SPN Fic: The Wellington Fort (Part 3/3)
Hi, been having a lot of trouble posting this and have done a lot of cutting and pasting. I've read through it, but if u see anything wonky plz let me know!
Title: The Wellington Fort
Category: Gen, pre-series
Rating: PG-13 to R (for subject matter and language)
Characters: Dean, Sam, John
Summary: The way Dean told it that summer was the best of their lives. For Sam, it was the summer he stopped believing in heroes. 9-year-old Sam and 13-year-old Dean.
Warnings: Swearing. Themes of child abuse. Hurt Dean and Hurt Sam. Some serious Dean angst in this chapter, folks.
Word Count: 2440 (this section), 6400 (whole story)
Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of its creators and the CW network.
Author’s Note:
This is Part 3 of a 3 part story. Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found here. A big thanks to kokoda2007 for the beta.
Part 3
Sam enjoyed the clink-ring sound of his cereal hitting glass as he poured it into his bowl. He was happy and looking forward to the day. He and Dean were finally going check out the new Batman movie and then Dean was going to buy him some little army men to play with at the fort. He’d seen a whole bag of them for a dollar at the corner store the week before. They hadn’t had any money with them then, but Dean promised they’d come back and buy them later.
“Dude, you better not have finished off my frosted flakes!” Dean said as he trudged into the kitchen. Dean and mornings weren’t friends.
Sam slurped some flakes, “waa waa.”
Dad came through the room carrying his duffle. He stopped halfway out the backdoor. “I need you boys to pack and be ready to go by tonight. Pete called about a spook near Salt Lake City and has a place for us to stay for a while.”
“Today? I thought we were going to stay here longer!” Sam was not happy anymore. Not one bit.
Dean just stood staring at Dad halfway between the cupboard and the table with cereal bowl in one hand and spoon in the other.
“That’s just how it goes, son.” said Dad.
“But our fort’s here.” said Dean with no inflection in his voice. This had to have been the first time Dean ever expressed a desire to stay longer in one place.
Dad just pulled the door shut behind him and hollered back, “make sure you boys get packed and stay close to home!”
They’d never lived in a place as cool as Wellington and they had their fort and Sam was going to parachute army men off its wall! He slid his cereal bowl across the table as hard as he could so it slammed into the cabinet and fell to the floor in a satisfying crash.
“You’re cleaning that up,” said Dean absently. He was still staring at the back door as if he was still trying to process what Dad had said.
Tears streamed down Sam’s face and he laid his head against the table and covered it with his arms. He cried until he felt Dean’s hand rubbing his back.
“It’s okay, Sammy. How about we get our stuff all packed and then we’ll stop by the fort real quick before Dad gets back.”
Sam sniffled. He still wasn’t happy.
Dean stroked the wood’s smooth surface and scrubbed some bird crap off one of the logs with his sleeve. After Dean had wiped away Sam’s tears and helped him clean up his mess, he’d talked Sam into going over to the fort to see it one last time.
“Think about how happy some kid’s gonna to be when he finds this fort.” said Dean.
Sam didn’t like the idea of anyone else playing there.
“You don’t want it to just sit here going to waste, do you?”
He sniffled. “I guess not.”
“They’ll probably think of games to play here even you didn’t think of.”
“Ha.”
“Okay, maybe not. Think we should leave some kind of manual for them?” Dean asked. Sam laughed and Dean went with it. “The Wonderful Adventures at Wellington Fort.”
“Don’t forget Proper Care and Treatment.”
“Oh, of course. We won’t forget that. She must be washed at least once a week. And re-stained, what? Every other month okay?”
“No Dean, you built the fort for them, the least they could do is stain it every month.”
They sat shoulder to shoulder for several minutes, enjoying their last moments there.
“We’ll come back here one day, Sam. We’ll come back to Wellington Fort.”
“Okay.”
“You wanna race me back to the house?”
Sam got up and started running. “Last one there’s a rotten egg!”
