Supernatural Fic Part 2
Hi, I'm going to be posting all of the stories I've written and posted elsewhere here. I should have done this earlier, like say two years ago (whoops), but I was lazy. As a result, I will probably end up flooding people's F-lists. Sorry!
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - The Many Glorious Uses of Bourbon Whiskey (8/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Warning/Spoilers: This one’s a lot lighter than the last one. Much less blood and gore, too.
Summary: In a Winchester operating room, all the supplies you need are a pen knife, some dental floss, a sewing needle, and a fifth of whiskey. Based on “Changing Channels.”
Sam stares at the tray holding rows of shining stainless steel utensils. His hands are sweaty inside his white latex gloves.
Various sizes and shapes of scalpels, forceps, clamps, tiny rulers…What the hell? How is he supposed to use these to operate on his brother?
Well, it’s not like he’s never used a scalpel before-in high school biology, they dissected a frog-but Dean’s not some farm-harvested amphibian hatched and raised specifically for the purpose of ending up pickled in formaldehyde to help a ninth grader understand the circulatory systems of vertebrates better. No, he’s Dean. Sam can’t dissect his brother.
Dean’s not dead, for starters.
But a little voice in the back of his mind tells him that he will be if Sam doesn’t get his ass moving soon.
He glances back though the observation window at Doctor Whatever-her-name-was, the one who’d slapped him, and she waves at him and simpers. Right.
“I need a…pen knife, some dental floss, a sewing needle, and a fifth of whiskey.” That’s the kind of stuff he’s used to working with. It’s not like you can get a hold of lab-sterilized surgical equipment when you live out of a duffel bag and have fraudulent insurance cards.
And oh God yeah, he’s really gonna need that whiskey.
The nurses stare at him incredulously. What? Move! Oh right, he’s supposed to be a brilliant, brilliant doctor… “Stat!”
That seems to be the magic word because it makes the whole operating room explode in a flurry of activity as the assistants rush about trying to get him all the things he’d asked for.
The pen knife and the dental floss get to him first. Dean’s been bleeding the whole while, but strangely, he’s been extremely coherent and there for a guy who just got shot in the back ten minutes ago. It’s weird. Sam’s finding TV-land very bizarre. When they get back to the real world, he’s not watching TV anymore. It’s kind of lost its appeal.
Someone brings him a sewing kit. “Where’s the whiskey?” he asks.
The nurses glance at each other with nervous expressions. Finally, one woman brings her hand out from behind her back, and holds the shaking bottle out to him.
Sam grabs it and takes a loooooong pull from it. “Thanks.” Everyone seems even more anxious than before, if that’s even possible.
An audible gasp goes around the operating table when he sloshes a portion of the liquid all over the open wound on Dean’s back. He glances up. “What?”
A nurse stammers. “B-but Doctor. That’s…” She falls silent.
Sam shrugs and proceeds to sterilize the needle-his way, the Winchester way. He pours alcohol over the thin sliver of metal and flicks his lighter (and thank goodness the trickster’d left that in his pocket).
Whiskey’s a damned good sterilizer, ya know?
That’s not the only thing it’s good for, either.
Sam remembers one morning when he’d woken up with an enormous porno ‘stache on his upper lip, drawn with a black Sharpie. After raging at Dean for several minutes and promising revenge, he’d retreated to the bathroom to try to scrub the damned stuff off. The rough towel only turned his skin bright red, and left the marker. The result was that his lower face now looked like a caricature of the devil.
Oh yeah, he was so ready to kill Dean.
Then the thought had come to him that this was permanent marker. The Winchesters use permanent marker for a lot of things, normal stuff like writing on labels and containers, but also in the course of their job-sometimes they have to draw sigils on their skin to perform a spell or protect themselves.
They’d just splash a little whiskey onto the marks and rub themselves clean. Presto-cleano-no more permanent marker.
Sam had stormed out into the room to find the whiskey bottle and glare some more at his laughing brother. Dick. “Gonna drown your sorrows in the bottle, Sammy?” he’d taunted.
“It’s your turn next, you ass,” Sam had retorted. Oh, and had he had his revenge.
Dean really hadn’t appreciated the new aftershave Sam had sneaked into his toilet kit. He’d smelled like a skunk had decided to play water tag with him for a whole week. That was an entire seven days of not getting any. Oh, was he pissed. He didn’t think that little factoid Sam told him-that the musk comes from the anal scent glands of the skunk-was very interesting at all.
Sam pushes the needle through his brother’s flesh and pulls the floss up. There’s a neat row of stitches in Dean’s back-better than a real doctor’s, he thinks, and he should know. He ties a knot in the thread.
“We okay? How’s it looking?” Dean’s voice is muffled, coming through that pillow with the hole in the middle of it so he could breathe. Sam can’t get over the strangeness of talking to Dean while performing surgery on a freaking gunshot wound in the middle of his brother’s back. And get this: they’re in a TV show. Doctor Sexy, M.D. Yeah.
Sam snips the extra floss with the surgical scissors. “Yep, you’ll be fine.” Just like any other hunting-related injury, right? You just clean the wound out real well with holy water and whatever alcohol you have on hand and either bandage it or stitch it up. Simple as that. Everyday Winchester-style surgery. Motel-room operations.
Except this time, it was a gunshot wound. To the back. Dean shouldn’t be able to just walk away from this. Yet here he is, talking to him while Sam’s putting dental floss stitches in his back. That just isn’t normal.
Sam turns around to see if Doctor Lovesick McSlappy’s still there. Oh yeah. She sure seems to be a clingy one. Mouthing ‘I love you’ and sighing, indeed. Sam grimaces and returns his attention to his brother.
Yeah, Dean’ll be fine. It’s a TV show, right? People have miracle recoveries all the time. Doctor Dean seems to be a central character to the show, so they wouldn’t kill him off, right? Or is it sweeps or finale season now? Shit, when’s the last time he watched TV for fun? It’s probably been months. Damn.
He takes another look at the stitches he’d just put in his brother and second guesses himself. What if he’d killed his brother by using shitty supplies and starting an infection? Shit, shit, shit.
He grabs the bottle of bourbon and pours a little more onto Dean’s back. Dean hisses and cusses him out. That’s perfectly alright.
Then he shrugs and raises the bottle to his own lips to settle his nerves…
Dude, is that clapping? What. The. Hell?
And where the hell his bottle? That’s not right.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Comfortably Numb (9/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Warning/Spoilers: Spoilers for Seasons 4 and 5, specifically, the episodes “Yellow Fever,” “Sam, Interrupted,” and “Dark Side of the Moon.” One f-word (and I know this sounds so…little girl, but it’s the first time I’ve ever actually used it. *gasp* Bad me. *scolds self and scours mouth out with soap*). Title from the Pink Floyd song.
Summary: Sam analyzes his brother’s drinking habits.
It started with that case in Rock Ridge, with that spirit of the man who was dragged behind a truck until he was dead, Sam finally realizes. At least, that’s when it started becoming a real problem. Dean’s drinking, that is.
Dean hadn’t been a real heavy drinker to begin with.
The hunting life is hard. You deal with the terrible things you see by drinking and killing more of those evil sonsabitches. If you can’t deal, then you end up in the loony bin like more than just a few hunters. Sam and Dean know some guys like that-Martin, to name one. So Dean used to have a couple of beers at the bars they frequented, maybe had a few shots. He’d get buzzed for fun, sometimes he’d drink more than usual after a particularly bad hunt, but he sure wasn’t a chronic alcoholic.
Then bad shit started happening, like Dad dying, and Sam dying and Dean making his deal. When Dean came back after Hell, he was…different. Not different, as in he was a complete stranger, but he seemed more tired, more vulnerable. Big brother wasn’t really “big” in Sam’s eyes anymore, just older, worn out. In the very beginning, when he’d first come back, he’d seemed almost unchanged (he said he didn’t remember anything at all of Hell), and it was Sam who was different, but as time passed, Sam started noticing things, small things that were just off about his older brother.
Like the way Dean started avoiding any meat that had to be cut with a knife, or how he zoned out and stared at the grotesque masks on display during Halloween as if fascinated and horrified by them at the same time. And the drinking. Dean started stealing nips here and there when he thought Sam wasn’t looking. Of course, he never went on a hunt actually drunk, until that ghost sickness case.
It started out alright, as bad cases have a tendency of doing. They’d interviewed the sheriff and gone to the morgue to poke around. Sam got squirted with spleen juice, which was real fun. Then Dean had started getting panicky about his car. Mind you, that’s really a normal occurrence, so there was no way Sam could have realized that something was up with his brother then. Well, Dean started getting really paranoid about driving (he was going the posted speed limit, for crying out loud!) which was what made Sam suspicious. That, and the EMF went off when it was pointed at Dean.
By the time the ghost sickness had taken its full effect, Dean was chugging, really chugging that whiskey. That was the first and last time he’d gone into a job completely tipsy, but upon reflection, Sam’s pretty sure that that’s what started Dean depending more on the alcohol to get him through his days. Thinking back, from analyzing his brother’s symptoms, he’s certain that Dean’s suffering from classic depression and alcoholism. Maybe PTSD. Something, anyway. Sam’s gotta look that up when he has the time.
Maybe the drinking helps. Maybe it’s a problem. Sam’s certainly not going to mention it, seeing as Dean’ll probably get defensive and bring up the demon blood addiction. That’ll just start the whole argument rolling again, and Sam doesn’t want that. He’s tired too, he’s tired of fighting Dean.
When they check into that mental asylum disguised as patients to help Martin out with his case, Sam’s surprised by the honesty with which Dean spills all his secrets and feelings to the doctors, even though that was the plan. He’s never seen his brother so willingly and completely truthful to anyone. It’s ironic that they’re telling the truth to seem like they’re making things up.
Well, that case gives Sam a jarring look at how exactly Dean’s feeling. He’s messed up, completely, totally, irreparably fucked up, and Sam has no idea how to fix him. So he lets his brother numb himself with alcohol until he passes out into a dead sleep and doesn’t wake up ‘til morning. Before they leave each motel, they clean up the cans and bottles together without a word.
By the time they get killed and take the Heavenly Disneyland tour, Dean’s going on about fifty to sixty drinks a week, which might be a sign for Sam to step in. But, Sam thinks, maybe he shouldn’t. This is how guys like them deal with the shitty nightmare that is the hunting (and Winchester) life. Self-medication, repressing memories, whatever works. They take care of their crap and shut up about it.
Because seriously, there’s an Apocalypse going on-maybe Dean’s got the right idea.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - MILF (10/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam!!Gary and Crystal
Warning/Spoilers: Inspired by the ‘Sam-Gary drinks a daiquiri’ scene in “Swap Meat.”
Summary: Hot, young, and dumb is just what the newly divorced Crystal needs.
Stud-Bun orders a banana daiquiri, of all drinks. And he shows the bartender his ID before he does. Maybe Crystal’s been off the market for too long, but Stud-Bun looks a few years older than twenty-one. Looks like he’s a regular Matthew McConaughey under all those layers, too. She’d like to see for herself to make sure though, she thinks, as she sucks seductively on her straw.
It takes a while to get through to him that she wants to go…with him…to have sex. He seems really excited about it. Cute. Crystal wonders vaguely if Stud-Bun’s a virgin. Seems unlikely, the way he looks, but still, you never know.
Anyway, he’s hot, young, and dumb. Just what she needs.
After twenty-two years of being married to pot-bellied, older, and ‘I’m your husband; that automatically makes me infinitely smarter than you, you stupid blonde bitch,’ this deliciously muscled specimen sitting beside her is just exactly what Crystal needs.
So what if she’s now a cougar? She hasn’t been single in close to twenty-four years since she started dating and got married to Richard-the-neural-surgeon. Now with the divorce papers signed, Crystal Robinson (no longer Dr. Grant’s miserable wife anymore, thank you very much) is free, free as a bird. And boy, is she loving it. Take that, Dick, you cheating, doctorate-flaunting pond scum.
