he might be punished in the morning, but he just couldn't obey his training in this condition. Besides, Master Winchester had ordered him to stay where he was. He couldn't disobey.
The next thing he knew, John was back and urging him to turn over and sit up.
"Here," John put two aspirin in Dean's hand and helped him hold a glass of water to wash them down. Once Dean swallowed the aspirin, John told him to turn over again. He continued rubbing Dean's right leg, while he covered the other with towels that he'd dampened with hot water. "This used to help Sammy, that's my youngest. Unfortunately there's nothing you can really do about growing pains. You might keep growing for a few years yet and for as long as you're growing, you'll probably have pain." John switched the towels to the other leg and began massaging the left leg. "Close your eyes, try and sleep."
"Yes sir," Dean answered. John could hear that the pain had eased up a little. Within half an hour, Dean was asleep. John went back to the couch, but he kept waking up to check on the kid. Though there was never anything to check on, Dean was out like a light.
John studied the boy's face in the moonlight. 'What are you hiding? Why won't you tell me who you are? What have you been through? What happened that your last owner sent you away?'
Dean moved in his sleep and the collar of the T-shirt Bobby'd lent him slipped down at the back of his neck. And there was his freeze brand, stark white against his tan complexion, practically shining out in the darkness like a beacon. John couldn't stop staring at it. 'Did that hurt? Did they numb it first? Or did they just grab you, do it, and let you go, like an animal? Where is your mother? How could she let this happen to you?' But then, wasn't half the responsibility his? 'Why don't you ask where his father was, John? How did you let this happen to him?' He felt a wave of nausea hit him, and he had to look away. He reached down and pulled the blanket up, covering the brand, and rolled over on the couch. 'It wasn't my fault. I didn't know. How could I take care of a kid I didn't even know about? If he even is my kid. Hell, I used rubbers, I couldn't risk getting sick. That means I can be 99% sure he's not mine, right? He probably has a father. His father's probably off on some tropical beach with his mother living the high life now that they've sold their son and they're debt-free. Fuckin' monsters.'
John fell into an uneasy sleep. He dreamed of his sons being branded. Dream logic, true to form, had them both being eight at the same time. They screamed and screamed. They screamed for him. And Dean screamed for Mary and Sammy screamed for Dean. And John knew, the way you know in dreams, that it was his fault. He'd been too many days late coming back from a hunt. Or he'd forgotten to pick them up from school, because he was drunk. Or they had somehow traced all of the credit card scams back to him and he was in debt for billions of dollars, so Commerce just came and took his boys. He couldn't remember what the reason was exactly, only that the guilt was his.
He also dreamed that Commerce somehow confused the Dean sleeping on Bobby's floor, with his Dean. When they came to take him, they wouldn't listen to John, though he tried to explain that his Dean was the wrong age, the wrong height and the wrong eye color. Then Sammy walked into the room, and because he looked so much like the Dean they were looking for, they took him too. "Listen to me you motherfuckers, they can't both be the Dean you want! Pull your goddammed heads outta your asses and think!?!" John had shouted in the dream. It woke him up and he wasn't sure if he'd actually shouted out loud or not.
He turned over to see if he'd woken the kid and saw that he was gone, as were the pillow and blanket he'd had. John sat up, rubbing his eyes, and noticed the sunlight dappling the room. Also he smelled coffee. How late had he slept? And why did he feel like he'd had no rest at all?
He pushed himself off of the couch, feeling aches and pains from injuries long healed, even hearing some bones pop here and there. 'Gettin' old,' he told himself. He snagged his duffle bag and made his way to Bobby's bathroom by memory, since his eyes hadn't yet decided they were ready to actually stay open. Once there, he turned the cold water on full blast, then added just enough hot so that he could stand it, stripped and climbed into the shower. The shock of the cold water did seem to kick start his brain, clearing away all the fuzziness of fatigue. He made his plans for the day while he scrubbed himself briskly with Bobby's bar of Irish Spring. He figured they'd take the kid into town and get the transfer of ownership crap done, then he'd pack him into the truck and head out toward Michigan. John had been tracking some crop failures and electrical storms there which might be signs of demon activity. Along the way maybe he'd start training the kid, see if he could get some kind of muscle on him. He'd start him out easy, 2 sets of 10 push-ups and the same of crunches, morning and night. Maybe a few laps somewhere if they stopped for lunch. And teach him to shoot, definitely get started on that right away. Then work his way up to self-defense, physical combat and knife-fighting. Once the kid had all that under his belt, John would start him on occult knowledge, endurance training and survival skills. He just hoped the boy was a quick study and had some kind of coordination. From the way he was dealing with his growing pains, he wasn't a whiner, which was number two on John's zero tolerance list. Number one was disobedience, but he didn't think he'd have a problem with that.