It was times like these he knew Dean would let him win.
Dad was waiting for them and came outside as soon as they came into the yard. He didn’t look happy. “Where the hell have you been? I said I needed you boys to get packed and ready to go!”
Sam put his head down and looked at the hole at the end of his tennis shoe. He knew Dean would answer, knew Dean would help calm Dad down.
“Sorry, Sir, we were at the fort,” said Dean.
“Oh, you were playing--” Dad yelled.
Sam wanted to make him understand “Dad! We just wanted to go there one last time!”
Dad looked at Sam for the first time in all of this and Dean very slightly shifted so he was between them. Dad pulled Sam away from Dean by his arm. His grip was tight and his face so close to Sam he could feel Dad’s breath, “you get your ass inside and finish packing. Dean and I need a serious talk.”
The pressure let up on his arm and Sam ran into the house, straight to his lookout at the window. Dad didn’t even look back to see if he was spying this time.
“Dad, it’s hard on Sam to just pick up and leave without even one day’s notice.”
Dad just stood there with his hands on his hips and Sam figured Dean was really brave to be trying to explain at a time like this.
Finally Dad spoke, his voice sounded calm, but was vibrating with barely-contained anger. “Go on.”
Dean glanced up, but went back to looking at his toes real quick when he saw Dad’s expression. “Wellington has been special Dad. We have our fort here.”
“Aha, that’s what I was waiting to hear. You know what I think?”
Dean shook his head.
“I think this isn’t about Sammy at all. I think it’s about this obsession you have with the fort.”
Dean looked up at him, not understanding what he was talking about.
“You think I don’t know how much time you spend there? You’re fucking NOT a little kid anymore. God, your 13 years old and acting like you’re younger than Sam, running to your hiding place any time things go wrong. I asked you to stay at home. Do you know what your childishness has cost? Do you know?” Dad grabbed Dean by his jaw and forced him to look up at him.
“No, Sir!”
“I tried to call you from town, but there was no answer at home. When I ask you to stay at home until I get back I expect that order to be followed. How long were you gone?”
“It couldn’t have been fifteen minutes!”
Dad slapped Dean across the face and he fell to the ground, but Dean didn’t cry. He just got up and stood in front of Dad, hands clasped behind his back and his head down.
Dad seemed a bit calmer. “Those are fifteen damn minutes when I needed you, Dean. I thought I’d made a breakthrough in the case research and needed to call a hoo doo expert, but the number was at home. You need to decide if you want to be a damn kid or if you’re going to step up and be a real help to this family.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Dean.
“Clean yourself up and get inside. It’s time for lunch.”
“Yes, Sir.” Dean brushed the dirt off his jeans and t-shirt and wiped his nose where Sam was pretty sure it was bleeding.
Sam ran to the fridge and pretended to be searching for food when Dad came in.
“Get the hotdogs out, Sammy.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Throughout lunch it was pretty easy to see that Dean wasn’t okay. His hands shook and he barely ate anything.
Even after lunch when they went to their room Dean refused to say anything at all and he just lay down on his bed and pulled a pillow over his head. About twenty minutes later they were both roused by Dad’s angry voice coming from the living room.
“Dean! Get your ass in here!”
Dean jumped up and told Sam to stay there.
Sam gripped his book, listening to Dad yelling to Dean about needing to grow up, but finally couldn’t just hide in his room anymore. He was just in time to see Dad going to hit Dean and Sam flinched because he knew the blow was going to be bad, but it didn’t happen. On instinct, Dean had avoided the blow and struck back, a move Dad had them practice a thousand times. To use it now, though, it was the unthinkable.
Dean gasped at what he’d done and Dad was furious. He went full force at Dean and shoved him into the end table and its contents crashed to the floor.
“Get out the Hell out of my sight!” Dad yelled at Dean. After the screen door slammed and Dean’s footsteps could no longer be heard, Dad turned to Sam and said, “what are you looking at?”
