Supernatural Fic Part 3
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 - Apocalypse Cocktail (17/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Castiel
Summary: Castiel feels like a martini-shaken, and maybe stirred as well. Cas in the last part of Season 5.
To mix a Fallen Angel, shake one and a half ounces of gin, half a teaspoon of white crème de menthe, the juice of half a lemon, and a dash of bitters with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Top with a cherry and serve.
Castiel feels like a martini-shaken, and maybe stirred as well. He’s so mixed up that he doesn’t know what to think anymore. His carefully constructed understanding of the world-that God knows all, that He is always there, that He is good, that He is loving, that the angels are also good and are doing His bidding-has crumbled.
His head hurts. He thinks it hurts kind of bad. He thinks his grace hurts too.
In this past year, he has lost most of his powers, lost his faith in his brothers, and now, finally, he has lost his trust in his father. The edges of his world-view are blurring, and what used to be as sharp as the boundary between oil and water are now blending into a muddy confusion.
To mix an Angel’s Wing, pour half an ounce each of white crème de cacao, brandy, and one tablespoon of light cream carefully, in the order given, into a pousse-café glass so that they do not mix. Serve without mixing.
That’s why he’d emptied that liquor store of all its alcohol. It didn’t help very much, only made him slightly disoriented and more blunt than usual (he can see that from the brothers’ baffled expressions).
He can tell that Sam and Dean are worried about his sudden…what is the word Dean used? Oh yes, Castiel can tell that they are worried about his sudden drinking binge, and he is sorry (another human emotion that he’s begun feeling recently, and frequently) to cause them worry, but he cannot but help but try to numb this pain that he has begun to feel in the depths of his entire being.
To mix a Lost Cause, pour one ounce each of rum, gin, and lime juice over ice. Stir in four ounces of club soda.
The liquor does not help, and neither does the additional pain of what Dean refers to as a hangover. However, the bottle of small white pills (the label says “Aspirin”) Dean throws at him does relieve the ache in his head. Headache.
His grace still hurts. Grace-ache. Soul-ache? Heartache?
The latter two do not apply to Castiel, since he does not have either, but he thinks they might be similar to what he is feeling right now.
Faith-ache.
To mix a Smith and Wesson, pour one ounce each of vodka, kahula, and light cream into a glass filled with ice, then top off with Pepsi.
Castiel had removed his trust from the angels in Heaven put it on mortals on earth. He does not know who else to trust now, aside from the Winchesters and Bobby, and even then, is he right to put so much faith in them? For so long, he had thought that God and his brothers and sisters would be worth his loyalty, but in the end, they had betrayed him.
What if the brothers and the old man do the same?
To mix a What The Hell cocktail, stir one ounce each of dry vermouth, gin, and apricot brandy with a dash of lemon juice and ice cubes in an old-fashioned glass and serve.
When he discovers Dean coming so close to surrendering to the angels, something inside Castiel snaps. He feels rage. This strong emotion he feels at Dean’s betrayal is wrath. He pushes Dean up against the brick wall, hard, without regard for his fragile human anatomy and throws punch after angry punch into his face, his sides, his back.
This tiny human, for whom he had betrayed his own family, had in turn betrayed him.
To mix a Devil’s Advocate, mix one shot Bacardi Limon, one shot triple sec, three-fourths of an ounce of sour mix, one tablespoon of grenadine, and four ounces of cranberry juice in a shaker. Pour over ice.
Castiel doesn’t want to be there when Dean says yes to Michael. He’ll help them with their plan (Sam’s plan) to get Adam back from Zachariah, but he won’t stick around long enough to see Dean betray his brother’s trust, like he had Castiel’s.
Dean is weak, human.
Sam is too optimistic. He’ll see; Dean will betray him too.
To mix an Adam drink, combine two ounces of dark rum, one ounce of lemon juice, and one teaspoon of grenadine in a shaker half-filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into a glass.
In the end, Adam Milligan was the one who gave in to Michael. Sam had been right to keep his faith in Dean. Dean hadn’t betrayed him; he hadn’t betrayed humankind; he hadn’t betrayed Castiel.
They don’t know what to do. They’ll think of a plan though. They have to.
To mix a Death in the Afternoon cocktail, pour one ounce Pernod into a champagne flute and top off with five ounces of champagne.
Bobby, the imbecilic old man, sold his soul in exchange for information on the whereabouts of Death. The demon Crowley also “threw in” the use of Bobby’s legs as a bargain.
Bobby, Sam, and Castiel go together to a warehouse to prevent the shipping out of truckloads of a vaccine that will spread the Croatoan virus across the nation.
It’s the first time Castiel uses a gun. It is…refreshing.
In the meantime, Dean meets with Death and is given the last ring and the instructions for using them in exchange for a promise. A promise that Dean will do whatever it takes to ensure that Lucifer is put back in his cage.
To mix a Slammin’ Sammy, add two ounces each of amaretto and triple sec to an ice-filled glass. Pour in four ounces of orange juice and top off with apple-cranberry juice to taste. Stir.
Sam has a plan.
It’s a terrible plan.
He wants to give Lucifer his consent to possess him. He’ll then somehow regain control of his body and jump into the pit, taking Lucifer with him.
It is a terrible plan.
To mix a Big Brothers drink, combine two parts whiskey with three parts ginger ale and pour over ice cubes. Add a slice of lemon.
Dean agrees to the plan. He lets-no, not “lets”-Dean relinquishes his hold over his younger brother and now fully supports Sam in making his own decision.
Bobby and Castiel are in with the plan with the hope that the brothers will again prove the odds wrong.
Sam asks Castiel to watch out for Bobby and Dean. Castiel knows that he cannot promise that, and he says so, only realizing that he is supposed to lie after he does. He reassures Sam that he will watch over his remaining family. It might be impossible, but it’s a promise.