As soon as her divorce was finalized, she’d taken a loooooong bath, with lots of bubbles and scented candles and her favorite music on as loud as it could go. Then she’d done her nails (bright red), put on her make-up, dried her long blonde hair into loose-hanging curls, and slid into a new slinky black dress. She’d stood in front of the full-length mirror-her full-length mirror-and posed with her hands on her hips.
Ugh, her arms. When in the world did they get all wobbly like that? Those look like wings or something. Disgusting.
She’d hurriedly rummaged through her closet to find a suitable jacket to wear over the dress. Hm, she’d nodded. Sex-yyy. She’s still got it.
Then she’d turned on her brand-new stiletto heels and driven to that bar on Fifth and Main. Time to find some fun of the young and hot variety. Those young teeny-boppers better watch out because here comes the cougar-hot, and with years of sexual experience.
Ms. Robinson is a MILF, and she is proud of it.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - The Promise (11/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Summary: Tag to the drunk!Sam scene during “Playthings.”
Sam was drunk, very obviously so.
Come to think of it, Dean’s never seen Sam quite like this before. Getting Sam tipsy is usually a task that Dean takes pleasure in, seeing him loosen up and relax, getting that giddy grin on his face, and seeing the troubles melt off of his shoulders.
Sam used to be a happy drunk, before. Before Stanford, before all those fights with Dad had escalated to wall-shaking screaming matches. Back when it had been just the two of them sneaking off to a bar or having a couple of beers at their motel room of the month, once in a while when Dad wasn’t around to see and shake his head over it.
The first time Sam had gotten drunk, absolutely shit-faced, was on his sixteenth birthday. Every time after that day that Sam had touched alcohol, Dean had been with him-he was even usually the one that paid for the beers. That is, until Sam had his last fight with Dad and left.
Those solitary beers after that had tasted awfully bitter.
Dean doesn’t know the next time Sam had a beer after that. Probably his twenty-first, since Sam had taken to being a law-abiding model citizen like a kappa does to water. He bet Sam was the designated driver for all of the parties he went to in college (if he went to any, which was also probable). This thought makes him snort, and gaze down fondly at the sleeping figure on the bed next to his.
Oh Sam, Sammy. Why’d he have to go and ask him that? Of all things, to ask him, his brother, to kill him if he turns into something that he’s not. That’s…Dad was an ass, but Sam should have known better than that, especially after seeing what it had done to him when Dad had told him that before he’d died.
But then again, Sam was drunk, drunk voluntarily and alone. Driven to drink, it seemed like. Dean wishes now that he hadn’t spilled the beans about what Dad had whispered in his ear before leaving him. If he’d held out, like he had for so many months already, Sam wouldn’t have pressed him to promise what he knew in his heart of hearts that he could never do.
“You have to kill me, Dean. Promise.” A promise wrung out of him the way only a little brother can of his elder sibling. Dean never could resist the earnest puppy-dog eyes accompanied by a teary “Please, Dean.”
Alcohol brought out what made Sam Sam and increased it tenfold-He’s always feeling that he has to save people out of some need to redeem himself for his perceived role in the deaths of others (Mom, Jess, Ava, the guy that hung himself…the list goes on), and now, to change his destiny, his perceived destiny. Then there’s the childishness inherent in him always around Dean (“You’re bossy,” “Well I’m older, now eat your cereal, kiddo”).
“You have to kill me; Dad told you to.” Yeah, about that. Dad was an ass, there’s no denying that-Dean’s known that for years, but he’d followed his orders without question…unless it was Sam’s well-being that hung in the balance. And killing Sam, that’s big, that’s something that you just don’t do. You tell your son, your four-year-old son, that he’s in charge of keeping his baby brother safe, you drum it into him his whole life, and then you tell him that he has to kill his brother? Like Dean said, Dad’s an ass.
And Sam’s an ass too, albeit a drunken ass, but an ass all the same, for asking him to do the same thing. Using Dad to make him promise-that’s low, by the way-just because Dean’s never disobeyed their father in his life (or so Sam thinks). Then he has to go and pull the little brother card, that thing that he can do, even when he’s too drunk to see straight, it seems like.
“Promise, Dean. You have to promise me.” Dean can remember smaller fingers than these clutching at his clothes in exactly the same way, the same earnest, tearful eyes asking him to promise that he’ll be sure to be right there in front of the school to pick him up after class, that the monsters will never get him, that he’ll be really careful when Dad takes him out on the next hunt.
Dean’s never been able to say no. So he promises and hopes that Sam forgets it all by morning, that it’ll all be a hazy memory to him.
Then he promises himself that it will never, ever come to that. Sam will never change into something that Dean will have to kill. He’ll promise that.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AN: I know that the past tense of the word “hang” in this context is “hanged” not “hung,” but that’s what they used in the show, so I’m sticking with that to make it seem like Dean’s the one talking here. But yes, I know, and it gets my goat every time someone uses it wrong.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Best Birthday Ever, Maybe (12/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Summary: It’s Sam’s sixteenth birthday, and Dean’s got a decision to make.
Dean’s staring is starting to creep little brother out. He can tell; the small wrinkle between the dark brows barely discernible under the wavy brown bangs, the nervous tip-tapping of the slender fingers on worn-out jeans getting too short for the freakishly long legs, the frequent glances at him out of the side of his eyes, the beginnings of the bitch-face…
And finally, there it is: “Dean! Stop that!”
“Stop what?” Dean parries with his eyes wide open in a too-innocent-to-be-innocent expression.
“Stop staring at me,” Sam growls. “Why are you staring at me? It’s annoying.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “’Cause you’re ugly, that’s why.”
Sam sighs exasperatedly. “Then why are you staring at me? You wouldn’t want to stare at me if I was ugly. And I’m not ugly!” he adds for good measure.
“Yeah, sure you’re not,” Dean smirks.
Sam huffs. “I’m not. Watch the movie.” He turns back to the TV in an attempt to set an example.
“Dude, movie’s almost over.” Dean stretches, his heels scraping against the worn carpet.
“It’s still my birthday,” Sam replies harshly, still staring hard at the screen, on which the spirits of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin Skywalker smile proudly at Luke. “I wanna watch the movie.”
Dean snorts. “Okay, yeah, let’s watch the rest of the two minutes left of Episode VI, shall we?”
Sneaking another look at the scowling features of the newly sixteen-year-old, Dean thinks that maybe he’d better put off that plan for next year, huh? Sam’s obviously not mature enough for-
“Sorry, Dean.” The mumbled apology comes as a surprise. “I just wish Dad was here.”
Dean sighs, leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, me too. But you know-”
“-he has to work?” Sam cuts in. “I know. I just want a normal birthday for once.”
Dean’s gotta frown at that. “Dad tries, you know. He does.”
“Does he?” Sam looks up at him through his bangs. “Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like it. He misses Christmases, Thanksgivings, Father’s Days, birthdays…”
“Sam,” Dean’s lips are in a tight line. He’s trying not to blow up at his brother, but sometimes, he just pushes it, ya know? “Sam, he does try. Little things that you don’t see, or don’t wanna see, he does ‘em. Alright? So chill.”
Sam’s too busy glaring holes into the rolling credits on the screen to answer. “Why were you staring at me earlier?”
Changing the topic, huh? Dean can deal with that. That’s a ‘Dean’ tactic, that one. Sam doesn’t want to fight on his birthday either.
Dean purses his lips. “I was thinking about something.”
Sam’s lips twitch. “You were thinking? I didn’t know that was possible. Hope you didn’t strain anything.”
Dean slaps his palm into Sam’s gut. “Very funny, birthday boy. I was thinking about giving you a haircut.” He flicks a finger at the chestnut waves spilling down over his brother’s ears. “It’s too long. Someone might think you’re a girl; a really ugly, really tall girl.”
Sam tries to pull his bitch-face, but the laughter shows in his eyes. “You suck. And stay away from my hair.” He squirms away from the finger poking his side. “Dean, stop tickling me! I’m sixteen. Sixteen, dude.”
Dean dodges the hands batting at him and sneaks another tickle at an exposed expanse of skin. “Uh-huh. That squeaking you got going on is real convincing, man.”
“Deeeeeaaaannnnnnn!”
Giggles taper off into full-blown laughter as the tickling turns into a full-blown brotherly wrestling match that has them rolling across the room, bumping into the rickety furniture and flaking chunks of drywall off of the walls. Finally, tired out from the brief tussle, they plop down on the couch, panting.
Sam flops his head over to look at his brother, who’s gazing at him with that odd expression again. “What?”
Dean suddenly stands up. “Hey Sammy. Ya wanna go to a bar? You're driving.” Then he tosses the keys over. The keys to the Impala. The car Dad had given to Dean on his eighteenth birthday.
Sam catches them mostly by reflex. His mouth’s hanging open, and his eyes are glazed over.
Dean waves a hand in front of him. “Sam, you still in there?”
Sam blinks. “Yeah, yeah. Dean.” He stares at his brother. “You’re letting me drive? The Impala?”
Dean nods, putting Dad’s old leather jacket on; it’s now his, as of his fifteenth birthday. “Yep.”
“And we’re going to a bar.” Sam’s still on the couch, staring up at his brother.
“Yep.”
“To drink alcohol? Both of us?” Sam’s still having trouble wrapping his genius mind around the idea.
“Yep.” Dean turns around at the door. “You coming or what? And here, pop one of these-don’t want to be in the car with you and your pizza-breath.” He tosses a clear plastic box of Tic-Tacs at Sam.
“You have pizza-breath,” Sam retorts, still on auto-pilot. He’s driving the Impala, and Dean’s taking him to a bar. Best. Birthday. Ever.
- - - - - - - -
“The tablesh underwaddah, Dee. We’re underwaddah. You think we’re mermaids, Dee? We can breathe underwaddah. Maybe we’re mermaids. I wondah if we haff gills. Fish haff gills. Maybe mermaids haff gills, so dey can breathe underwaddah.”
Dean catches his brother as he tips over. He chuckles. “Dude, I think you’ve had one beer too many, which is saying something, since you’ve only had two.” He slings the long arm over his shoulder. “I think you might be a mermaid, Sammy, but no way you’re calling me a fish-chick.”
Sam’s eyes are at half-mast; he’s too drunk to reply. He stumbles and his legs momentarily get tangled with Dean’s, until the older brother gets them all sorted out. “Yeah, I think you might need to hurry up and get those sea-legs, fast. Whaddaya think, Sammy?” Dean props Sam up against the car while he unlocks the door.
“Fishy,” Sam says to the Impala’s side mirror.
“That’s nice.” Dean opens the door and gently maneuvers his brother in. “Watch your head.”
“Head’s underwaddah,” Sam mumbles, curling up against the window.
Dean chuckles and starts the car. “I need a video camera. Times like this…I need to get one of those.”
- - - - - - - - -
“I hate you, Dean.” The words are heaved into the toilet bowl, along with the contents of Sam’s stomach, or what’s left in it. Sam spits into the vomity water. “I hate you.”
Dean leans against the doorway, disgustingly hangover-free. “Ya gotta learn to hold your liquor, Sammy. Ya gotta be a man!” Then he chuckles that annoyingly chipper chuckle.
Sam hates this birthday. Worst birthday ever. He gags again and groans. “Oh God, kill me now.” His head’s pounding, the slightest light burns his eyes, and his intestines are threatening to come out of his mouth. He groans again for good measure. “Kill me.”
Then there’s a warm hand on his back, rubbing circles. Ohhhhh, that feels gooooooood. He whimpers into the stained toilet seat. Dean, head hurts. Fix now.
“Okay, kiddo. Drink this.” Something cold hits his hand and he looks up with bleary eyes to see that it’s a glass of water. “Mmgh.” Gentle hands help him guide the glass to his lips and wipe away the water that dribbles out messily. “Thanks, Dean.”