A half an hour later Dean still hadn’t come back. Dad drove off and told Sam to stay there until he got home, but Sam was worried about Dean.
He ran down the path towards the fort but slowed down before he got there when he heard the noise. It sounded like that deer they’d found caught in a snare in Minnesota. He crept towards the noise and realized it was the sound of someone pounding, of wood splintering, and worst was the sound of his brother.
“Son of a bitch. Mother-fucker.” Dean was saying through tears.
Sam wanted to run up to Dean and scream at him to stop. Stop cursing, stop hitting, stop crying. But he didn’t because he’d never seen his brother like this before. He hid in the trees and got close enough to see that his brother had taken a two by four to the fort.
“Fucker,” slam, “Piece of shit,” slam. The front wall was nearly down.
Dean was destroying their fort, their hiding spot. The place Dean loved more than any place in the world. Dean dropped the two by four and used his body to attack what was still standing, as if using a two by four wasn’t personal enough, he had to use his own body. He wanted to feel it.
Sam stood there in horror as Dean finally collapsed, laboring to breathe. He cradled his own head and blood streamed down his arms. He was sweaty and he was sobbing. Dean didn’t cry. Never. Not like this.
Dad did this. Dad did this to Dean. Sam’s fists clenched and his knuckles turned white. If Dad really did know everything he’d know how much he hurt Dean and he would stop. So Dad couldn’t possibly know everything. So if Dad didn’t know everything that also meant he wasn’t always right. And Dad wasn’t right in this.
He waited quietly until Dean finally stopped crying and headed back toward the house. For a long time after Dean was gone Sam just stood there in the woods.
This was important, what happened in their lives that day and something told him that his life would never be the same. He’d never look at Dad the same way. He wandered back to the house near dinner time, nervous about facing Dean knowing what he now knew.
His brother was freshly showered and the only evidence from the incident at the fort was Band-Aids on Dean’s knuckles.
“Hey bitch! Where did you come from? I figured you’d left with Dad.”
“I didn’t.”
Dean’s expression said ‘well, duh.’
“Oh, dude. You know what I found out about Utah? Polygamy. That means lots of chicks for one guy!” Dean was shoving his dirty clothes into his bag.
“Dean, don’t you want to talk?”
“About what?” Dean grinned as he showed Sam the Playboy he was packing.
“About what happened with Dad?”
“Oh, geez, Sam. You better not want to talk about feelings. Don’t worry about Dad.” Dean shrugged. “I don’t.”
“Yes you do.”
“Jesus, Sam. You keep talking like this and you really will turn into a girl.”
“What happened to your hands?”
Dean’s smile faded, but came back just as quickly. “Oh, this? That dick with the skateboard--I had to teach him a lesson.”
Sam kicked the doorframe. “Stop it, Dean. Dad’s not right all the time don’t you get that?”
Dean stopped smiling for real this time and sat down on the stained mattress. “So what if Dad’s not always right?”
“What?”
“Nobody’s perfect. He tries his best. And for that we grit our teeth and try our damndest to do what he needs us to do. We’re family.”
They heard the Impala pulling up. “That’ll be Dad,” said Dean. “Listen, Sam. I know how much you want the world to be perfect but it isn’t. There are going to be a lot of changes. I’m not a kid anymore.”
Dad’s voice came from the front door. “It’s quittin’ time! Come on boys, let’s hit the road. Utah is calling!”
“Be right there!” Dean got up and shouldered his bag.
“So you’re all right?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? I got my kid brother right here to carry my bag for me.” Dean tossed the bag at Sam who barely caught it in time.
As they drove away Sam watched the back trail as it meandered through the field. Dad and Dean were discussing the latest hunt. When they passed the forest Sam strained to get one last look. If Dean noticed what they were passing he made no indication, made no attempt at one final goodbye. There, through the trees, Sam saw the small clearing and the pile of lumber that had once been their Wellington Fort.
Tears stung Sam’s eyes and he closed them and laid his head back against the seat. It was going to be a long drive.
End