It is still a terrible plan.
To mix a Devil’s Cocktail, stir one and a half ounces each of dry vermouth and port with half a teaspoon of lemon juice with ice, strain into a cocktail glass and serve.
It was a stupid plan.
Dean’s the only one who has faith now, with Lucifer in Sam’s body and the countdown to the big fight getting closer to zero.
To mix a Grumpy Old Man, pack an old-fashioned or rocks glass with ice. Add two ounces of Old Grand Dad bourbon and one ounce lime juice, then top with ginger ale. Serve with sip stick, no garnish.
Noon of the day after Sam lets Lucifer in finds Castiel in another liquor store. The store owner is safely asleep, after being given the “finger,” and so is not in the former angel’s way as he contemplates the merits of malt whiskey versus grain whiskey.
Castiel thinks he likes the grain better; it has a higher alcohol count.
He sighs and with a flutter of his wings, appears in Bobby’s library, startling the hunter and making him drop his glass of whiskey.
“Wouldya stop doin’ that?!” the grumpy old man sputters. Then he sighs and stands. “Ready to go? I got something you might like.”
To mix a Molotov Cocktail, pour a shot of vodka, float a splash of 151 proof rum, light it and blow it out, then take the shot down.
Bobby lets Castiel do the honors.
“Hey, Assbutt!”
It’s the first time he’s ever called his oldest brother a name. Dean thinks it’s lame, but Castiel likes it. It’s an insult he’d crafted by himself.
Doing that to Michael makes Lucifer angry at him.
To mix a White Out, combine two parts of peppermint schnapps with one part each of Cointreau and cognac, and pour over crushed ice.
Castiel doesn’t remember much beyond Lucifer making him explode, again. What is it with the archangels and blowing him to smithereens?
He remembers floating in a white space, so bright that he can’t see. His other senses work, though. He smells dust and the faint scent of alcohol, feels warmth, hears a consistent tapping noise that sounds like…fingers typing at a computer, then a loud “Crap!” before he is sent off to a field of dandelions in the middle of Nebraska.
The sun is bright, the sky is clear, and there is no sign of the heavenly brothers’ fight.
To mix a Gates of Hell Cocktail, combine an ounce and a half of tequila, two teaspoons each of lemon and lime juice in a shaker half-filled with ice cubes. Shake well. Strain into an old-fashioned glass almost filled with crushed ice. Drizzle one teaspoon of cherry brandy over the top.
He appears in the cemetery at Lawrence, where he’d met his last demise. He finds Dean on his knees in the grass, so many waves of grief and mourning and alone coming off of him that Castiel doesn’t even need his new powers to know how he feels.
With a touch, he heals Dean’s ruined face, then moves on to bring Bobby Singer back.
Of Sam Winchester, there is no trace, nor is there even a dent in the ground showing where two of their Father’s most beloved had fallen.
To mix a Five Star General, combine a half ounce each of Jagermeister, 151 proof rum, Rumple Minze, Goldschlager, and Tequila in a shot glass.
When Castiel returns to Heaven, he finds the entire place in chaos. As the only being with the powers of an archangel in their midst, the other angels appoint him their general.
It is tiring, and he does not know if this is what he wants. He does think that this is what his Father wants him to do, so he accepts and tries his best to put Heaven back in order.
It is difficult.
To mix an Apple Pie with a Crust drink, combine three parts apple juice with one part Malibu rum and sprinkle in cinnamon. Serve either cold or heated.
Dean’s adjusting to his life with Lisa Braeden and her son. He still mourns his brother constantly. He thinks Sam is still in Hell with Lucifer, Michael, and Adam.
Sam has forbidden Castiel from informing Dean of the truth.
He still looks in on the small family once in a while, keeping himself cloaked.
He did promise, after all.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AN: All these, including the title, are real cocktails, the recipes of which I found online. I had no idea there were so many varieties. Some of them had really crazy names, too: Smurf Fart? Grandmom’s Slipper? Wisconsin Lunchbucket? Screaming Dead Nazi? Lol!
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - An Ordinary Man (18/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Chuck Shurley
Summary: Chuck Shurley had always wanted to be a writer. Turns out, being a prophet sucks.
He had always wanted to be a writer. Ever since those first (few dozen) love letters to Nancy McKeon (the immensely talented actress who played Jo in The Facts of Life), slaved over painstakingly by lamplight and written in shaky teenaged penmanship, Chuck had always wanted to be a writer.
He had always wanted to see his name in print; well, maybe not his name, but a pseudonym, maybe. Charles “Chuck” Shurley just sounded so… unsatisfying and ordinary. Any penname he’d use would have to be cool, sharp, dangerous.
He fiddled around with different names, the way a lovesick schoolgirl writes her name in hundreds of different ways, combining it with her crush’s. He tried out a lot of them over the years: Ed Hacker. Axel Lund. Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton stole that one). Machete Edwards. Carver Edlund. He likes the sound of the last one. Only, he’d never had the chance to use it.
Until the Supernatural book series, that is. I’ll get to that later, though.
Chuck was an ordinary guy. Alright, maybe shyer, freakier, geekier, nerdier, than your typical Joe Schmo, but suffice it to say that Chuck would never, ever be voted “Most Likely to Succeed,” “Best-Looking,” “Most Likely to be Famous,” and most certainly not “Most Likely to Save the World.” He graduated from high school with straight Cs, went to an okay college, majored in Lit., did so-so in it, and managed to graduate with an average GPA. Ordinary, ordinary, ordinary.
So after he graduated, he tried his hand at writing. That was easier said than done. There he was, sitting at his computer with a shiny new college degree and nothing to type. Nothing, nada, zip. The genius of Chuck Shurley was uninspired.