“Here.” Now, there are pills being pushed into his mouth. The glass comes up again. “Swallow.” Sam does.
“Okay? Done puking? Good. Now let’s get ya back into bed until those aspirin kick in.” Then he’s being guided off of the floor and half-carried into the darkened motel room. The bed feels nice, so he snuggles down into the warm sheets and wraps his arms around his pillow to anchor himself in the roiling sea of the hangover.
The bed dips a little, but Sam doesn’t mind. It’s just Dean. Dean’s always there when he’s sick. “Sorry, dude. Didn’t think it would hit you this hard.”
Sam pries his eyelids open a crack. “Best birthday ever,” he smiles weakly. “Thanks, Dean.”
“Go to sleep, Ariel.”
Huh, what? The Little Mermaid? Or Shakespeare?
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Rite of Passage (13/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: John, Dean
Summary: Companion to the last chapter-John finds out he missed out on that first beer with Sam.
It’s a whole year and two months after that first beer when a werewolf slashes a gash the length of the Mississippi River into Sam’s back. John wants to stitch the wound closed, but Sam’s crying and writhing too much to get the job done. He pulls the whiskey bottle out, pours it onto the gushing wound, and closes his eyes when Sam yells and crushes Dean’s fingers, blubbering from the pain.
Dean sees it in John’s eyes before he even begins to reach out to his younger son. He helps him prop Sam up so they can tip the burning liquid down the young throat, as much as he can swallow.
Sam whimpers again and his eyes slide closed. After some agonizingly long moments, his squirming and arching body goes mercifully limp. Dean checks his pulse to make sure he’s alright and nods at his father. Go. Shuttered eyes tell the father to start stitching.
The needle flashes in and out of the ruined flesh, almost hypnotically. Finally, it’s done, and they bandage the injury and lay Sam on his stomach so his weight’s off of his back. Then they settle in for an all-night vigil, another Winchester custom whenever one of them is hurt or sick enough to warrant watching.
John stares at the tall, gangly figure sleeping on the bed in front of him, gazing past him, through him, seeing the small boy with the bright smile, who was always chattering about something or another. Where had that little boy gone? Where had the time gone?
“So much for buying him his first beer.” It slips out before he could stop it.
Dean looks up at him, surprise etched on his young face. The expression in his eyes is too old though. John winces. “Don’t worry about that, Dad. I took care of it,” Dean says. This wasn’t the first time he’s had a drink; he hasn’t missed out on that rite of passage. I’ve made sure of that.
John swallows hard, feeling like he’s lost something he’d forgotten he had. “That so?”
A muscle twitches in Dean’s cheek. “Mm-hm,” he nods, unsure of the reception that answer will get. “Sixteen. His birthday.”
John can’t help it. “Sixteen?” His eyebrows are sky-high, he can feel it.
Dean straightens up. “Didn’t want something like this to be his first time. I wanted his first beer to be a good memory.” Dean’s never defiant in front of Sam, but he’s got his moments, when he’s alone with John, when it comes to Sam.
John deflates. Yeah, he wanted it to be a good memory for Sam too. He wanted to be the one to do it. But then again, Dean’s been more of a father to Sam than he. It hurts to admit it, but it's so. It’s right that Dean had been the one who was there for that. It’s only fair that Dean didn’t want Sam’s first to be like his-Dean’s first mouthful of alcohol had been on a night just like this; at the ripe old age of fourteen, after he’d caught a poisoned claw in his thigh and had screamed himself hoarse and just kept on screaming until John couldn’t stand it any longer.
“That’s good,” John says finally. “That’s good.” He glances at his older boy. “You get him good and drunk?”
A fond grin breaks out on Dean’s face. “We’re talking about me here. Of course I did. On a whopping two beers,” he says with a snicker.
John chuckles. “Lightweight, huh?”
“Lighter than a feather. He started talking about mermaids, Dad.” Dean gazes affectionately at his slumbering brother and strokes his thumb over a thin scar on the limp hand. “Mermaids.” He shakes his head.
“Hangover?” John asks.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Dean replies.
“You tell him about the secret family remedy for getting rid of a hangover?” John leans forward, as if passing on a great secret. “It’s a greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray.”
The two of them laugh quietly, so as to not disturb the youngest Winchester.
“Dude,” Dean says, “that was an awesome movie. Kelly LeBrock was hot.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AN: Movie reference: Weird Science
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Two Guys Walk Into A Bar (14/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: OC, Sam, Dean
Summary: It sounds like a set-up to a bad joke, I know. It ain’t. I ain’t crazy.
AN: This one’s in first person, in a conversational style. The cussing implied is more severe than that which is actually used. But lots and lots of implied cussing.
Two guys walk into a bar…
It sounds like a set-up to a bad joke, I know. It ain’t. It’s a set-up to a baaaaaad friggin’ joke. No really.
You know why it’s the set-up to a seriously bad friggin’ joke? You wanna know? You really wanna know? You’re gonna think I’m crazy. But I ain’t. I ain’t crazy, friggin’ apeshit nuts. I ain’t. I ain’t pullin’ your leg either. You think I’m a joker? Do I look like a joker to you?
Next you’re gonna think I’m a drunk. I ain’t no drunk, no matter what that soft-headed nephew of mine says. I maybe was drunk at the time, but I know what I saw.
I know what I friggin’ saw that night.
And it was friggin’ apeshit crazy, alright? It was nuts.
You ain’t gonna believe me. You ain’t gonna believe that two guys walked in here, into Ray’s Bar, few years ago and chopped the heads offa six goddamn people. Like somethin’ outta a goddamn horror movie or some shit. No, you ain’t gonna believe me.
Know why? ‘Cause it’s friggin’ crazy, that’s friggin’ why!
Alright, alright. Here’s what happened. ‘Cause you all just wanna know, right? Here’s how it happened.
Now I’m sittin’ here, right here at this very table, nursin’ a drink like always-whiskey, straight up-and two guys walk in, right? They just walk in through that door, look around the place a bit, and sit down in that table there over in that corner.
Pretty Boy-he looks a coupla years older than the other guy he come in with, which has his hair all long and shit hidin’ his face like that Justin Beaver kid, you know who I mean, that friggin’ gay little kid singer all over the friggin’ internet-but Pretty Boy looks like one a those goddamn movie stars, ya know? All ten foot long eyelashes and puffy lips and shit. Too pretty to be a real man. Gay as a Christmas tree, if you ask me, those two. But got nothin’ against them, it’s a free country, God loves us all. Amen. Drink to that.
Anyway, Pretty Boy gets up and goes over to Fat Joe, talks to him a bit, more than to just order two beers, like maybe he’s talkin’ him up, ya know? And maybe he slips him a bill or two, get him really going. Fat Joe and Pretty Boy, they look over at the pool table in that there middle space right there where Green Willie and Slim Tim’re playin’ now.
Now that night, there was seven people standin’ there around that table. Seven of ‘em, two gals and five men. Now these here folks ain’t the quietest of people, you seein’ what I mean? Someone makes a bad shot, they was all over the place, drinkin’, shoutin’, yellin’, whoopin’, the whole works. They fair made my head pound, the ruckus they made. Rowdy folks, which I don’t rightly like, them gettin’ in the way of my good quiet time here. I like it when there ain’t nothin’ but some good ol’-fashioned music on that there record box-nothin’ like that new-fangled Hannah-Anna Fontana and Justin Beaver ear-rot crap-and my glass of Jack. I don’t like it when people gets noisy. Give me a headache so friggin’ bad it’ll make a migraine look like a little bug bite.
Now this crowd, one of the boys notices Pretty Boy and Tall Beaver sittin’ in that corner there. This kid, he’s maybe twenty or so, just a kid, jabs the guy next to ‘im, and the other guy on his other side, and the three of ‘em goes and walks over to the two in the corner, like they out of one of ‘em gangster movies kids eat up these days.
Now I dunno what they all said, on account of sitting way over here and them way over there, and the kid and his two buddies standin’ with their backs to me, but it wasn’t nothin’ pleasant, I’ll tell you that.
Sure, Pretty Boy was smiling, nice as can be, but oh, that handsome mug was hiding something, I can sure tell you that. ‘Sides, Tall Beaver had this look on his face, like he was already thinkin’ of choppin’ those guys’ heads off-I’m gettin’ there, I’m gettin’ there.
Well, nothin’ happens then, but Pretty Boy and Beaver getting up and headin’ for the door, all nice and civilized. I let out my breath then, didn’t even know I was holding it, but I shouldn’t’ve, on account of-
Now hold on, hold on, I need a drink, my throat’s dry as my ol’ Aunt Fannie’s behind, and she’s dead, haha-thanks Heather honey, how’s your daddy? Oh no, sorry to hear that. He was a good man, good man. Give my best to your momma.
Now where was I? Ah, yes. The two boys walk to the door, but Pool Boy grabs Pretty Boy’s shoulder and bites his neck. I’m not kiddin’, this boy’s really chompin’ on Pretty Boy’s neck. Then I see this friggin’ huge knife come out of nowhere and chop Pool Boy’s head off. Right offa his neck, like it was made outta wax or some shit.
I look up and see it’s Beaver. He looked pissed, real pissed, I tell you. He’s got his huge-ass knife, like a friggin’ machete knife in his hand, and is lookin’ at the other two guys left, Pool Boy’s buddies. Pool Boy’s head’s rollin’ around on the goddamned floor like a retarded football or some shit.
And shit, holy friggin’ shit! You shoulda seen his goddamn mouth, son. All this blood, red, still drippin’ down his friggin’ chin. And those teeth of his-I ain’t never seen teeth like his. Like a shark’s mouth, that was. All sharp teeth with that blood all over. Now I seen this kid’s mouth before when he was playin’ pool and he didn’t look like that. He looked like any other kid on the street. Nothin’ wrong with his mouth but maybe he needed teeth braces or whatever torture wires they put on kids’ mouths these days. ‘Cept now there they was, a row of sharp-as-shit chompers right there where they shouldn’t be.
All six buddies of his are standin’ in front of Pretty Boy and Beaver now. And bless my soul if they ain’t all got their teeth hangin’ outta their mouths too, just like the ones in Pool Boy’s head which is still rollin’ around on the floor. And hell boy, they was hissin’. Like this: Hisssssss, hissssssss. Ain’t never heard nothin’ like that ever in my life before, and I honestly don’t think I ever will. Sent shivers right down my back, it did. Made all the hairs on my back stand straight up at attention, yessir.
By this time, Pretty Boy’s got a knife out too, just as big and shiny as Tall Beaver’s. He’s holdin’ onto his neck to keep the blood in, but he’s got that same pissed off look Beaver’s got. Didn’t know if it seemed like an even fight, those two again’ those six, but what with all that freaky shit, I woulda been fine if they just killed each other off. That woulda made me a happy man.
But that didn’t happen. One of them girl-critters lets out another hiss and jumps at Tall Beaver. I see right off that it ain’t a smart idea-Slash! Pretty Boy’s machete comes down on her. While her head’s busy fallin’ to the ground and rollin’ under the table, another girl runs at Pretty Boy and actually gets his neck, again. She’s suckin’ on it, like it’s her momma’s tit or some shit, and Pretty Boy’s trying to get her off. Beaver can’t help him, seeing as he’s too busy fighting off the rest of the bunch, four friggin’ shark-toothed bastards.
Slash! Slash-slash! Whoo-pow! Then all of a sudden, there’s only one left. He just turns tail and runs faster than anything I’ve ever seen, and I seen some pretty fast shit. Beaver lets his machete down, goes to his partner, who’s down. There’s some slappin’ of the face, maybe some sweet-talkin’, and Pretty Boy gets up. Boy musta lost a lot of blood, ‘cause he ain’t lookin’ so good now. They’ve got pressure on that neck o’ his, but the shirt they’re usin’ is turnin’ red real fast.