He stepped out of the shower and took a long look in the mirror. He doubted that Commerce would care one way or the other how he looked, since they were just reporting the details of a private sale, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to look halfway decent. He could shave at least. He pulled his kit out of his duffle and went to work. He wondered idly if the kid was shaving yet? Didn't look like it. When his Dean was seventeen, he could have been shaving, but he wasn't. Sparse as it was, he'd just let his facial hair grow until John finally said something about it. He still didn't really do a real close shave most of the time. Got that habit from John himself, he supposed. Or maybe he just did it to off-set the softness of his features. Make himself look tougher, older, more masculine. Get more girls. Not that he'd ever had any problem with that. Dean was a born lady-killer, all charm and all boy.
Sammy, though, was scraping his face when he still had nothing but peach fuzz. Maybe it was to look the part of the normal, regular, clean-cut kid that he was always trying to play. Maybe it was just to be different from Dean and John. Maybe it was because he was smart enough to know that, while Dean had a certain 'prettiness' to his face, Sammy had more of a little boy look going, and he could use those 'puppy dog eyes', as Dean called them, to get what he wanted a lot more easily without a face full of whiskers. Not that the eyes worked on John. Oh, hell no. Not since Sammy was ten, anyway. Maybe twelve. Okay, maybe once when he was fifteen, but that was it.
John splashed the remaining foam from his now smooth face and looked in his duffle for his newest jeans and his nicest looking shirt. Once dressed, he went out to the kitchen and got himself a cup of coffee. It was eleven o'clock already, so he knew Bobby and the kid were out in the yard or in the workshop. He turned on the TV and finished his coffee while he watched a couple of plastic smiling people tell him all about what was happening in the empire.
About an hour later John heard the door open and Bobby's voice behind him. "Finally pulled your ass outta bed, huh, Winchester?"
"When you work hard, you need your rest. You wouldn't know anything about that, Singer."
"I guess you want me to feed you lunch now, freeloader."
"Nope," John got up and walked to the kitchen. "Thought I'd buy you some."
"Oh yeah?" Bobby asked.
"Yeah, figured we could go into town, get some lunch, take care of this Commerce shit, and me and the boy could pack up and be on the road before sundown."
"Uh-huh," Bobby nodded. Strangely, though just the day before he couldn't wait for John to come and take him, now Bobby felt that he was gonna miss the kid.
"So, where is he?"
"Cleaning up the workshop, he'll be in in a minute."
Dean delayed going in as long as he could. By now Master Winchester would be up. And he would tell Master Singer what had happened the night before, how he had done a servant's work for Dean. And even if Master Winchester still didn't mind, surely Master Singer would. It would reflect badly on him as a master and a host. And he'd punish Dean for certain this time. Dean put everything away and cleaned the worktable twice. He couldn't delay too long or his punishment could be worse. He checked that the tools were in their places one last time, and then headed toward the house.
"Okay, so I take it he doesn't have much to pack?" John asked.
"Nah, he just needs to grab his sweatshirt, he can keep the socks and drawers, and the T-shirt. He's wearing his sweatpants and shoes."
John nodded. "I'll get him some clothes when we get to Michigan."
Dean stopped to pet Rumsfeld, and scratch his belly for a few minutes. He'd never lived anywhere with dogs before, and he'd found he liked them.
Bobby heard him and stuck his head out the door. "Boy, get in here, we're going into town."
"Yes, sir," Dean answered, wondering if that meant his punishment would be delayed.
"Grab your sweatshirt and get in Winchester's truck," Bobby told him.
"Yes, sir," Dean nodded, and obeyed.
Chapter 6
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