He took lowly-paid, cringe-worthy, humiliating jobs to pay the bills (just barely, and a couple of times, not even). For a dozen years, he mopped floors, fished around in clogged up toilets for hairballs, did garbage duty at his apartment complex-in effect, eked out a living so that he could do his real work. At one point, he had to sell his computer to get enough money to buy his month’s ration of Cup-A-Noodle. Let’s just say, Chuck Shurley in the nineties was the epitome of “struggling artist.”
And to be honest, a part of Chuck liked that: the masochistic part of him.
Simply put, twelve years of no ideas took their toll; eventually, he took to drink.
It happens to the best of us, and Chuck was certainly not the best; he was, as I said earlier, an ordinary man. So he got drunk. He got trashed. He got so shitfaced that as is inevitable in such cases, he passed out in a puddle of his own vomit. Yes, sad story, happens to everyone. La-di-dah, la-di-dah.
At least he didn’t land facing up, or else he would have asphyxiated like a rock star and we wouldn’t be talking about him right now…or maybe we would, since the angels would probably have brought him back to life. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
You see, up to this point, Chuck Shurley had been an ordinary guy. I’m drumming this into you because at this moment, Chuck joined the ranks of a bunch of not-so-ordinary guys. You probably know them, those old geezers out of the Bible, like Moses, Elijah, Abraham, Jacob, and the crazy guy with the big boat and the zoo, what’s-his-name, Noah.
Chuck Shurley became a prophet.
Perhaps it is more correct to say that “Chuck Shurley came into his prophetness at this moment,” since he had been a prophet from birth and nothing could ever change that, unless someone went back in time and murdered him or stopped his parents from getting hitched like in a movie, but that’s nonsense because there’s no such thing as time travel…or is there?
On Halloween of 2005, Anno Domini (“in the year of Our Lord,” for those non-Latin speakers out there), Charles “Chuck” Shurley had his first vision while passed out on the linoleum floor of his dining room from eating too much candy (no kids had come to his door) and drinking too much vodka.
Imagine: Twenty-two years ago. A young mother is kissing her baby goodnight. This is Mary Winchester and the baby is Sammy. He is exactly six months old tonight. Now, an energetic tyke of four bursts into the room. This is Dean. His mother helps him say goodnight to his baby brother. Dad walks in; John Winchester was in the Marines during the war, but those memories are far behind him now. Dean rushes up to him, and is caught up in a warm embrace. He’s as much Daddy’s boy as he is Mommy’s prince.
Fast forward a couple of hours: Mary wakes up to sounds coming from the baby monitor. John’s not next to her, so she gets up and pads over to little Sammy’s room. But not to worry, Sammy’s already being taken care of. “Shhh,” says the shadowed figure in the dark room.
Satisfied, Mary turns around and walks back down the hall to their bedroom. The lamp on the wall flickers, prompting her to tap on it and frown. Then she sees that the television set downstairs is on. John’s left it on again. But then walking down the stairs, she sees that her husband isn’t upstairs at all, but sleeping in a clearly uncomfortable position in the armchair.
Well, it goes without saying that Mary rushes to her baby’s room, sure that something terrible is happening to her son…and she’s suddenly pushed back against the wall by a force she can’t see and which slides her up, up the wall and on the ceiling. She’s looking down at her baby now; Sammy’s gurgling happily, unaware of what’s happening to his mother only a few feet over him. Mary screams; a red slash appears on her abdomen, marring the perfect white of her nightgown.
John wakes up and runs up to help his wife, but when he gets to baby Sammy’s room, there’s nothing the matter there; Sammy’s still fussing like all babies do. Then a red droplet drips down, then another, and another, and so he looks up…at his wife as she bursts into flame like some kind of grotesque butterfly pinned on the ceiling being fired up with an invisible acetylene welding torch.
Holy freakin’ shit, right?
John snaps out of it long enough to take the baby out of his crib and hand him over to the goofy-looking older kid, who was curious enough to run out into the hall to see what’s up, and order him to take his brother outside as fast as he can and to not look back.
In the end, Mom doesn’t make it, but the rest of the Winchesters sit on the front hood of what’s to become home for the next twenty-five years or so, looking pretty darn traumatized.
And so concludes the Prologue, and the introduction of the dramatis personae (that’s “persons or characters of the drama” for those readers who are not scholars of dead languages). And…scene.
That’s what Chuck saw that first night, and boy, when he woke up with a hangover the size of an elephant, he just sat there with his head in his hands and thought, “What the hell was that? It was kind of like a movie. That was a pretty good intro. Wonder what comes next.” Then he threw up in his lap.
Let me tell you this: There were times after that when Chuck wished that he had not wondered what happened next in the lives of the Winchester family because things got complicated for him, very complicated indeed.
It didn’t seem like it in the beginning, when he was writing about two brothers on a road trip hunting monsters and demons and whatever goes bump in the night while searching for their missing father-that was fine. Only, he had to get drunk and pass out in order to get ideas. Otherwise, he got stuck with writer’s block. Yeah, bummer, right? But he just took it like a man because he had finally come into his genius.
So he drank his way though Supernatural, Wendigo, Phantom Traveler, Bloody Mary, Skin-you get the idea. The books never really took off, but at least some people were reading them and he got to use his awesome nom de plume (that’s French for “pen name”) and he finally had the means (not a whole lot of money, but more than being a janitor) to actually full-on play the reclusive writer he’d always dreamed of being.
Chuck had always wanted to be a reclusive writer. Just like Salinger, but with a better hero. Make that “heroes.” Sam and Dean could totally kick Holden Caulfield’s ass, blindfolded and with their hands tied, one-on-one.
Sam and Dean were cool. They could fight like ninjas, had a well-stocked armory in the hidden compartment in the trunk of their very awesome black ’67 Chevy Impala, and had movie-star looks (or at least they were pretty enough to be on the CW). Plus, they had this unconquerable brotherly love of the sort that spawned thousands of Sam-slash-Dean fan fiction stories.