They look around the bar, and everyone’s just frozen. Frozen like they jus’ stopped there when that fight done started and stayed there. Now we’re all of us waitin’ to see if we’re next on their list, if we’re gonna all end up with our heads cut off by two crazies.
But no, they just stand there starin’ back at us, Pretty Boy leanin’ on his boyfriend a little bit, lookin’ real pale.
“Sorry, folks,” Tall Beaver says after a long bit, lookin’ real ‘pologetic. “Sorry. We’d stay to clean up, but we gotta get him some help. Yeah, so we’ll just be leaving,” he says, shufflin’ them out the door. “Sorry for the mess.”
Then an engine starts up and they’re gone.
We’re all just left sittin’ there, Joe with his hand on a bottle, in the middle of pourin’ out a drink into a glass that spilled over five minutes ago, and Heather frozen while wipin’ down a table. Teddy and Randy with their drinks halfway to their mouths, we was all left frozen here for the longest time after.
Then Heather starts screamin’.
And I swear, all hell broke loose. All hell. Teddy done had a heart attack right there, Randy started screamin’ louder than Heather was doin’, and Joe took his gun out from under the counter, too late if you ask me. Me? I just finished up my drink and went on home, seein’ as I thought I had more than enough to drink that night already. Thought I was seein’ things, you understand.
But I looks in the paper the next mornin’, and what do I see but ‘6 Beheaded in Bar; Police Baffled’ on the front page. Now I says to myself, “Now Ricky, now Ricky, what you thought you saw last night must have been the truth, God’s honest truth.”
And that’s the story I’m stickin’ to.
I’ll be goin’ now, havin’ finished my drink and all. What? Have they found those two men? Naw, my nephew Georgie’s the sheriff, and he ain’t found nothin’ yet. Nor’s he likely to, took after his daddy’s side of the family, buncha goddamn weak-headed mooks. Those de-capertated heads did have them teeth in ‘em like I said, for sure. You just go ask Georgie.
You wanna buy ol’ Ricky another drink? Alright, alright, won’t say no. Joe, whiskey, just like always.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - The Dean (15/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Lisa
Summary: Over the years, he became “The Dean” for her. Then he showed up on her doorstep. Maybe she was his “The Lisa.”
He was hot. There’s no denying it. And anyway, who in their right minds would want to deny it?
He had the bad-boy attitude down, from the top of his short, spiked-up hair to his worn leather jacket, all the way down to those heavy-duty biker boots that he used to kick the asses of some guys that were “bothering” her, aka flirting with her in the hands-on way rough guys like to do. He bought her a drink, then she bought him one, and then all of a sudden, they were in his car (amazing car, by the way, equally as hot as its owner) groping at each other and making out like it was their last night on earth.
Lisa admits that at twenty-one, she was a naïve little girl, determined to rebel against the good Christian values her middle-class parents had brought her up in. She skipped classes, smoked, drank like a fish, and had one-nighters with random biker guys with no permanent addresses or even a phone number she could reach (if she even wanted to, which she didn’t).
Looking back now, she was stupid to risk herself like that. Guys like that, they don’t give a damn whether or not the sex they’re having is safe, as long as it’s good. Thank goodness Lisa never caught anything…except for a minuscule sperm cell that fertilized one of her egg cells and resulted in nine months of miserable vomiting and cramps that culminated in a painful thirty-nine-hour labor.
Ben’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her, and that’s God’s honest truth. She wouldn’t change what happened for anything; she’d die first.
Even if she doesn’t know who his dad is, even if she was drunk the night (or day) she got pregnant (she doesn’t even know the exact date), even if she hasn’t had sex since she found out she was expecting (and nine years is a hell of a long time, just you try it and see).
She’s Ben’s mom, and that’s who she was meant to be.
Still, Lisa fantasized. Girl can dream, right?
She remembered that green-eyed leather-jacketed badass angel who swooped down and charmed her right out of her pants, literally. She remembered that weekend they spent locked up in her apartment, having sex on every surface and in every position imaginable, with some “toys” that were probably illegal, and then some. She remembered the way he’d grinned when she told him she was a yoga teacher; she remembered the things he did with his-Well, the sex was amazing. Let’s leave it at that.
She remembered his name: Dean Winchester. He became “The Dean,” in the nine years since she’d seen him. His was the only name she remembered. All the other guys, the bikers, the truckers, the drifters-they all sort of amalgamated into a collective “sort of people” that she didn’t want in her life again. She wouldn’t let them within a hundred feet of Ben either. Not on your life.
But this Dean Winchester character, he was…different. He wasn’t any younger, or older, than her usual fare-about her own age. He was certainly significantly more attractive than any of her previous and later conquests, but that wasn’t why she remembered him. He was…a nice guy, a genuinely nice guy. Considerate, you know? Even though he seemed all tough and dangerous on the outside, once in a while, he’d show this incredible…well, “sensitivity” seems to be a weird word to use to describe the guy, but she can’t think of another word that could describe the way he apologized if he accidentally bumped her up against anything, if he thought he hurt her in any way while they were doing their thing. He’d even asked her if she was sure before they left the bar, looking straight into her eyes with his dreamy golden-green eyes, as if trying to make sure she wasn’t too drunk to make a good decision.
Sober or not, hell yeah, she wanted to have sex with him.
And in between the rounds of sex, they talked, just a little, but that was kind of nice too. She found out he had this little brother, smart as hell, and stubborn as a mule. And he was obviously very found of him, the way he talked about him in such a proud and affectionate way. So hot. Right, so maybe it was because she was ovulating or something, but that turned her on like gawd.
So she dreamed and fantasized about Dean Winchester. For nine years, she remembered every single detail of all the things they did. When she made new “respectable” friends, all mothers themselves with kids Ben’s age, and they gossiped about their wild days of the past, she always talked about one guy, and one guy only: “The Dean.” He became kind of a legend over the years in their little group. To be honest, he’d become a sort of sex god in her mind as well. Not that she minded. She didn’t think he’d mind either.
So when he showed up at the door, with a how-the-freaking-hell-did-he-get-even-hotter-over-the-years grin, her brain stuttered to a stop. You know how you feel when you’ve got this crush on an actor or singer or whoever and you know there’s no way you’ll ever be with them but you still fantasize anyway, and then they show up on your doorstep? Well, maybe you don’t, but you know what I mean. That was how Lisa felt.
Nine years later, he came back. He even tracked her down at her new address. That’s dedication for you; maybe she was his “The Lisa.”
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - And the Kid (16/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Lisa, Dean
Summary: “If it’s not too late, I think I’d like to take you up on that beer.” Lisa on Ben and Dean up to “Swan Song.”
She’s been jittery for weeks. Weeks. Ever since he’d knocked on her door and dropped that bomb on her.
“I wanted you to know, that when I do picture myself happy, it’s with you.”
That hadn’t surprised her…much. After the initial shock of Dean Winchester actually standing there in front of her had settled in, that is.
But when he’d added, “And the kid,” that about tore her walls completely down.
See, Dean Winchester doesn’t look anything like how you’d imagine a family man looking. He looks like he enjoys sex (a lot), liquor, and gambling. He matches his sleek black classic of a car, the badass leather jacket is his second skin. He is all that, but he isn’t shallow either.
Lisa had gotten an inkling of what Dean Winchester was really like when he’d shared a few things about his brother all those years ago. He hadn’t waxed poetic about him, obviously, since they were in between rounds of ohsogreat sex, but what he’d said, the way he’d said it, and his affectionate-proud-loving expression as he’d said it-that was enough to make her pause and maybe actually fall in love with the guy.
Or maybe it was just the mind-blowing sex that made him memorable.
Still, whatever it was, Dean Winchester simply did not scream family man, or even loves kids for that matter. That hadn’t mattered way back then, when they’d had that weekend of wild and crazy sex, but in the years of being a mother to the best kid in the world, that had been the main selling point for her when looking for a guy.
There had been guys who’d asked her out because they thought she was hot, because they thought she was funny, or nice, or just wanted a piece of her ass. Most of them had backed off when they’d found out she had a kid. Those that hadn’t, well, Ben hadn’t taken to them. At all.
Lisa shudders to remember the furious temper tantrums her son had thrown whenever she’d brought a man (two total over the years) home to see how he’d get along with the little guy in her life. But Ben was the final test, and if whatever guy she was dating at the time didn’t pass, then oh well, she had a good time, and thanks, but bu-bye.
No one had ever passed the Ben-test. Obviously.
Until Dean. Dean, who’d been all but forgotten except for as a really, really good sexual fantasy for nights spent alone (unless Ben wanted to sleep with Mommy). He’d wheedled his way into her house (and her life) after nine years of radio silence and had charmed her Ben like the Pied Piper himself.
All year round, day in and day out, she’d heard about “cool Dean” and his “awesome” taste in music,” his “bitchin’ car” and how he (and his brother) had “whom-pow! burned the monster right up just like a superhero!” It would have gotten old, if it hadn’t been a constant reminder of how much she owed Dean for her son’s life. For her baby, for Ben.
He’d cared, anyone could see that. It wasn’t that he loved kids, he loved her kid, and fully appreciated how cool and sweet and wonderful Ben could be. He’d seen it in only the few days he’d been here, and had even asked if Ben was his. Seeing how disappointed he’d been when she told him that she’d had a blood test done and that he wasn’t the father (even though there was no test and she honestly didn’t know)…well, suffice it to say that most guys in his situation would have been glad for dodging the bullet of responsibility that parenthood brings.
It had startled her so much that it had broken through the fortified wall she’d built around herself and her son. She’d offered Dean something she’d never offered any man before: she asked him to stay. And she’d felt an odd twinge in her heart when he’d reluctantly refused.
“I got a lot of work to do,” he’d said, wistfully glancing over her shoulder at her life.
His work apparently wasn’t done when he’d come knocking again. He’d wanted to know how Ben was. Almost three years later and he hadn’t forgotten them. He’d looked like shit, though, with his eyes red from lack of sleep and stress, and it seemed like he was at the end of his rope, literally a step from ending it all. The things he’d said…He’d talked like he was dying, like he was about to sacrifice himself or something.
“I wanted you to know, that when I do picture myself happy, it’s with you,” he’d said with some difficulty, as if around a choked throat. “And the kid.”
She should have been flattered, she should have blushed or smiled or something. She would have, if he hadn’t scared her, the way he’d looked that day.
She knew that she had to get him inside, whatever she could to get him inside and explain. You don’t just tell someone that they’re “The One” and leave to do whatever suicidal thing Dean was obviously thinking of doing. And then, he’d said that things were going to get really bad and he was going to make “arrangements” for her and Ben-what was she supposed to think? She only knew that she had to get him inside to keep him from killing himself or…whatever scary and crazy thing was he was going to do.
“Come inside and let me get you a beer. We can talk,” she’d said, desperate, trying to coax him in like a jumpy stray. “Just...just come inside.”
She’d resorted to begging: “Please. And whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t do it.”
Then she’d used her son to try to get Dean to come inside and talk to her, “Just stay an hour. At least say bye to Ben.”
He’d paused, he had, but in the end, he’d left her with a soft kiss and longing in his tired eyes.
And now, five jittery and anxious weeks later, he was back, looking…broken.
“If it's not too late, I think I'd like to take you up on that beer,” he said, voice cracking and face crumbling. She gathered him up in her arms, and he fell into the embrace as if whatever last strength had been holding him upright had failed.
This sobbing, broken man, so different from the bright-eyed twenty-one year-old she’d spent that wonderful weekend with, had been through so much that was more terrible than there were words to describe it. After he’d cried himself dry, he sat there on her couch, staring down at the beer bottle he said he’d come back for, not drinking it, just staring. Lisa sat there with him, her hand comfortingly on his knee, waiting, waiting for the explanation that might never come.
