SPN: The Fix-it Man, by donutsweeper (gen)
Title: The Fix-it Man
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Word count: 441
Summary: Dean does what he has to so he can get the job done.
Author's Note: Written for Amnesty 2, for the 'Hidden Talents' challenge.
It started out innocently enough. Mr. ‘call me Chuck’ Vickers had been more than happy to answer Dean’s questions about the history of his neighbor’s barn, but insisted on them talking in the garage because he needed to put together his son’s bicycle in time for Christmas. Needed to, but was failing miserably.
“So, you were saying, back in the fifties, there was a fire?” Dean asked, trying to get the conversation back on track amid Chuck’s grumblings over the impossible to read directions, then couldn’t quite keep himself from wincing when Chuck grabbed the wrong screwdriver, again. “Here,” he said, taking pity on the poor tools, and shoved a flathead in Chuck’s direction.
“Huh?” The man looked utterly bewildered.
“You know what? Never mind, just give me that.” Dean grabbed the directions, and the various parts, and squatted down on the floor. “I’ll do it while you talk.”
Chuck’s mouth flopped open and shut like a fish a few times before his eyes got wide and he realized what Dean was offering. “Sure! Hey, thanks. Umm, so, about the barn...”
After the bike was put together, and Chuck had provided all the information he knew, he suggested Dean visit the town’s unofficial historian, August Peters.
Dean should have known he was in trouble when Peters greeted him with a hearty handshake and a happy, “Ah, the fix-it man! Come in! Come in!” But it turned out to be fine, he assembled a set of shelves while the guy told him everything he ever wanted to know about Civil Rights, lynchings and the terrible injustices faced by minorities back then.
Peters sent him to Miss Margaret, whose brother had once owned the farm where the barn was located, and in exchange for putting together two dollhouses for her grandkids, she let him take a look at some family papers.
The papers led to Mrs. Thompson and a jewelry box that needed fixing, but, luckily, contained the pocket watch of one of the people who died in the fire, which happened to have an inscription on the back that led Dean to the Washburn estate. Where, after fixing the mulcher and the wood chipper for the gardener, he was able to locate the remains he was looking for and make plans for a salt and burn for a few hours later, which would finally take care of the ghost. Or at least he hoped it would, because if one more person called him ‘Mr. Fix-it’ he was going to leave this stupid town to its pathetic inability to tell a phillips from a flathead and let the damn ghost have its fun.
Rating: G
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Word count: 441
Summary: Dean does what he has to so he can get the job done.
Author's Note: Written for Amnesty 2, for the 'Hidden Talents' challenge.
It started out innocently enough. Mr. ‘call me Chuck’ Vickers had been more than happy to answer Dean’s questions about the history of his neighbor’s barn, but insisted on them talking in the garage because he needed to put together his son’s bicycle in time for Christmas. Needed to, but was failing miserably.
“So, you were saying, back in the fifties, there was a fire?” Dean asked, trying to get the conversation back on track amid Chuck’s grumblings over the impossible to read directions, then couldn’t quite keep himself from wincing when Chuck grabbed the wrong screwdriver, again. “Here,” he said, taking pity on the poor tools, and shoved a flathead in Chuck’s direction.
“Huh?” The man looked utterly bewildered.
“You know what? Never mind, just give me that.” Dean grabbed the directions, and the various parts, and squatted down on the floor. “I’ll do it while you talk.”
Chuck’s mouth flopped open and shut like a fish a few times before his eyes got wide and he realized what Dean was offering. “Sure! Hey, thanks. Umm, so, about the barn...”
After the bike was put together, and Chuck had provided all the information he knew, he suggested Dean visit the town’s unofficial historian, August Peters.
Dean should have known he was in trouble when Peters greeted him with a hearty handshake and a happy, “Ah, the fix-it man! Come in! Come in!” But it turned out to be fine, he assembled a set of shelves while the guy told him everything he ever wanted to know about Civil Rights, lynchings and the terrible injustices faced by minorities back then.
Peters sent him to Miss Margaret, whose brother had once owned the farm where the barn was located, and in exchange for putting together two dollhouses for her grandkids, she let him take a look at some family papers.
The papers led to Mrs. Thompson and a jewelry box that needed fixing, but, luckily, contained the pocket watch of one of the people who died in the fire, which happened to have an inscription on the back that led Dean to the Washburn estate. Where, after fixing the mulcher and the wood chipper for the gardener, he was able to locate the remains he was looking for and make plans for a salt and burn for a few hours later, which would finally take care of the ghost. Or at least he hoped it would, because if one more person called him ‘Mr. Fix-it’ he was going to leave this stupid town to its pathetic inability to tell a phillips from a flathead and let the damn ghost have its fun.