That’s right, Chuck’s books had fans, and these fans wrote fan fiction about the two protagonists. Some of them even had them in a romantic relationship, which was stupid-Sam and Dean? No way.
Anyway, Chuck was feeling pretty good until he got a notice in September of 2008 from Sera Siege at Flying Wiccan Press that they were now bankrupt and would have to stop publishing the Supernatural books after No Rest for the Wicked. Terrible, ain’t it? So sad. Tragic.
That made Chuck go on another drinking binge (not that he had been exactly sober the last three years) and pass out again. Then-whoa. He dreamed about Dean waking up in a pine box. His coffin. And an angel, and Sam exorcizing demons with his mind.
Chuck had to write that story plot down. He simply had to; the artist in him simply would not quiet until he had it all typed up and printed out on sheets of white copy paper. Well actually, each time he tried to stop writing, he’d get a vivid vision accompanied by the fiercest headache imaginable. He tried to stop the dreams by not drinking, but that didn’t do much either: he just ended up having phone sex all day and depleting his bank account.
So it went on; he’d write books that would never get published, but he typed them out because otherwise, the nagging sensation that he had to do it would bug him forever and ever. And ever. Then the day came that he had another vision that Sam and Dean find out about a series of books written about them and they hunt down the writer of the novels and…
What? That’s a little presumptuous, isn’t it? Writing a book about two guys who find out that books are being written about them and then having them go meet the author…? Was that a knock on the door?
And there they were. Sam and Dean. Not LARPers, not a couple of crazy dudes with lots of guns. The Winchester brothers. Proof: they knew the actual last names of the brothers. Holy shit.
Holy freaking shit. Holy-wait, did that mean that he was controlling the lives of these two guys? That sucked. He had put them through so much, and had actually killed both of them just because he had thought they were fictional characters. Chuck felt so bad. He felt kind of awesome too, though. Of all the kids at his high school, he would have been the last choice for “Most Likely to be God.”
Then an angel showed up and said that he-Chuck, not the angel-was a prophet of the Lord. And that made everything suck even more. He was a Chosen One, hand-picked by God to write down the chronicles of Sam and Dean into the Gospel of Winchester. A bunch of bad horror-fantasy novels is actually part of the holy scripture? No way, right? Yes, way, actually.
So much “yes, way” that Chuck even got threatened out of not warning the brothers from running straight into danger because that was their “destiny.” Being special sucks. What’s the point of having superpowers if you can’t use them for good?
Anyway, he kept typing, writing out what he saw, Sam’s final betrayal with Ruby, Dean getting stuck in the angels’ Green Room, Sam getting tricked into killing Lilith to raise Lucifer, and-
Hold it, hold it. Chuck’s last night on earth was not going to be spent at the computer. No, he was going to die happy, he was going to die having sex, sex with twenty girls. At once. And screw the cost and the-
The flutter of wings behind him made him whirl around. Cas and Dean. Cas and Dean, who were supposed to be in the Green Room, not here, in Chuck’s house. Turned out they wanted to change their destinies. Whatever happened from then on was unwritten, unscripted. That sounded a whole lot better than having Lucifer running around on earth, so Chuck told them where Sam and Ruby were.
What was the worst that could happen, right?
Uh, yeah, having an angel explode in your kitchen is not an experience that Chuck would recommend.
So Dean didn’t make it in time to stop Sam from killing Lilith and breaking the last seal. Lucifer rose, someone miraculously whisked them onto a plane and put Castiel back together again.
And Chuck had another bottle of Jack and started typing.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Last Night on Earth (19/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Ellen, Jo
Warnings/Spoilers: Obviously, for "Abandon All Hope"
Summary: Ellen’s thoughts during “Abandon All Hope.”
“I love you, baby.”
That was the last thought that crossed Ellen’s mind before she pressed down on that doorbell serving as a trigger for the homemade propane-and-rock-salt bomb.
Had she lived a moment longer, her next thought would have been, “You’d better be there to meet us when we get up there, Bill Harvelle, or so help me God, I will kick your ass.”
As it was, however, she didn’t get the chance to think it. The gas caught fire and the entire hardware store exploded in a great ball of orange flames. She and Jo, as well as the entire pack of hellhounds, were blasted to heaven and hell, respectively.
The thought before her very last thought was, “Wish I’d taken one more shot of that whiskey while I still had the chance.” Irrational, sure, but imminent death will do strange things to your mind.
And in case you were wondering, her life did not flash before her eyes. It was Jo, little baby Joanna’s life that she saw.
Finding out she was pregnant, holding the tiny squalling thing in her arms for the first time, teaching her to talk, her first steps, braiding her hair, sending her off to school, their fights that always started over the smallest things, her baby all grown up…
“I love you, baby.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
When Ellen was a little girl, back when she didn’t know about things like demons and monsters and hunting, her parents had tried to raise her to be a good Christian. They took her to church on Sundays, dressed in frilly pink dresses and her hair curled with a bow in it, as pretty as you please.
Those weekly trips to church did much to shape Ellen’s character as an adult. In fact, Ellen thinks that it was those dratted dresses that did the trick and put her off religion for life.
Rebellious? Joanna Beth had no idea what her momma was like as a kid, thank goodness. It was the age of protests, hippies, and all that jazz that Ellen came to age in, and boy, was it fun. Parties, orgies, fighting with her parents…she had “rebellious” down to a tee.
Then her ex-boyfriend got possessed by a demon, and this good-looking number with a Lone Ranger approach came and rescued her. Yeah, that’s right; he had the galls to rescue her, like she was some kind of damsel in distress. Ellen Pratchett was no damsel, that’s for sure, and any distress she was in, she could get out of by herself.