Then he said, “How’s Ben?” in that ragged, shattered voice, and her heart broke some more.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - The Many Glorious Uses of Bourbon Whiskey (8/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Warning/Spoilers: This one’s a lot lighter than the last one. Much less blood and gore, too.
Summary: In a Winchester operating room, all the supplies you need are a pen knife, some dental floss, a sewing needle, and a fifth of whiskey. Based on “Changing Channels.”
Sam stares at the tray holding rows of shining stainless steel utensils. His hands are sweaty inside his white latex gloves.
Various sizes and shapes of scalpels, forceps, clamps, tiny rulers…What the hell? How is he supposed to use these to operate on his brother?
Well, it’s not like he’s never used a scalpel before-in high school biology, they dissected a frog-but Dean’s not some farm-harvested amphibian hatched and raised specifically for the purpose of ending up pickled in formaldehyde to help a ninth grader understand the circulatory systems of vertebrates better. No, he’s Dean. Sam can’t dissect his brother.
Dean’s not dead, for starters.
But a little voice in the back of his mind tells him that he will be if Sam doesn’t get his ass moving soon.
He glances back though the observation window at Doctor Whatever-her-name-was, the one who’d slapped him, and she waves at him and simpers. Right.
“I need a…pen knife, some dental floss, a sewing needle, and a fifth of whiskey.” That’s the kind of stuff he’s used to working with. It’s not like you can get a hold of lab-sterilized surgical equipment when you live out of a duffel bag and have fraudulent insurance cards.
And oh God yeah, he’s really gonna need that whiskey.
The nurses stare at him incredulously. What? Move! Oh right, he’s supposed to be a brilliant, brilliant doctor… “Stat!”
That seems to be the magic word because it makes the whole operating room explode in a flurry of activity as the assistants rush about trying to get him all the things he’d asked for.
The pen knife and the dental floss get to him first. Dean’s been bleeding the whole while, but strangely, he’s been extremely coherent and there for a guy who just got shot in the back ten minutes ago. It’s weird. Sam’s finding TV-land very bizarre. When they get back to the real world, he’s not watching TV anymore. It’s kind of lost its appeal.
Someone brings him a sewing kit. “Where’s the whiskey?” he asks.
The nurses glance at each other with nervous expressions. Finally, one woman brings her hand out from behind her back, and holds the shaking bottle out to him.
Sam grabs it and takes a loooooong pull from it. “Thanks.” Everyone seems even more anxious than before, if that’s even possible.
An audible gasp goes around the operating table when he sloshes a portion of the liquid all over the open wound on Dean’s back. He glances up. “What?”
A nurse stammers. “B-but Doctor. That’s…” She falls silent.
Sam shrugs and proceeds to sterilize the needle-his way, the Winchester way. He pours alcohol over the thin sliver of metal and flicks his lighter (and thank goodness the trickster’d left that in his pocket).
Whiskey’s a damned good sterilizer, ya know?
That’s not the only thing it’s good for, either.
Sam remembers one morning when he’d woken up with an enormous porno ‘stache on his upper lip, drawn with a black Sharpie. After raging at Dean for several minutes and promising revenge, he’d retreated to the bathroom to try to scrub the damned stuff off. The rough towel only turned his skin bright red, and left the marker. The result was that his lower face now looked like a caricature of the devil.
Oh yeah, he was so ready to kill Dean.
Then the thought had come to him that this was permanent marker. The Winchesters use permanent marker for a lot of things, normal stuff like writing on labels and containers, but also in the course of their job-sometimes they have to draw sigils on their skin to perform a spell or protect themselves.
They’d just splash a little whiskey onto the marks and rub themselves clean. Presto-cleano-no more permanent marker.
Sam had stormed out into the room to find the whiskey bottle and glare some more at his laughing brother. Dick. “Gonna drown your sorrows in the bottle, Sammy?” he’d taunted.
“It’s your turn next, you ass,” Sam had retorted. Oh, and had he had his revenge.
Dean really hadn’t appreciated the new aftershave Sam had sneaked into his toilet kit. He’d smelled like a skunk had decided to play water tag with him for a whole week. That was an entire seven days of not getting any. Oh, was he pissed. He didn’t think that little factoid Sam told him-that the musk comes from the anal scent glands of the skunk-was very interesting at all.
Sam pushes the needle through his brother’s flesh and pulls the floss up. There’s a neat row of stitches in Dean’s back-better than a real doctor’s, he thinks, and he should know. He ties a knot in the thread.
“We okay? How’s it looking?” Dean’s voice is muffled, coming through that pillow with the hole in the middle of it so he could breathe. Sam can’t get over the strangeness of talking to Dean while performing surgery on a freaking gunshot wound in the middle of his brother’s back. And get this: they’re in a TV show. Doctor Sexy, M.D. Yeah.
Sam snips the extra floss with the surgical scissors. “Yep, you’ll be fine.” Just like any other hunting-related injury, right? You just clean the wound out real well with holy water and whatever alcohol you have on hand and either bandage it or stitch it up. Simple as that. Everyday Winchester-style surgery. Motel-room operations.
Except this time, it was a gunshot wound. To the back. Dean shouldn’t be able to just walk away from this. Yet here he is, talking to him while Sam’s putting dental floss stitches in his back. That just isn’t normal.
Sam turns around to see if Doctor Lovesick McSlappy’s still there. Oh yeah. She sure seems to be a clingy one. Mouthing ‘I love you’ and sighing, indeed. Sam grimaces and returns his attention to his brother.
Yeah, Dean’ll be fine. It’s a TV show, right? People have miracle recoveries all the time. Doctor Dean seems to be a central character to the show, so they wouldn’t kill him off, right? Or is it sweeps or finale season now? Shit, when’s the last time he watched TV for fun? It’s probably been months. Damn.
He takes another look at the stitches he’d just put in his brother and second guesses himself. What if he’d killed his brother by using shitty supplies and starting an infection? Shit, shit, shit.
He grabs the bottle of bourbon and pours a little more onto Dean’s back. Dean hisses and cusses him out. That’s perfectly alright.
Then he shrugs and raises the bottle to his own lips to settle his nerves…
Dude, is that clapping? What. The. Hell?
And where the hell his bottle? That’s not right.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Comfortably Numb (9/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Warning/Spoilers: Spoilers for Seasons 4 and 5, specifically, the episodes “Yellow Fever,” “Sam, Interrupted,” and “Dark Side of the Moon.” One f-word (and I know this sounds so…little girl, but it’s the first time I’ve ever actually used it. *gasp* Bad me. *scolds self and scours mouth out with soap*). Title from the Pink Floyd song.
Summary: Sam analyzes his brother’s drinking habits.
It started with that case in Rock Ridge, with that spirit of the man who was dragged behind a truck until he was dead, Sam finally realizes. At least, that’s when it started becoming a real problem. Dean’s drinking, that is.
Dean hadn’t been a real heavy drinker to begin with.
The hunting life is hard. You deal with the terrible things you see by drinking and killing more of those evil sonsabitches. If you can’t deal, then you end up in the loony bin like more than just a few hunters. Sam and Dean know some guys like that-Martin, to name one. So Dean used to have a couple of beers at the bars they frequented, maybe had a few shots. He’d get buzzed for fun, sometimes he’d drink more than usual after a particularly bad hunt, but he sure wasn’t a chronic alcoholic.
Then bad shit started happening, like Dad dying, and Sam dying and Dean making his deal. When Dean came back after Hell, he was…different. Not different, as in he was a complete stranger, but he seemed more tired, more vulnerable. Big brother wasn’t really “big” in Sam’s eyes anymore, just older, worn out. In the very beginning, when he’d first come back, he’d seemed almost unchanged (he said he didn’t remember anything at all of Hell), and it was Sam who was different, but as time passed, Sam started noticing things, small things that were just off about his older brother.
Like the way Dean started avoiding any meat that had to be cut with a knife, or how he zoned out and stared at the grotesque masks on display during Halloween as if fascinated and horrified by them at the same time. And the drinking. Dean started stealing nips here and there when he thought Sam wasn’t looking. Of course, he never went on a hunt actually drunk, until that ghost sickness case.
It started out alright, as bad cases have a tendency of doing. They’d interviewed the sheriff and gone to the morgue to poke around. Sam got squirted with spleen juice, which was real fun. Then Dean had started getting panicky about his car. Mind you, that’s really a normal occurrence, so there was no way Sam could have realized that something was up with his brother then. Well, Dean started getting really paranoid about driving (he was going the posted speed limit, for crying out loud!) which was what made Sam suspicious. That, and the EMF went off when it was pointed at Dean.
By the time the ghost sickness had taken its full effect, Dean was chugging, really chugging that whiskey. That was the first and last time he’d gone into a job completely tipsy, but upon reflection, Sam’s pretty sure that that’s what started Dean depending more on the alcohol to get him through his days. Thinking back, from analyzing his brother’s symptoms, he’s certain that Dean’s suffering from classic depression and alcoholism. Maybe PTSD. Something, anyway. Sam’s gotta look that up when he has the time.
Maybe the drinking helps. Maybe it’s a problem. Sam’s certainly not going to mention it, seeing as Dean’ll probably get defensive and bring up the demon blood addiction. That’ll just start the whole argument rolling again, and Sam doesn’t want that. He’s tired too, he’s tired of fighting Dean.
When they check into that mental asylum disguised as patients to help Martin out with his case, Sam’s surprised by the honesty with which Dean spills all his secrets and feelings to the doctors, even though that was the plan. He’s never seen his brother so willingly and completely truthful to anyone. It’s ironic that they’re telling the truth to seem like they’re making things up.
Well, that case gives Sam a jarring look at how exactly Dean’s feeling. He’s messed up, completely, totally, irreparably fucked up, and Sam has no idea how to fix him. So he lets his brother numb himself with alcohol until he passes out into a dead sleep and doesn’t wake up ‘til morning. Before they leave each motel, they clean up the cans and bottles together without a word.
By the time they get killed and take the Heavenly Disneyland tour, Dean’s going on about fifty to sixty drinks a week, which might be a sign for Sam to step in. But, Sam thinks, maybe he shouldn’t. This is how guys like them deal with the shitty nightmare that is the hunting (and Winchester) life. Self-medication, repressing memories, whatever works. They take care of their crap and shut up about it.
Because seriously, there’s an Apocalypse going on-maybe Dean’s got the right idea.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - MILF (10/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam!!Gary and Crystal
Warning/Spoilers: Inspired by the ‘Sam-Gary drinks a daiquiri’ scene in “Swap Meat.”
Summary: Hot, young, and dumb is just what the newly divorced Crystal needs.
Stud-Bun orders a banana daiquiri, of all drinks. And he shows the bartender his ID before he does. Maybe Crystal’s been off the market for too long, but Stud-Bun looks a few years older than twenty-one. Looks like he’s a regular Matthew McConaughey under all those layers, too. She’d like to see for herself to make sure though, she thinks, as she sucks seductively on her straw.
It takes a while to get through to him that she wants to go…with him…to have sex. He seems really excited about it. Cute. Crystal wonders vaguely if Stud-Bun’s a virgin. Seems unlikely, the way he looks, but still, you never know.
Anyway, he’s hot, young, and dumb. Just what she needs.
After twenty-two years of being married to pot-bellied, older, and ‘I’m your husband; that automatically makes me infinitely smarter than you, you stupid blonde bitch,’ this deliciously muscled specimen sitting beside her is just exactly what Crystal needs.
So what if she’s now a cougar? She hasn’t been single in close to twenty-four years since she started dating and got married to Richard-the-neural-surgeon. Now with the divorce papers signed, Crystal Robinson (no longer Dr. Grant’s miserable wife anymore, thank you very much) is free, free as a bird. And boy, is she loving it. Take that, Dick, you cheating, doctorate-flaunting pond scum.