‘Course, Bill Harvelle just snorted and told her she was only alive because of him. Damn him, and shove off, right?
Well, he was hot. That’s the only reason for Ellen’s actions. Only reason, and it was a terrible one. Hear that, Joanna? “He’s hot” is a bad reason for sleeping with a guy.
So one thing led to another, and a couple of drinks later, they were in Ellen’s two-rooms-and-a-leaky-bathroom apartment, trying to get their clothes off as fast as they could. Bill had some serious scars; Ellen liked that. She really liked it.
Bill left town the next night, and so long, farewell.
Not so much.
Two months later, she was kneeling in front of the toilet, holding her hair back so she wouldn’t get vomit on it. Between gags, she cursed Bill Harvelle and resolved to send him a scathing note via that PO box number he left for her just in case. As soon as she stopped throwing up, that is.
Bill came galloping back in his ’69 Mustang when she was six months along, apologizing profusely for taking so long; he’d lost track of time and forgotten to check that particular mailbox for a couple of months.
Ellen cussed him out, screamed at him until her voice gave out, and when she was done, Bill proposed, and everything went on happily ever after.
She wished.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
They used the money her parents had left their only daughter to buy out the then-owner of the hunters’ bar that Bill liked to frequent. Her folks would have turned in their graves had they known what their daughter and her new husband used their money for.
Baby Joanna Beth learned to walk amid heavy boots and worn jean-clad legs, tottering from table to table to be fawned over by even the most hardened of hunters. Much to her momma’s horror, she learned to pick pockets at the tender age of four, play poker at six, and shoot a gun at nine years old.
From that time on, Jo (not Joanna Beth, Mom. It’s so girly) wanted to be a hunter, like her dad.
Like her dead dad.
That John Winchester. Ellen wished she’d never laid eyes on the man. He’d been with Bill on his last hunt, and it had gone wrong, so wrong. John’d come in, apology and sorrow and fear in his face as he told her that Bill, her Bill, was in the back seat of that big black hearse of his.
She’d thrown a bottle of Jack at him and yelled at him to get out. He’d come back in anyway, carrying a wrapped thing in his arms, as carefully as he could with an injured right leg.
He set Bill down, real gentle, and stood back, shifting his weight off of his leg nervously. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“Get out.”
“Ellen,” he’d tried.
She threw him out alongside a few empty glass bottles that shattered as they hit the ground outside. She wanted Winchester to shatter and break too, just like those bottles. Just like her heart, her life.
Only thing that kept her together after that was Jo. Jo, with her tangled blond hair and that defiant look permanently set in her face. Jo, her baby.
For all that her daughter rebelled and fought against her, Ellen knew that she loved her mother as much as she was loved. And Ellen made sure that Jo knew how much she loved her. She just didn’t want her baby to go the same way her father had.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Almost twenty years after Bill was killed, Jo got mauled by a hellhound trying to save Dean Winchester.
She lay there on that table in the abandoned hardware store, bleeding, a pressure bandage holding her guts in, dying. Her baby girl was dying, and there was nothing Ellen could do.
She’d tried. She’d tried sending Jo off to school, tried keeping her at home, tried keeping the Winchesters away from her, tried, but couldn’t keep her from hunting. It was in her blood.
So she went with her. Bill had made sure that Ellen really could take care of herself and Jo should any evil come walking in through those barroom doors. Jo had become a good hunter in her time away from home, and Ellen was a fast learner. So together, they hunted whatever they could find. What with the shortage of good hunters in these bad times, they had to work hard, real hard.
They played it safe, though, Ellen not wanting to risk her daughter’s life too much, and Jo not wanting to push her mom too much. After all, Ellen was only hunting for her sake.
They did fine, until they got tangled in the Winchesters’ business again. The first time the Harvelles got together with a Winchester, Bill died. The second time, Jo almost did. The third, the Roadhouse burned down. Winchesters are not good news for Harvelles.
But Ellen wouldn’t be Ellen and Jo wouldn’t be Jo if they didn’t face up to challenges for people they liked, and the Winchester boys were real likeable boys. Must be the “motherless” vibe or something messing with Ellen’s maternal instincts, but she liked them, even though Dean Winchester did insist on trying to get into Jo’s pants every damn time he saw her.
Jo was a smart girl, and Dean was scared shitless of Ellen, so nothing came of it, not even with Dean’s “last night on earth” speech.
Speaking of last nights, meeting an angel was one thing, but drinking with one? Now that was a whole new experience. For a second, Ellen wished her parents could see this, their daughter and granddaughter sitting at a table with a real-live angel, but the moment passed, as Castiel (the angel) threw back the shots one by one, five in total. Jo met her eyes, and the delighted grin that graced her face was one of the best things Ellen had seen in a long while.
Ellen was glad for every smile Jo experienced in her life, and wished every tear and every wound could be hers to bear. Especially this last one.
Oh, Jo.
The gnawing black hole at the bottom of her stomach told her that Jo was dying, even though she didn’t want to believe it. And when her baby said she wanted to stay behind to let everyone else run to safety, her heart broke.
Oh, baby. Didn’t she know that there is no Ellen without Jo, just like there is no Dean without Sam?
Dean understood; no parent should outlive their child. Dean’d practically raised his brother; he knew. John Winchester, for all his faults, had understood it. It was wrong for a mother to mourn her child.
Jo’s last wish was to be treated like an adult. Well, she’d made her choice, and Ellen had made hers. Nothing in this world or the next could tear her away from her baby. Nothing.
“You can go straight back to hell, you ugly bitch!”
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Filius Nullius Cervisia (20/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Adam, John
Summary: John takes Adam out for his first beer. References a couple of previous one-shots from this collection but can be read alone.