As soon as her divorce was finalized, she’d taken a loooooong bath, with lots of bubbles and scented candles and her favorite music on as loud as it could go. Then she’d done her nails (bright red), put on her make-up, dried her long blonde hair into loose-hanging curls, and slid into a new slinky black dress. She’d stood in front of the full-length mirror-her full-length mirror-and posed with her hands on her hips.
Ugh, her arms. When in the world did they get all wobbly like that? Those look like wings or something. Disgusting.
She’d hurriedly rummaged through her closet to find a suitable jacket to wear over the dress. Hm, she’d nodded. Sex-yyy. She’s still got it.
Then she’d turned on her brand-new stiletto heels and driven to that bar on Fifth and Main. Time to find some fun of the young and hot variety. Those young teeny-boppers better watch out because here comes the cougar-hot, and with years of sexual experience.
Ms. Robinson is a MILF, and she is proud of it.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - The Promise (11/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Summary: Tag to the drunk!Sam scene during “Playthings.”
Sam was drunk, very obviously so.
Come to think of it, Dean’s never seen Sam quite like this before. Getting Sam tipsy is usually a task that Dean takes pleasure in, seeing him loosen up and relax, getting that giddy grin on his face, and seeing the troubles melt off of his shoulders.
Sam used to be a happy drunk, before. Before Stanford, before all those fights with Dad had escalated to wall-shaking screaming matches. Back when it had been just the two of them sneaking off to a bar or having a couple of beers at their motel room of the month, once in a while when Dad wasn’t around to see and shake his head over it.
The first time Sam had gotten drunk, absolutely shit-faced, was on his sixteenth birthday. Every time after that day that Sam had touched alcohol, Dean had been with him-he was even usually the one that paid for the beers. That is, until Sam had his last fight with Dad and left.
Those solitary beers after that had tasted awfully bitter.
Dean doesn’t know the next time Sam had a beer after that. Probably his twenty-first, since Sam had taken to being a law-abiding model citizen like a kappa does to water. He bet Sam was the designated driver for all of the parties he went to in college (if he went to any, which was also probable). This thought makes him snort, and gaze down fondly at the sleeping figure on the bed next to his.
Oh Sam, Sammy. Why’d he have to go and ask him that? Of all things, to ask him, his brother, to kill him if he turns into something that he’s not. That’s…Dad was an ass, but Sam should have known better than that, especially after seeing what it had done to him when Dad had told him that before he’d died.
But then again, Sam was drunk, drunk voluntarily and alone. Driven to drink, it seemed like. Dean wishes now that he hadn’t spilled the beans about what Dad had whispered in his ear before leaving him. If he’d held out, like he had for so many months already, Sam wouldn’t have pressed him to promise what he knew in his heart of hearts that he could never do.
“You have to kill me, Dean. Promise.” A promise wrung out of him the way only a little brother can of his elder sibling. Dean never could resist the earnest puppy-dog eyes accompanied by a teary “Please, Dean.”
Alcohol brought out what made Sam Sam and increased it tenfold-He’s always feeling that he has to save people out of some need to redeem himself for his perceived role in the deaths of others (Mom, Jess, Ava, the guy that hung himself…the list goes on), and now, to change his destiny, his perceived destiny. Then there’s the childishness inherent in him always around Dean (“You’re bossy,” “Well I’m older, now eat your cereal, kiddo”).
“You have to kill me; Dad told you to.” Yeah, about that. Dad was an ass, there’s no denying that-Dean’s known that for years, but he’d followed his orders without question…unless it was Sam’s well-being that hung in the balance. And killing Sam, that’s big, that’s something that you just don’t do. You tell your son, your four-year-old son, that he’s in charge of keeping his baby brother safe, you drum it into him his whole life, and then you tell him that he has to kill his brother? Like Dean said, Dad’s an ass.
And Sam’s an ass too, albeit a drunken ass, but an ass all the same, for asking him to do the same thing. Using Dad to make him promise-that’s low, by the way-just because Dean’s never disobeyed their father in his life (or so Sam thinks). Then he has to go and pull the little brother card, that thing that he can do, even when he’s too drunk to see straight, it seems like.
“Promise, Dean. You have to promise me.” Dean can remember smaller fingers than these clutching at his clothes in exactly the same way, the same earnest, tearful eyes asking him to promise that he’ll be sure to be right there in front of the school to pick him up after class, that the monsters will never get him, that he’ll be really careful when Dad takes him out on the next hunt.
Dean’s never been able to say no. So he promises and hopes that Sam forgets it all by morning, that it’ll all be a hazy memory to him.
Then he promises himself that it will never, ever come to that. Sam will never change into something that Dean will have to kill. He’ll promise that.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AN: I know that the past tense of the word “hang” in this context is “hanged” not “hung,” but that’s what they used in the show, so I’m sticking with that to make it seem like Dean’s the one talking here. But yes, I know, and it gets my goat every time someone uses it wrong.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Best Birthday Ever, Maybe (12/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Summary: It’s Sam’s sixteenth birthday, and Dean’s got a decision to make.
Dean’s staring is starting to creep little brother out. He can tell; the small wrinkle between the dark brows barely discernible under the wavy brown bangs, the nervous tip-tapping of the slender fingers on worn-out jeans getting too short for the freakishly long legs, the frequent glances at him out of the side of his eyes, the beginnings of the bitch-face…
And finally, there it is: “Dean! Stop that!”
“Stop what?” Dean parries with his eyes wide open in a too-innocent-to-be-innocent expression.
“Stop staring at me,” Sam growls. “Why are you staring at me? It’s annoying.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “’Cause you’re ugly, that’s why.”
Sam sighs exasperatedly. “Then why are you staring at me? You wouldn’t want to stare at me if I was ugly. And I’m not ugly!” he adds for good measure.
“Yeah, sure you’re not,” Dean smirks.
Sam huffs. “I’m not. Watch the movie.” He turns back to the TV in an attempt to set an example.
“Dude, movie’s almost over.” Dean stretches, his heels scraping against the worn carpet.
“It’s still my birthday,” Sam replies harshly, still staring hard at the screen, on which the spirits of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin Skywalker smile proudly at Luke. “I wanna watch the movie.”
Dean snorts. “Okay, yeah, let’s watch the rest of the two minutes left of Episode VI, shall we?”
Sneaking another look at the scowling features of the newly sixteen-year-old, Dean thinks that maybe he’d better put off that plan for next year, huh? Sam’s obviously not mature enough for-
“Sorry, Dean.” The mumbled apology comes as a surprise. “I just wish Dad was here.”
Dean sighs, leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, me too. But you know-”
“-he has to work?” Sam cuts in. “I know. I just want a normal birthday for once.”
Dean’s gotta frown at that. “Dad tries, you know. He does.”
“Does he?” Sam looks up at him through his bangs. “Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like it. He misses Christmases, Thanksgivings, Father’s Days, birthdays…”
“Sam,” Dean’s lips are in a tight line. He’s trying not to blow up at his brother, but sometimes, he just pushes it, ya know? “Sam, he does try. Little things that you don’t see, or don’t wanna see, he does ‘em. Alright? So chill.”
Sam’s too busy glaring holes into the rolling credits on the screen to answer. “Why were you staring at me earlier?”
Changing the topic, huh? Dean can deal with that. That’s a ‘Dean’ tactic, that one. Sam doesn’t want to fight on his birthday either.
Dean purses his lips. “I was thinking about something.”
Sam’s lips twitch. “You were thinking? I didn’t know that was possible. Hope you didn’t strain anything.”
Dean slaps his palm into Sam’s gut. “Very funny, birthday boy. I was thinking about giving you a haircut.” He flicks a finger at the chestnut waves spilling down over his brother’s ears. “It’s too long. Someone might think you’re a girl; a really ugly, really tall girl.”
Sam tries to pull his bitch-face, but the laughter shows in his eyes. “You suck. And stay away from my hair.” He squirms away from the finger poking his side. “Dean, stop tickling me! I’m sixteen. Sixteen, dude.”
Dean dodges the hands batting at him and sneaks another tickle at an exposed expanse of skin. “Uh-huh. That squeaking you got going on is real convincing, man.”
“Deeeeeaaaannnnnnn!”
Giggles taper off into full-blown laughter as the tickling turns into a full-blown brotherly wrestling match that has them rolling across the room, bumping into the rickety furniture and flaking chunks of drywall off of the walls. Finally, tired out from the brief tussle, they plop down on the couch, panting.
Sam flops his head over to look at his brother, who’s gazing at him with that odd expression again. “What?”
Dean suddenly stands up. “Hey Sammy. Ya wanna go to a bar? You're driving.” Then he tosses the keys over. The keys to the Impala. The car Dad had given to Dean on his eighteenth birthday.
Sam catches them mostly by reflex. His mouth’s hanging open, and his eyes are glazed over.
Dean waves a hand in front of him. “Sam, you still in there?”
Sam blinks. “Yeah, yeah. Dean.” He stares at his brother. “You’re letting me drive? The Impala?”
Dean nods, putting Dad’s old leather jacket on; it’s now his, as of his fifteenth birthday. “Yep.”
“And we’re going to a bar.” Sam’s still on the couch, staring up at his brother.
“Yep.”
“To drink alcohol? Both of us?” Sam’s still having trouble wrapping his genius mind around the idea.
“Yep.” Dean turns around at the door. “You coming or what? And here, pop one of these-don’t want to be in the car with you and your pizza-breath.” He tosses a clear plastic box of Tic-Tacs at Sam.
“You have pizza-breath,” Sam retorts, still on auto-pilot. He’s driving the Impala, and Dean’s taking him to a bar. Best. Birthday. Ever.
- - - - - - - -
“The tablesh underwaddah, Dee. We’re underwaddah. You think we’re mermaids, Dee? We can breathe underwaddah. Maybe we’re mermaids. I wondah if we haff gills. Fish haff gills. Maybe mermaids haff gills, so dey can breathe underwaddah.”
Dean catches his brother as he tips over. He chuckles. “Dude, I think you’ve had one beer too many, which is saying something, since you’ve only had two.” He slings the long arm over his shoulder. “I think you might be a mermaid, Sammy, but no way you’re calling me a fish-chick.”
Sam’s eyes are at half-mast; he’s too drunk to reply. He stumbles and his legs momentarily get tangled with Dean’s, until the older brother gets them all sorted out. “Yeah, I think you might need to hurry up and get those sea-legs, fast. Whaddaya think, Sammy?” Dean props Sam up against the car while he unlocks the door.
“Fishy,” Sam says to the Impala’s side mirror.
“That’s nice.” Dean opens the door and gently maneuvers his brother in. “Watch your head.”
“Head’s underwaddah,” Sam mumbles, curling up against the window.
Dean chuckles and starts the car. “I need a video camera. Times like this…I need to get one of those.”
- - - - - - - - -
“I hate you, Dean.” The words are heaved into the toilet bowl, along with the contents of Sam’s stomach, or what’s left in it. Sam spits into the vomity water. “I hate you.”
Dean leans against the doorway, disgustingly hangover-free. “Ya gotta learn to hold your liquor, Sammy. Ya gotta be a man!” Then he chuckles that annoyingly chipper chuckle.
Sam hates this birthday. Worst birthday ever. He gags again and groans. “Oh God, kill me now.” His head’s pounding, the slightest light burns his eyes, and his intestines are threatening to come out of his mouth. He groans again for good measure. “Kill me.”
Then there’s a warm hand on his back, rubbing circles. Ohhhhh, that feels gooooooood. He whimpers into the stained toilet seat. Dean, head hurts. Fix now.
“Okay, kiddo. Drink this.” Something cold hits his hand and he looks up with bleary eyes to see that it’s a glass of water. “Mmgh.” Gentle hands help him guide the glass to his lips and wipe away the water that dribbles out messily. “Thanks, Dean.”
“Here.” Now, there are pills being pushed into his mouth. The glass comes up again. “Swallow.” Sam does.
“Okay? Done puking? Good. Now let’s get ya back into bed until those aspirin kick in.” Then he’s being guided off of the floor and half-carried into the darkened motel room. The bed feels nice, so he snuggles down into the warm sheets and wraps his arms around his pillow to anchor himself in the roiling sea of the hangover.
The bed dips a little, but Sam doesn’t mind. It’s just Dean. Dean’s always there when he’s sick. “Sorry, dude. Didn’t think it would hit you this hard.”
Sam pries his eyelids open a crack. “Best birthday ever,” he smiles weakly. “Thanks, Dean.”
“Go to sleep, Ariel.”
Huh, what? The Little Mermaid? Or Shakespeare?
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Rite of Passage (13/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: John, Dean
Summary: Companion to the last chapter-John finds out he missed out on that first beer with Sam.
It’s a whole year and two months after that first beer when a werewolf slashes a gash the length of the Mississippi River into Sam’s back. John wants to stitch the wound closed, but Sam’s crying and writhing too much to get the job done. He pulls the whiskey bottle out, pours it onto the gushing wound, and closes his eyes when Sam yells and crushes Dean’s fingers, blubbering from the pain.
Dean sees it in John’s eyes before he even begins to reach out to his younger son. He helps him prop Sam up so they can tip the burning liquid down the young throat, as much as he can swallow.
Sam whimpers again and his eyes slide closed. After some agonizingly long moments, his squirming and arching body goes mercifully limp. Dean checks his pulse to make sure he’s alright and nods at his father. Go. Shuttered eyes tell the father to start stitching.
The needle flashes in and out of the ruined flesh, almost hypnotically. Finally, it’s done, and they bandage the injury and lay Sam on his stomach so his weight’s off of his back. Then they settle in for an all-night vigil, another Winchester custom whenever one of them is hurt or sick enough to warrant watching.
John stares at the tall, gangly figure sleeping on the bed in front of him, gazing past him, through him, seeing the small boy with the bright smile, who was always chattering about something or another. Where had that little boy gone? Where had the time gone?
“So much for buying him his first beer.” It slips out before he could stop it.
Dean looks up at him, surprise etched on his young face. The expression in his eyes is too old though. John winces. “Don’t worry about that, Dad. I took care of it,” Dean says. This wasn’t the first time he’s had a drink; he hasn’t missed out on that rite of passage. I’ve made sure of that.
John swallows hard, feeling like he’s lost something he’d forgotten he had. “That so?”
A muscle twitches in Dean’s cheek. “Mm-hm,” he nods, unsure of the reception that answer will get. “Sixteen. His birthday.”
John can’t help it. “Sixteen?” His eyebrows are sky-high, he can feel it.
Dean straightens up. “Didn’t want something like this to be his first time. I wanted his first beer to be a good memory.” Dean’s never defiant in front of Sam, but he’s got his moments, when he’s alone with John, when it comes to Sam.
John deflates. Yeah, he wanted it to be a good memory for Sam too. He wanted to be the one to do it. But then again, Dean’s been more of a father to Sam than he. It hurts to admit it, but it's so. It’s right that Dean had been the one who was there for that. It’s only fair that Dean didn’t want Sam’s first to be like his-Dean’s first mouthful of alcohol had been on a night just like this; at the ripe old age of fourteen, after he’d caught a poisoned claw in his thigh and had screamed himself hoarse and just kept on screaming until John couldn’t stand it any longer.
“That’s good,” John says finally. “That’s good.” He glances at his older boy. “You get him good and drunk?”
A fond grin breaks out on Dean’s face. “We’re talking about me here. Of course I did. On a whopping two beers,” he says with a snicker.
John chuckles. “Lightweight, huh?”
“Lighter than a feather. He started talking about mermaids, Dad.” Dean gazes affectionately at his slumbering brother and strokes his thumb over a thin scar on the limp hand. “Mermaids.” He shakes his head.
“Hangover?” John asks.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Dean replies.
“You tell him about the secret family remedy for getting rid of a hangover?” John leans forward, as if passing on a great secret. “It’s a greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray.”
The two of them laugh quietly, so as to not disturb the youngest Winchester.
“Dude,” Dean says, “that was an awesome movie. Kelly LeBrock was hot.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AN: Movie reference: Weird Science
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Two Guys Walk Into A Bar (14/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: OC, Sam, Dean
Summary: It sounds like a set-up to a bad joke, I know. It ain’t. I ain’t crazy.
AN: This one’s in first person, in a conversational style. The cussing implied is more severe than that which is actually used. But lots and lots of implied cussing.
Two guys walk into a bar…
It sounds like a set-up to a bad joke, I know. It ain’t. It’s a set-up to a baaaaaad friggin’ joke. No really.
You know why it’s the set-up to a seriously bad friggin’ joke? You wanna know? You really wanna know? You’re gonna think I’m crazy. But I ain’t. I ain’t crazy, friggin’ apeshit nuts. I ain’t. I ain’t pullin’ your leg either. You think I’m a joker? Do I look like a joker to you?
Next you’re gonna think I’m a drunk. I ain’t no drunk, no matter what that soft-headed nephew of mine says. I maybe was drunk at the time, but I know what I saw.
I know what I friggin’ saw that night.
And it was friggin’ apeshit crazy, alright? It was nuts.
You ain’t gonna believe me. You ain’t gonna believe that two guys walked in here, into Ray’s Bar, few years ago and chopped the heads offa six goddamn people. Like somethin’ outta a goddamn horror movie or some shit. No, you ain’t gonna believe me.
Know why? ‘Cause it’s friggin’ crazy, that’s friggin’ why!
Alright, alright. Here’s what happened. ‘Cause you all just wanna know, right? Here’s how it happened.
Now I’m sittin’ here, right here at this very table, nursin’ a drink like always-whiskey, straight up-and two guys walk in, right? They just walk in through that door, look around the place a bit, and sit down in that table there over in that corner.
Pretty Boy-he looks a coupla years older than the other guy he come in with, which has his hair all long and shit hidin’ his face like that Justin Beaver kid, you know who I mean, that friggin’ gay little kid singer all over the friggin’ internet-but Pretty Boy looks like one a those goddamn movie stars, ya know? All ten foot long eyelashes and puffy lips and shit. Too pretty to be a real man. Gay as a Christmas tree, if you ask me, those two. But got nothin’ against them, it’s a free country, God loves us all. Amen. Drink to that.
Anyway, Pretty Boy gets up and goes over to Fat Joe, talks to him a bit, more than to just order two beers, like maybe he’s talkin’ him up, ya know? And maybe he slips him a bill or two, get him really going. Fat Joe and Pretty Boy, they look over at the pool table in that there middle space right there where Green Willie and Slim Tim’re playin’ now.
Now that night, there was seven people standin’ there around that table. Seven of ‘em, two gals and five men. Now these here folks ain’t the quietest of people, you seein’ what I mean? Someone makes a bad shot, they was all over the place, drinkin’, shoutin’, yellin’, whoopin’, the whole works. They fair made my head pound, the ruckus they made. Rowdy folks, which I don’t rightly like, them gettin’ in the way of my good quiet time here. I like it when there ain’t nothin’ but some good ol’-fashioned music on that there record box-nothin’ like that new-fangled Hannah-Anna Fontana and Justin Beaver ear-rot crap-and my glass of Jack. I don’t like it when people gets noisy. Give me a headache so friggin’ bad it’ll make a migraine look like a little bug bite.
Now this crowd, one of the boys notices Pretty Boy and Tall Beaver sittin’ in that corner there. This kid, he’s maybe twenty or so, just a kid, jabs the guy next to ‘im, and the other guy on his other side, and the three of ‘em goes and walks over to the two in the corner, like they out of one of ‘em gangster movies kids eat up these days.
Now I dunno what they all said, on account of sitting way over here and them way over there, and the kid and his two buddies standin’ with their backs to me, but it wasn’t nothin’ pleasant, I’ll tell you that.
Sure, Pretty Boy was smiling, nice as can be, but oh, that handsome mug was hiding something, I can sure tell you that. ‘Sides, Tall Beaver had this look on his face, like he was already thinkin’ of choppin’ those guys’ heads off-I’m gettin’ there, I’m gettin’ there.
Well, nothin’ happens then, but Pretty Boy and Beaver getting up and headin’ for the door, all nice and civilized. I let out my breath then, didn’t even know I was holding it, but I shouldn’t’ve, on account of-
Now hold on, hold on, I need a drink, my throat’s dry as my ol’ Aunt Fannie’s behind, and she’s dead, haha-thanks Heather honey, how’s your daddy? Oh no, sorry to hear that. He was a good man, good man. Give my best to your momma.
Now where was I? Ah, yes. The two boys walk to the door, but Pool Boy grabs Pretty Boy’s shoulder and bites his neck. I’m not kiddin’, this boy’s really chompin’ on Pretty Boy’s neck. Then I see this friggin’ huge knife come out of nowhere and chop Pool Boy’s head off. Right offa his neck, like it was made outta wax or some shit.
I look up and see it’s Beaver. He looked pissed, real pissed, I tell you. He’s got his huge-ass knife, like a friggin’ machete knife in his hand, and is lookin’ at the other two guys left, Pool Boy’s buddies. Pool Boy’s head’s rollin’ around on the goddamned floor like a retarded football or some shit.
And shit, holy friggin’ shit! You shoulda seen his goddamn mouth, son. All this blood, red, still drippin’ down his friggin’ chin. And those teeth of his-I ain’t never seen teeth like his. Like a shark’s mouth, that was. All sharp teeth with that blood all over. Now I seen this kid’s mouth before when he was playin’ pool and he didn’t look like that. He looked like any other kid on the street. Nothin’ wrong with his mouth but maybe he needed teeth braces or whatever torture wires they put on kids’ mouths these days. ‘Cept now there they was, a row of sharp-as-shit chompers right there where they shouldn’t be.
All six buddies of his are standin’ in front of Pretty Boy and Beaver now. And bless my soul if they ain’t all got their teeth hangin’ outta their mouths too, just like the ones in Pool Boy’s head which is still rollin’ around on the floor. And hell boy, they was hissin’. Like this: Hisssssss, hissssssss. Ain’t never heard nothin’ like that ever in my life before, and I honestly don’t think I ever will. Sent shivers right down my back, it did. Made all the hairs on my back stand straight up at attention, yessir.
By this time, Pretty Boy’s got a knife out too, just as big and shiny as Tall Beaver’s. He’s holdin’ onto his neck to keep the blood in, but he’s got that same pissed off look Beaver’s got. Didn’t know if it seemed like an even fight, those two again’ those six, but what with all that freaky shit, I woulda been fine if they just killed each other off. That woulda made me a happy man.
But that didn’t happen. One of them girl-critters lets out another hiss and jumps at Tall Beaver. I see right off that it ain’t a smart idea-Slash! Pretty Boy’s machete comes down on her. While her head’s busy fallin’ to the ground and rollin’ under the table, another girl runs at Pretty Boy and actually gets his neck, again. She’s suckin’ on it, like it’s her momma’s tit or some shit, and Pretty Boy’s trying to get her off. Beaver can’t help him, seeing as he’s too busy fighting off the rest of the bunch, four friggin’ shark-toothed bastards.
Slash! Slash-slash! Whoo-pow! Then all of a sudden, there’s only one left. He just turns tail and runs faster than anything I’ve ever seen, and I seen some pretty fast shit. Beaver lets his machete down, goes to his partner, who’s down. There’s some slappin’ of the face, maybe some sweet-talkin’, and Pretty Boy gets up. Boy musta lost a lot of blood, ‘cause he ain’t lookin’ so good now. They’ve got pressure on that neck o’ his, but the shirt they’re usin’ is turnin’ red real fast.