AN: Title from Latin for “Bastard Son Beer,” translated literally. Latin because of the significance it has in John’s job. Also because “Another First Beer” sounded lame and using Latin makes me sound smart.
John Winchester stops by a few days after Adam’s sixteenth birthday.
“Let me take the boy out for a spin,” he tells Mom before they go.
John’s visits have always been sporadic-his job takes him all over the country, and leaves him with little time (almost none) to stay with Adam and his mom. Not that Mom would let him stay anyway-there was a reason she didn’t call him when she found out she was expecting his kid. For one, she hardly knew the guy, and a brief Florence Nightingale-inspired romance doesn’t really count.
Ever since Adam first begged his absent father’s phone number out of his mom and called the guy, to let him know he had a son out there, and maybe to try to get to know him, John’s shown up maybe a handful of times: around his birthday every year, a Thanksgiving here, a Christmas there.
He took Adam out to a few baseball games.
“Guy stuff. Normal dad-and-son stuff,” John’d say.
Those trips to the stadium were fun. That is, they would have been absolutely amazing if Adam was a baseball kind of guy. Which he isn’t-football’s more his game-but that was okay. Adam had never done this kind of “guy stuff” with anyone before, since his mom had always been too busy to date properly (that’s kind of how Adam came to be, actually).
He sure doesn’t tell the man that he doesn’t really care much for baseball.
John bought him a little souvenir bat, and a hat with a matching shirt, all with the team’s logo on them. They chomped on stadium hot dogs slathered with ketchup and mustard and extra onions (the last of which earned Adam a strange look-maybe John didn’t want him stinking up the Impala on the ride home) and slurped on large sodas and shared a box of Cracker Jacks for dessert. It was idyllic, for a guy who’s never had a dad and always wanted one.
Then inevitably, the day would end and John would drive off in that huge car of his, leaving behind a hole that got deeper every time because of his brief presence. It’s like that every time: John would come over unexpectedly, spend the day or the afternoon with him (sometimes Mom was there too, so they could really play “happy families”), then look at his watch and say he had to leave.
John stops by a few days after Adam’s sixteenth birthday to take him for a ride in the big black Chevy.
Mom lets them go, and says she expects them back before she has to leave for work that night.
They drive along the long stretch of road leading out of the city and Adam wonders where they’re going today. Maybe another baseball game? John doesn’t tell him when Adam asks, just says, “What, you’ve never gone out just for a drive before?” and asks him about school.
Adam tells him about his plans for college (pre-med, then on to medical school, become a doctor, then earn a lot of money so Mom doesn’t have to work so hard anymore). John’s smile is small and wistful, which prompts Adam to ask if he went to college.
John shakes his head. “No, I’m just a mechanic. You’ll be the second Winchester to go though.” Then he gets this funny look like he’s just swallowed down his trachea instead of his esophagus.
“You okay?” Adam asks.
John nods. “Oh yeah, fine.” Sure he is. Adam doesn’t know him even kind of well, but he can tell that much.
They drive for a while in silence, Adam watching the scenery outside his window. “Who was the first?” He’s curious; he doesn’t know a whole lot about his dad’s side of the family since John’s always been pretty tight-lipped about his life.
John lets up on the gas a little in surprise. “Uh,” he stammers, “a brother. I had a brother went to college. Smart kid.”
Oh, that’s something new. “So I have an uncle?”
A droplet of sweat drips down John’s neck. “He’s dead. War.” He spits it out like he really wants Adam to stop asking.
So he does.
Pretty soon after, John steers off the road and coasts to a stop. Adam gets kinda worried, ‘cause, maybe it was something he said.
“Uh, John?”
“Get out.” It’s curt, an order.
Adam’s really worried by this time, since they’re in the middle of nowhere, and is he leaving him here? For real? How’s he supposed to get back to Windom? Hitchhike? Or maybe Mom was right not to trust John too much and he was actually a serial killer or something. Maybe he was planning on killing him here. Maybe-
“Come on, kiddo. Daylight’s a-wastin’.” John’s already outside the car and walking around back to the trunk.
Adam scrambles out and shuts the door carefully. He watches his father with wary eyes as the older man takes…two bottles out of an ice chest in the trunk.
Beer? Ooohhh. Awesome. The first beer is supposed to be some kind of father-son custom in normal nuclear families, isn’t it?
John holds an amber-glass bottle out to him. “You ever had one before?” he asks, somewhat hesitantly. His voice is gruff though, so you can only barely tell that he’s nervous.
Adam reaches out and takes it. “Um, no.” He frowns down at the bottle in his hand. “Mom doesn’t know about this, does she?”
Dark eyebrows arch upwards. “You gonna tell ‘er? You don’t have to drink it if you-”
“Dude,” Adam cuts him off. “You’re giving me beer. That automatically makes you awesome.”
A grin spreads across John’s face, reminding Adam of photographs he’s seen of himself. He chuckles, low and deep, rumbling in his chest. “That’s great. That’s great,” he says, hoisting himself up on the hood of the Impala as nimbly as if he isn’t an over-fifty-years-old guy. After a moment, Adam scrambles up next to him and swings his gangly legs off of the side of the car.
They toast each other and drink up. It takes Adam a couple of tries to actually get the lid off of the damn thing, much to his dad’s amusement, but he finally gets a mouthful of the stuff.
It takes all of his self-control not to spit it back out. Ugh, people actually like this shit? Tastes like ass. He swallows it down anyway, to save face, and when he looks back up at his father’s face, the guy’s laughing at him.
Adam takes another swig out of spite, while trying to keep the smile from his lips. Now this is fun. Then he takes another drink, and another, and pretty soon, the whole bottle’s gone and the sun’s starting to set.
John takes his empty bottle and chucks it with his into the back seat. “Come on, boy. We better get back to your mom or she’ll knock the stuffing out of us.”