They look around the bar, and everyone’s just frozen. Frozen like they jus’ stopped there when that fight done started and stayed there. Now we’re all of us waitin’ to see if we’re next on their list, if we’re gonna all end up with our heads cut off by two crazies.
But no, they just stand there starin’ back at us, Pretty Boy leanin’ on his boyfriend a little bit, lookin’ real pale.
“Sorry, folks,” Tall Beaver says after a long bit, lookin’ real ‘pologetic. “Sorry. We’d stay to clean up, but we gotta get him some help. Yeah, so we’ll just be leaving,” he says, shufflin’ them out the door. “Sorry for the mess.”
Then an engine starts up and they’re gone.
We’re all just left sittin’ there, Joe with his hand on a bottle, in the middle of pourin’ out a drink into a glass that spilled over five minutes ago, and Heather frozen while wipin’ down a table. Teddy and Randy with their drinks halfway to their mouths, we was all left frozen here for the longest time after.
Then Heather starts screamin’.
And I swear, all hell broke loose. All hell. Teddy done had a heart attack right there, Randy started screamin’ louder than Heather was doin’, and Joe took his gun out from under the counter, too late if you ask me. Me? I just finished up my drink and went on home, seein’ as I thought I had more than enough to drink that night already. Thought I was seein’ things, you understand.
But I looks in the paper the next mornin’, and what do I see but ‘6 Beheaded in Bar; Police Baffled’ on the front page. Now I says to myself, “Now Ricky, now Ricky, what you thought you saw last night must have been the truth, God’s honest truth.”
And that’s the story I’m stickin’ to.
I’ll be goin’ now, havin’ finished my drink and all. What? Have they found those two men? Naw, my nephew Georgie’s the sheriff, and he ain’t found nothin’ yet. Nor’s he likely to, took after his daddy’s side of the family, buncha goddamn weak-headed mooks. Those de-capertated heads did have them teeth in ‘em like I said, for sure. You just go ask Georgie.
You wanna buy ol’ Ricky another drink? Alright, alright, won’t say no. Joe, whiskey, just like always.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - The Dean (15/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Lisa
Summary: Over the years, he became “The Dean” for her. Then he showed up on her doorstep. Maybe she was his “The Lisa.”
He was hot. There’s no denying it. And anyway, who in their right minds would want to deny it?
He had the bad-boy attitude down, from the top of his short, spiked-up hair to his worn leather jacket, all the way down to those heavy-duty biker boots that he used to kick the asses of some guys that were “bothering” her, aka flirting with her in the hands-on way rough guys like to do. He bought her a drink, then she bought him one, and then all of a sudden, they were in his car (amazing car, by the way, equally as hot as its owner) groping at each other and making out like it was their last night on earth.
Lisa admits that at twenty-one, she was a naïve little girl, determined to rebel against the good Christian values her middle-class parents had brought her up in. She skipped classes, smoked, drank like a fish, and had one-nighters with random biker guys with no permanent addresses or even a phone number she could reach (if she even wanted to, which she didn’t).
Looking back now, she was stupid to risk herself like that. Guys like that, they don’t give a damn whether or not the sex they’re having is safe, as long as it’s good. Thank goodness Lisa never caught anything…except for a minuscule sperm cell that fertilized one of her egg cells and resulted in nine months of miserable vomiting and cramps that culminated in a painful thirty-nine-hour labor.
Ben’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her, and that’s God’s honest truth. She wouldn’t change what happened for anything; she’d die first.
Even if she doesn’t know who his dad is, even if she was drunk the night (or day) she got pregnant (she doesn’t even know the exact date), even if she hasn’t had sex since she found out she was expecting (and nine years is a hell of a long time, just you try it and see).
She’s Ben’s mom, and that’s who she was meant to be.
Still, Lisa fantasized. Girl can dream, right?
She remembered that green-eyed leather-jacketed badass angel who swooped down and charmed her right out of her pants, literally. She remembered that weekend they spent locked up in her apartment, having sex on every surface and in every position imaginable, with some “toys” that were probably illegal, and then some. She remembered the way he’d grinned when she told him she was a yoga teacher; she remembered the things he did with his-Well, the sex was amazing. Let’s leave it at that.
She remembered his name: Dean Winchester. He became “The Dean,” in the nine years since she’d seen him. His was the only name she remembered. All the other guys, the bikers, the truckers, the drifters-they all sort of amalgamated into a collective “sort of people” that she didn’t want in her life again. She wouldn’t let them within a hundred feet of Ben either. Not on your life.
But this Dean Winchester character, he was…different. He wasn’t any younger, or older, than her usual fare-about her own age. He was certainly significantly more attractive than any of her previous and later conquests, but that wasn’t why she remembered him. He was…a nice guy, a genuinely nice guy. Considerate, you know? Even though he seemed all tough and dangerous on the outside, once in a while, he’d show this incredible…well, “sensitivity” seems to be a weird word to use to describe the guy, but she can’t think of another word that could describe the way he apologized if he accidentally bumped her up against anything, if he thought he hurt her in any way while they were doing their thing. He’d even asked her if she was sure before they left the bar, looking straight into her eyes with his dreamy golden-green eyes, as if trying to make sure she wasn’t too drunk to make a good decision.
Sober or not, hell yeah, she wanted to have sex with him.
And in between the rounds of sex, they talked, just a little, but that was kind of nice too. She found out he had this little brother, smart as hell, and stubborn as a mule. And he was obviously very found of him, the way he talked about him in such a proud and affectionate way. So hot. Right, so maybe it was because she was ovulating or something, but that turned her on like gawd.
So she dreamed and fantasized about Dean Winchester. For nine years, she remembered every single detail of all the things they did. When she made new “respectable” friends, all mothers themselves with kids Ben’s age, and they gossiped about their wild days of the past, she always talked about one guy, and one guy only: “The Dean.” He became kind of a legend over the years in their little group. To be honest, he’d become a sort of sex god in her mind as well. Not that she minded. She didn’t think he’d mind either.
So when he showed up at the door, with a how-the-freaking-hell-did-he-get-even-hotter-over-the-years grin, her brain stuttered to a stop. You know how you feel when you’ve got this crush on an actor or singer or whoever and you know there’s no way you’ll ever be with them but you still fantasize anyway, and then they show up on your doorstep? Well, maybe you don’t, but you know what I mean. That was how Lisa felt.
Nine years later, he came back. He even tracked her down at her new address. That’s dedication for you; maybe she was his “The Lisa.”
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - And the Kid (16/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Lisa, Dean
Summary: “If it’s not too late, I think I’d like to take you up on that beer.” Lisa on Ben and Dean up to “Swan Song.”
She’s been jittery for weeks. Weeks. Ever since he’d knocked on her door and dropped that bomb on her.
“I wanted you to know, that when I do picture myself happy, it’s with you.”
That hadn’t surprised her…much. After the initial shock of Dean Winchester actually standing there in front of her had settled in, that is.
But when he’d added, “And the kid,” that about tore her walls completely down.
See, Dean Winchester doesn’t look anything like how you’d imagine a family man looking. He looks like he enjoys sex (a lot), liquor, and gambling. He matches his sleek black classic of a car, the badass leather jacket is his second skin. He is all that, but he isn’t shallow either.
Lisa had gotten an inkling of what Dean Winchester was really like when he’d shared a few things about his brother all those years ago. He hadn’t waxed poetic about him, obviously, since they were in between rounds of ohsogreat sex, but what he’d said, the way he’d said it, and his affectionate-proud-loving expression as he’d said it-that was enough to make her pause and maybe actually fall in love with the guy.
Or maybe it was just the mind-blowing sex that made him memorable.
Still, whatever it was, Dean Winchester simply did not scream family man, or even loves kids for that matter. That hadn’t mattered way back then, when they’d had that weekend of wild and crazy sex, but in the years of being a mother to the best kid in the world, that had been the main selling point for her when looking for a guy.
There had been guys who’d asked her out because they thought she was hot, because they thought she was funny, or nice, or just wanted a piece of her ass. Most of them had backed off when they’d found out she had a kid. Those that hadn’t, well, Ben hadn’t taken to them. At all.
Lisa shudders to remember the furious temper tantrums her son had thrown whenever she’d brought a man (two total over the years) home to see how he’d get along with the little guy in her life. But Ben was the final test, and if whatever guy she was dating at the time didn’t pass, then oh well, she had a good time, and thanks, but bu-bye.
No one had ever passed the Ben-test. Obviously.
Until Dean. Dean, who’d been all but forgotten except for as a really, really good sexual fantasy for nights spent alone (unless Ben wanted to sleep with Mommy). He’d wheedled his way into her house (and her life) after nine years of radio silence and had charmed her Ben like the Pied Piper himself.
All year round, day in and day out, she’d heard about “cool Dean” and his “awesome” taste in music,” his “bitchin’ car” and how he (and his brother) had “whom-pow! burned the monster right up just like a superhero!” It would have gotten old, if it hadn’t been a constant reminder of how much she owed Dean for her son’s life. For her baby, for Ben.
He’d cared, anyone could see that. It wasn’t that he loved kids, he loved her kid, and fully appreciated how cool and sweet and wonderful Ben could be. He’d seen it in only the few days he’d been here, and had even asked if Ben was his. Seeing how disappointed he’d been when she told him that she’d had a blood test done and that he wasn’t the father (even though there was no test and she honestly didn’t know)…well, suffice it to say that most guys in his situation would have been glad for dodging the bullet of responsibility that parenthood brings.
It had startled her so much that it had broken through the fortified wall she’d built around herself and her son. She’d offered Dean something she’d never offered any man before: she asked him to stay. And she’d felt an odd twinge in her heart when he’d reluctantly refused.
“I got a lot of work to do,” he’d said, wistfully glancing over her shoulder at her life.
His work apparently wasn’t done when he’d come knocking again. He’d wanted to know how Ben was. Almost three years later and he hadn’t forgotten them. He’d looked like shit, though, with his eyes red from lack of sleep and stress, and it seemed like he was at the end of his rope, literally a step from ending it all. The things he’d said…He’d talked like he was dying, like he was about to sacrifice himself or something.
“I wanted you to know, that when I do picture myself happy, it’s with you,” he’d said with some difficulty, as if around a choked throat. “And the kid.”
She should have been flattered, she should have blushed or smiled or something. She would have, if he hadn’t scared her, the way he’d looked that day.
She knew that she had to get him inside, whatever she could to get him inside and explain. You don’t just tell someone that they’re “The One” and leave to do whatever suicidal thing Dean was obviously thinking of doing. And then, he’d said that things were going to get really bad and he was going to make “arrangements” for her and Ben-what was she supposed to think? She only knew that she had to get him inside to keep him from killing himself or…whatever scary and crazy thing was he was going to do.
“Come inside and let me get you a beer. We can talk,” she’d said, desperate, trying to coax him in like a jumpy stray. “Just...just come inside.”
She’d resorted to begging: “Please. And whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t do it.”
Then she’d used her son to try to get Dean to come inside and talk to her, “Just stay an hour. At least say bye to Ben.”
He’d paused, he had, but in the end, he’d left her with a soft kiss and longing in his tired eyes.
And now, five jittery and anxious weeks later, he was back, looking…broken.
“If it's not too late, I think I'd like to take you up on that beer,” he said, voice cracking and face crumbling. She gathered him up in her arms, and he fell into the embrace as if whatever last strength had been holding him upright had failed.
This sobbing, broken man, so different from the bright-eyed twenty-one year-old she’d spent that wonderful weekend with, had been through so much that was more terrible than there were words to describe it. After he’d cried himself dry, he sat there on her couch, staring down at the beer bottle he said he’d come back for, not drinking it, just staring. Lisa sat there with him, her hand comfortingly on his knee, waiting, waiting for the explanation that might never come.
Then he said, “How’s Ben?” in that ragged, shattered voice, and her heart broke some more.