Adam manages to make his wobbly-legged way to the passenger side and slides in, bumping his head against the roof on the way. “Owwww. I’m ‘kay.”
That earns another chuckle from his dad and they’re off.
Oh, bad idea. Bad.
“Stop,” Adam gags through his hand and gets the door open just as his lunch pours out onto the rolling asphalt under him.
“Jesus,” John exclaims and maneuvers them onto the shoulder. “You alright, kid?” A warm hand settles on Adam’s back and strokes soothing circles on it. “Okay, we’ll just rest here awhile. Okay.” The deep voice is gentle now, comforting. “Easy son, breathe through it.”
Cold sweat beads Adam’s face, drenching his back and chest. His hair’s sticking to his face and the back of his neck. Okay, not so cool. Not cool. “’m okay.” He garners enough strength and willpower to heave the door closed and leans limply against the cool window. “’kay.”
“Good to go?”
Too tired from vomiting his guts out, Adam settles for, “Hmmm-mm?” to answer, hoping John gets the message.
“Okay then, let’s go.” The car shudders once and starts moving again. Adam knows John’s trying to be as gentle as possible, but the car’s old and it freaking shakes when it moves. He groans again and wraps his arms around his middle.
He’s miserable. He’s dying, he knows it.
Adam must have fallen asleep because he vaguely hears his dad saying, “Another lightweight. What am I gonna do with you, kid?” in a fond tone. When he wakes up, there’s a warm weight on top of him and he’s lying on the couch at home. Opening his eyes and sitting up makes the world spin, so he opts for lying back down and closing his peepers. Oh yeah, that’s better. There’s only that brass band playing in his head now, so if someone would kindly drop a water balloon on the trumpet players, that would be greatly appreciated.
Adam thinks he can hear Mom yelling at John in the kitchen for taking her son out and giving him beer, screaming at the man about corrupting her child, and how irresponsible he is for giving a sixteen-year-old alcohol. She says something about how John will never be able to buy her son’s love by giving him things and taking him out once in a while like he does. It just doesn’t work that way. Adam thinks he manages to mumble, “Lub ya alwaysh, Ma,” but he can’t be sure since he’s pretty much gone by that time.
He opens his eyes again in time to see John leave. His dad’s got a faint smile on his lips as he looks down at him, as if he’s something between satisfied and proud of what he did, but there’s a sad look in his eyes too. It’s weird; it doesn’t look a bit like Mom’s “my baby’s growing up” look, but maybe a lot more like uncertainty. Maybe he’s suddenly thinks that Mom’s right, and that letting Adam have that beer so young was a bad idea. Not that sixteen is actually all that young to drink, ‘cause, you know, most kids at school have spilled a little rum or vodka here and there.
That’s the last Adam ever sees of John Winchester. He stops coming by after that.
It’s only after Adam dies a few years later, at the hands and teeth of a couple of revengeful ghouls, and is raised from the dead and kidnapped by three guys and a freaking angel, that he finds out why John had been so eager to be Ward Cleaver two or three times a year. He had other kids, who he’d raised to be demon hunters. According to them, well Sam mainly, he was a terrible dad, but honestly, who cares a crap because Adam would have taken anything to just have someone around.
That’s what he says, but maybe he doesn’t really mean it. John Winchester did drag him into this whole big mess. On the other hand, John Winchester did donate the sperm that half of Adam comes from. Strong point in his favor there.
Something cold touches his hand and he jumps a little.
“Sorry man,” and damn it, but Sam, Adam’s half-brother, looks so sincere that he’s half-inclined to believe him. “Here’s the beer you were going out for.”
Adam takes the beer and pops the lid with an expert twist of his wrist. The round metal piece clatters onto the wooden table, like some kind of warped coin. Heads. “Alright,” he says, slouching down and crossing one leg over the other, “I’ll bite. What was Dad like with you guys?”
And Adam finally gets that look in John Winchester’s eyes that day he gave him his first beer.
Regret.
It still doesn’t mean anything though. Adam takes another furtive glance at the bolted door. He needs to think of a way to escape this house and ditch these guys, then goddamn save the world so he can hurry up and be with his mom.
Because she’s his family.
Title: Twenty-One Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Designated Driver (21/21)
Author: poestheblackcat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Ben, OC, Dean
Summary: Ben’s not a teetotaler or a Lemonade Lucy. He just doesn’t drink. Future!fic tag to “Swan Song.” Outsider POV.
AN: This fic is mainly about Dean’s drinking problem. It really started getting bad in Season 4. However, this story also covers its effect on Ben, seen through an outsider’s eyes. Oh, and in this version, Sam doesn’t come back.
Ben’s not a teetotaler or a Lemonade Lucy or a believer in temperance or any of that kind of shit. He wouldn’t give a crap if the whole school wanted to get drunk and throw a toga party. He just doesn’t drink.
It’s not a huge problem; his friends know him well enough that it’s not because he’s a wimp or because he’s afraid of his parents finding out that he’s been drinking. Ben’s beat up and laid out enough guys who’ve suggested that for people to simply accept that Ben Braeden doesn’t drink so don’t ask why or offer.
It’s cool; a lot of kids don’t drink at parties. Well, a lot of those kids are losers and/or geeks, but Ben’s very obviously not in either category. He’s on the baseball team, on the honor roll, and has a reputation with the ladies. He’s cool, an all-around great guy. He just doesn’t drink.
But whatever, man. It’s a free country.
Peer pressure’s tough to fight. Ben’s friends have seen his hand twitch towards a proffered plastic cup more than once, but suddenly get snatched back by some inner control. Ben doesn’t do the whole share-and-care thing, but Russ remembers what happened a few years back, a short while after Ben first moved to their neighborhood. He’s probably the only one of Ben’s friends who knows.
Ben’s dad, the guy who gave Ben that shining bitchtastic beaut of a car for his sixteenth birthday (built it up from scratch, according to Ben), is actually his stepdad. Russ remembers how the man first started being spotted around the block, kind of shabby and tired-looking, worn about the edges, and a drunk (or so Russ overheard his mom telling his dad). People started talking and he remembers his mom and other neighbors going over to talk to Lisa Braeden, Ben’s mom, about the “problem.”
Ben’s mom is one tough lady, Russ’ll tell you that. Mom came home in a fuming rage, talking about God and immorality and “that stupid woman, letting a man like that near her son,” and Russ’s mom isn’t a particularly religious person.
You can still see the big black car under the blue plastic tarp whenever the Braedens’ garage door is open, next to Ben’s mom’s navy-blue minivan. Russ remembers when Ben’s dad drove it right into a lamp pole once, soon after he came, he was so drunk. The car went into storage after that.
He drives a boring white truck now.
That streetlight’s never worked right since that night. It flickers whenever the wind blows east.
Bottom line is, Ben’s dad used to be drunk all the time. All the time. He was nice, a genuinely nice guy, still is, but you could tell he wasn’t quite all there whenever you bumped into him in the street, or whenever he waved hi to you while he was mowing the lawn (or trying to, at least-“butchering” was more like it). He smelled like what Russ imagines a whiskey distillery smells like.
The guy was seriously damaged. War, maybe, or lost a close friend. Russ never got nosy enough to ask.
Ben was Russ’s best friend back then, and he still is to this day. Russ remembers how ecstatic Ben had been when Dean first came. It was “Dean this,” “Dean that,” and “Dean saved my life,” and eventually, Russ got swept up in Dean worship too, without even meeting the man.
A few days after that, Ben started being not-so-enthusiastic about Dean, mumbling non-replies to queries about what the “awesome Dean” was doing, and could Russ please go over to meet him?
The “mysterious drunk stranger” rumors started flying around the neighborhood the following week.
Ben began coming to school with dark circles under his eyes, yawning during classes, and generally being unresponsive to Russ’s attempts to get him to tell him what was wrong. He got really quiet during that time in their lives, where before, he’d been funny and outgoing and loud.
He still played Hot Wheels and Legos with Russ, but it was half-hearted. Russ’s mom fussed over him and fed him cookies and milk. Ben started coming over to hang out more and more. He slept over a lot, too. Sometimes his mom would even bring him over in the middle of the night and whisper to Russ’s parents in the hall.
It got so bad that Mrs. Greaves, their teacher, drove over to talk to Ben’s mom about his “home situation.”
There was a huge load of emptied out glass bottles in the Braedens’ trash that week. The hollow clinking and clanking inside the big plastic trash bags echoed throughout the whole neighborhood. Mrs. Braeden started driving Dean out somewhere every Thursday and the bags under Ben’s eyes faded away. He didn’t stop coming over to play but he didn’t stop over at night as much as he used to either. Dean gradually stopped acting weird and calling all the neighborhood boys “Sammy.” Gradually.
He totally earned the “Dean worship” of the neighborhood kids after that. He was the go-to guy for tips on how to beat up bullies, teaching them how to get two gumballs out of the machine with only one quarter, toddler matchmaking, lighting fireworks, playing catch, patching up scrapes and stopping tears…He did it all in a way that made each kid feel like a star. They all loved him. Some of the girls even had crushes on him, which he took good-naturedly.
Russ doesn’t really remember at what point “Dean” became “Ben’s stepdad,” then “Ben’s dad” after that. It’s hard to tell, since he and Ms. Braeden never got married. They act like any other married couple he’s seen though, so it’s not hard to forget. Once, Russ overheard Dean call Ben’s mom “Gumby Girl,” and asked Ben what he meant by that. He got a very expressive grimace in lieu of a reply.
So really, they’re just like any other couple, and probably the coolest parents in the neighborhood to top it all off.
Maybe that’s why Ben’s a good kid and doesn’t get in trouble a whole lot. That’s not to say there’s not the occasional fist-fight, but it’s always for a good cause, and Ben’s never alone in that. Russ always has his back. Always.
When they got old enough to start wanting to go to parties (thrown at night, on school days), Ben never drank. Russ did at the first party they went to. He threw up straight away, and Ben had to call his dad to come pick them up. Russ doesn’t remember much of the trip home, but he thinks he heard Ben say vehemently, “You know I wouldn’t, Dad. I wouldn’t.”
Russ could almost swear he heard Dean say something in response. He thinks it sounded something like, “I know. I know. I’m sorry, Benny. So sorry you had to see that. You were a kid, you still are, and I had no right to come barging in on your life and ruining things-”
If Russ hadn’t been asleep, he would have heard Ben sniffle (stupid, ‘cause Ben never cries) and cut his dad off. “You’re my dad. I got that out of it. And I wouldn’t change a thing. For one thing, Mom likes having you around.”
The soft laugh was quiet, so as not to wake the drunken passenger sprawled in the back seat. “Your Mom likes having me around? Well, thanks for putting up with me for her sake, brat.”
“Ah, I guess I like you too.” There’s the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh, albeit very gently. “Owwww, child abuse!”
But of course, that never happened, because Russ was in a drunken stupor at the time and would never, ever dream of teasing Ben about practically telling his dad that he loves him and besides, Russ loves his own dad too, in a very manly way, so you know, that’s not something you mess with.
Russ never asks why Ben doesn’t drink, either. He doesn’t have to; Ben knows that Russ knows why. He also knows that Russ will never tell another living soul to the day he dies. He’s got Ben’s back.
Russ isn’t a saint. He gets drunk, once in a while. He knows he’s got a ride home any time, though. Ben’s always the designated driver for their group; he’s got everyone’s back.
The only rule is, you puke in The Car, you clean it up once you’re sober.